The Huddle

When Jon Congdon, President of Product Partners, leaves the country on business/vacation each year, I sit in on his regular staff meetings for a couple weeks. This year has been especially eye-opening!

From Monday to Friday, it seemed like I kept having the same meeting, with the same 7 people, plus or minus two, discussing the same activities! As I looked around the room and added up the burn-rate per hour, it seemed clear I had found a leak. "This has got to change" I thought.

But by the weekend I realized I was completely informed as to what was happening within each department on key decisions we had made. When marketing makes a move - and they make a lot of them, telemarketing, operations, and customer service generally are in on it because of these meetings. When information systems contemplated cutting over this weekend to a new processing platform, the company was informed, and everyone who needs to be in on that process has been alert to it all weekend, despite the holiday.


These were not "meetings" where the suits talk, and the staff is twiddling their thumbs to pass the time - these were critical "huddles" on highly detail-oriented maneuvers. Just like a football team will circle up into a huddle to make sure everyone is in on the play, my team was doing the same.

If you have good people ("players") and make sure everyone understands their assignment in whatever decision is being made (the "play") then out of the huddle everyone can split-off and perform their function. The key is to make sure you have great players, and then to keep the huddle brief so everyone shows up ready to get the information and then get back to execution.

As I consider the metaphor of the huddle across other activities, this regular perspective on group communication started to show its value in motivation. What we're doing with the 100lb Club can be seen as a huddle of sorts. In fact I intend to discuss with our motivation staff how we might create regular "huddles" so people know that if they check in on these sessions, they will be likely to stay more consistent.

Today I searched around the web to see if I was late to the concept -- if "huddles" were being applied elsewhere. I read how the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was using huddles to describe weekly bible study and how the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, Massachusetts was using their concept of huddles to promote faster communication in shorter meetings.

For anyone who loathes the concept of a meeting when the demands for productivity are piling up, to think of the meeting as a huddle might change your perspective. It might even help you determine if your presence is really needed. I can remember when I was on the Beachbody Across America trip on a chartered plane a few years ago, gathering testimonials for the Power Half Hour program, the production crew at Mega Mace would get together every night to discuss the way the shoots from the day had gone, and to discuss the plan for the next day. I remember being critical of all these meetings. But in retrospect, that trip went incredibly smooth because of their nightly huddle. I didn't need to be in on them, but they were critical for the key players of that frenetic ten day trip.

The concept of the huddle has shifted my judgment on meetings, from thinking of them as a creeping virus of bureaucracy, to a management opportunity for better team execution. In fact, as a guy who generally prefers to work on his own, the concept of the huddle actually opened me up to embrace a more collaborative role.

Sometimes I get weekend ideas and insights that fizzle by Monday, but I wouldn't be surprised this one is a turning point for the quality and quantity of productivity I am able to accomplish, thanks to a simple shift in perspective on the need for intra-company communication... Huddle up!