Ashiana Housing - initiate a monthly management meeting

 Monthly management meetings are a great to pass down the DNA of the CEO. 

Spending a few minutes inside one of these meetings can tell you if you are in a great company or just a good one. 

In great companies you find a senior team rested and relaxed while the balance of the staff is on fire as they work to capitalize on the ever increasing opportunities facing the business. 

This is because the monthly management meetings are a success. They are focused on learning, sharing and problem solving vs. a day of mind-numbing reports.

Middle management need a place to be developed. 

Ashiana Housing would be my comparable in India in terms of what they do. While I have a team of 5 they are a team of 480. Can you imagine the spending required to bring in 70 middle management to a monthly management meeting?  They are held on Friday night and all day Saturday. Three outcomes took place in the first year.

• Revenue tripled - monthly sales tripled in two months and never looked back since
• Huge time savings - During the meeting there is a show and tell - sharing a best practice from the previous month. One team saved a week in building out a kitchen. The other teams took on the practice - a week improves cash flow and speeds sales.
• Breaking down barriers - forges strong relationships across functions and business operations

One year later the company is being managed by the 70 leaving the owners more time to focus on the marketing-facing activities and land acquisition. 

Acquire - focusing on happier and more energized team members

Acquire has an opening line on the front page of their website that suggests that they utilize teamwork to breakdown the company vision into separate goals and accomplish organizational goals.

Quite a vision for quite a task.

Their company culture suggests that they create an atmosphere where they can treat each employee like a business owner by empowering them and encouraging them to take pride of ownership in their work. They like working from within and they use the word, invest, when discussing those individuals. I am sure if they promise upward mobility, destination vacations and corporate functions to help in meeting personal goals when it comes to advancement, and if those promises are fulfilled then that should make for happier, energized teams.

They summarize it this way --


Acquire provides unlimited promotional opportunities for each individual who joins our team based 100% on achievement not seniority.

Appletree Answers - Involve all employees, especially salespeople

The idea is simple enough - see around the curves - anticipate needs and pre-fill them. 

In planning sessions with teams, far before the moment arrives, some thought needs to be made as to what is coming and the work that needs to be prepared - a level of preparedness that most would consider overboard. It is that preparedness that gives the gain and ability to respond with more agility than everyone else. This only comes by paying ultra-attention to what is being said and what is not being said in every interaction.

The hardest part of being "we" on this is the management team because without them this will not work. 

What makes all this worse is that sometimes what you know is coming around the corner is plain and simple garbage. Still it is known and it has happened before, so we are aware of what would be involved. 

“Being disciplined with the quarterly meetings and having the entire team involved has made our company stronger.”

Then we need entrepreneurs - they are needed to be involved heavily in the operation - we need people with skin in the game - our sales team.

Because they are involved in the process of creating the priorities, they have ownership in them far beyond any level that’s merely dictated to them.

“I value our team more now than ever and realize just how important great people are. Hire great people and then get out of their way. I somewhat tried to do it all myself or at least wanted to be involved in most decisions. It wasn’t scalable.”