The first step of developing a strong internal rhythm of business (ROB) is by documenting your current landscape. We took a look at how to do this in ROB Part 1: Establishing a strong rhythm of business is your shortcut to operational excellence.
But after you’ve documented the state of your current ROB, you’ll move from observing to action.
Getting your house in order
In this phase, you become more active by taking the actual steps required to get your internal house in order.
The approach of these next phases allows you to:
- Optimize ROB cadences that touch your core team
- Refine & align OKRs
- Establish success measures
Optimize ROB
Start by determining the objectives you want to reach with your new ROB using your current state documentation as a guide.
- What were the opportunities that you flagged?
- What were the meetings you determined needed to be scheduled?
- What other gaps became visible?
Objectives will vary based on your specific circumstances, but we’ve found that an optimized ROB serves a set of universal objectives. Feel free to steal ours below!
Your path to optimization will be easier once you’ve explicitly stated your objectives. You can use these objectives to help drive decisions — but you’ll also leverage them to get buy-in from stakeholders, like your leadership team.
Tell your team’s story through the lens of your ROB
Tie this work to the goals of your people and organization. Change is hard — so change their hearts first, and their actions will follow.
- Include your vision. What is the end destination you want your team to reach? Maybe it’s to be recognized for its operational excellence across the company. Or maybe it’s to work as one unified team achieving the best employee satisfaction ratings.
- Demonstrate the opportunity. What’s in it for them? Maybe the new ROB will grow the business or support executive leadership priorities in a more sustainable way. Maybe it’s that the changes will improve organization process, health, and efficacy. Maybe the changes will build connection or provide visibility and growth.
- Show what you’re doing. What sacrifices have you made? What have you already done to help drive these new rhythms? What will you start doing? What will you stop doing?
- Deliver your ask. Be explicit about what you’re asking your team to do. What kind of support do you and your office need to push these changes through? How will the day-to-day change for the rest of the team?
By weaving a story that shows the benefits and opportunities for everyone, you’ll ensure buy-in and commitment.
Precisely outline what changes will be made
Think about what rhythms or meetings you want to restructure, remove, or add. Have an explicit reason for doing so. Explain the objective, a description of the meeting/change, and the format.
Include a timeline & next steps for your team. Make this process as real and tangible as possible.
Perform your due diligence
If they’re involved early & often, your LT will become your biggest supporters. We’ve seen ROB efforts succeed and fail solely based on a leadership team’s buy-in.
An easy way to ensure this is by interviewing them. They will have strong opinions about the best way forward. They’re a great source of knowledge about what is a valuable use of time, what gaps exists, and what can be removed. Show them what changes you want to make and see what they say.
If you incorporate any of their feedback into your plan, explicitly call it out when presenting to the broader team. This builds trust and visibility, both objectives of your optimized ROB. It also shows the rest of the team the collaborative nature of your process.
Continue your ROB journey with our series:
- ROB Part 1: Establishing a strong rhythm of business is your shortcut to operational excellence
- ROB Part 2: Get your house in order by implementing your rhythm of business (you are here!)
- ROB Part 3: Use your rhythm of business to refine & align OKRs
- ROB Part 4: The critical role of comms in delivering on your business