Same Page Meetings

During my coaching career, I've come across this often; neither partner or director is on the same page let alone driving toward the same goal!

The sudden realisation that your business partners want something completely different for the company than you do.

Emotions run high, tempers flare and trust is dented, all leading to an unhappy ship.

This mismatch of goals & objectives usually happens because communication stopped happened like it used to.

Running a company, even when there's 2 or 3 of you is hard work, long hours and days filled with problem solving. With all this going on, communication is often overlooked.

When you've been working together for a while, there's a temptation to let one partner take the lead; set the strategy and goals. An unfortunate scenario is to assume that another partner is doing it, when they're not.

When the other one finds out that they're going in a different direction, if it doesn't derail the relationship, it certainly disrupts it.

Same Page Meetings

Time to get back to 'same page' meetings. Business partners are great at this in the early days. But its easy to let the habit lapse as more and more work takes over. A month, or 2, or 3 goes by without a same page meeting and without realising it the habit is broken. The solution is to get back to basics and on the same page as soon as possible.

You might need weekly sessions to start with; get all of the issues on the table, everyone of them if this is going to work. Prioritise the important ones first and solve one at a time. You might want to read Get a Grip by Gino Wickman to discover how to identify, discuss and solve issues. Work through all of them and then work towards fortnightly or monthly meetings as you feel comfortable.

If you've never had a same page meeting with your business partner a great first step is to complete your one page business plan. Do this independently of each other, otherwise it won't work. Once completed come together and review, discuss and solve the differences, Your goal is to finish with a cohesive single one page plan that you both have signed up to - a same page!

Your team will thank you for it as will your customers and everyone connected to the business.

If you are so far apart that completing the one page business plan is going to be too difficult right now then  try these questions as an alternative starting point.

1. What are your personal /family goals?
2. Why do we do what we do in this business?
3. Our ideal client is…..
4. My business goals are (set timescale)
5. Opportunities that we must watch out for… ?
6. What threats on the horizon – the risks we need to keep in view….?
7. 90 days from now we'll....?
8. Top 5 things we MUST do this (month / quarter / year)…. ?
9. What do you need help with?
10. What’s keeping you awake at night?

And don't forget to fix a date for next review and keep communicating.