Establishing a Work Cadence

Adventures in Businessing: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, and a Healthy Dose of Humor

Show Notes

• [0:00:55] Episode Summary | Intro

• Why Every Podcast NEEDS Intro Music
• Last Episode Communication Recap

• [0:03:13] Kicking off a New Topic

• Making Progress
• • Helping our teams make progress.
  • Establishing a work cadence.
  • Promoting progress and not business.
• The Necessity of Work Cadence
• • We’ve lost seasonality.
  • • The modern world lacks cadence and sets your team up for failure and unfair expectations.
    • Black Friday in recent years is a perfect example of this.
  • We don’t recognize how people’s creativity and work output is seasonal.
  • • You can’t be “at an 11” all the time.
  • Don’t let anyone feel guilty for taking time off.
  • • Not just vacation, but allow your people to switch up what they are working on.

• [0:08:36] Creating Seasons to Break-up the Work

• This even applies to a given day’s worth of work.

• [0:10:00] Learning From Past Mistakes

• The work shouldn’t inherently dictate the season.
• Your “fires” shouldn’t determine and set the standard and expectations for the season.
• Consider checking email ONCE a day.
• Your team can’t work at the same speed 365 days a year.
• • We’re literally evolved, as a species, around seasons.

• [0:12:10] What We’ve Done to Establish Cadence Within Our Company

• Ask yourself, “What is the pulse of the team?”
• • Where are the hills and valleys?
• Breaking up work into cycles.
• • Then establishing a down time in-between cycles.
  • Try to ensure your cycles match or work around the cadence of common holiday and vacation times.
  • • It’ll never be perfect or match the needs of each and every team member, but it will make a difference as a whole.
    • Allow PTO/vacation during a cycle, and take that into account when considering expected cycle output.
    • • Don’t punish the team for PTO being utilized.
  • Cycles allow you to pause and celebrate wins with intention.
  • • We STILL do a poor job of celebrating wins...and you probably will too, but don’t settle for it.
  • Regular stopping points allow you to more easily course correct.
• We create a very loose plan for the year as a whole.
• • We also reevaluate that plan after every cycle concludes (but before the next begins).
• Our calendar can be scary to the average business owner…
• • ...but here’s why it shouldn’t be.
  • • On putting people over profits.
    • • Happy people do better work.
      • How do we create sustainability AND keep people with the company?

• [0:22:57] Is Boredom the Missing Item in Your Workday Toolkit?

• Problems are solved in the silence.
• • In the quiet between the work is generally when problems are solved in more creative ways.
  • Margins (pauses) make doing the work more productive.
• Looking back at the dreadful state of our work lives without cycles and natural stopping points.

• [0:27:13] What’s Next?

• Planning definitely for the whole year is overwhelming and loses clarity over time.
• • Asking “what’s next?” after each cycle is liberating and creates so much more shared understanding in the end.
  • • Additionally, it works wonders in the ability to pivot, which is vital in your organizational toolkit.

• [0:29:45] Saying You’re Not Working During Downtime is Very MIsleading

• • Downtime is a time for reflection, pivoting, preparation, and learning.
• [0:30:49] Cycles Are Iterative
• • You’ll have to dial it in with what works best for your organization.
  • • What works best for your company can/will change year to year.
    • • Maybe you need more downtime, or longer cycles.
      • • But keep your focus as one that is people first.

• [0:31:34] Parting Words

• Stop and think.
• • Analyze if you could have accomplished more, had the team been given more thoughtfulness, freedom, and room to pivot.
• Next Episode
• • The Difference Between Progress and Productivity, or Activity