Unreasonable hospitality - parte V

Li os trechos que se seguem do livro "Unreasonable hospitality: the remarkable power of giving people more than they expect" de Will Guidara e sorria a recordar estórias que o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras me contou sobre as suas reuniões diárias no chão de fábrica.

"When initiating change, I look for the best lever, whatever will allow me to transmit the most force with the least amount of energy. And there's no better lever than a daily thirty-minute meeting with your team.

...

A daily thirty-minute meeting is where a collection of individuals becomes a team. In fact, I firmly believe that if every dentist's office, insurance company, and moving company had a daily thirty-minute meeting with their team, customer service as we know it would profoundly change.

At EMP, the way we ran our pre-meal meetings set a tone that was at least as important as what we said. Attendance was mandatory. The meetings started on time, at eleven and five, and lasted exactly thirty minutes. For the first year, I ran every single meeting myself, both lunch and dinner, Monday through Friday. I wanted the team to see me, and to know I was accessible and accountable to them, and consistent-that I'd do exactly what I'd said I would do, when I'd said I would do it.

In the restaurant's previous iteration, pre-meal had been exclusively devoted to the items on the plate or in the glass: here is the main ingredient, here's how long it was aged for, here's what it's served with, and this is how you pour the sauce tableside.

This basic transfer of information was vitally important, especially because so much was changing. 

...

Done right, a pre-meal meeting fills the gas tank of the people who work for you right before you ask them to go out and fill the tanks of the people they're serving.

Communicating consistent standards, with lots of repetition, was important; a good manager makes sure everyone knows what they have to do, then makes sure they've done it - that's the black-and-white part of being a leader. But a huge part of leadership is taking the time to tell your team why they're doing what they're doing, and I used pre-meal to get into that why.

I spoke to the spirit of the restaurant and to the culture we were trying to build. I used those meetings to inspire and uplift the team and to remind them what we were striving for. Those thirty minutes were our time to celebrate the wins, even the small ones, a time to publicly acknowledge when someone on the team was crushing it.

Our meetings followed the same template every day, so everyone knew exactly what to expect. We'd start with housekeeping ("Thursday's the last day to make changes to your health insurance; call Angie if you've got questions"). Then I'd move into a quick riff on a topic that had inspired me. It could be an article I'd read about another company or a service experience I'd had somewhere else.

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In order to become a team, we needed to stop, take a deep breath, and communicate with one another."

Este tipo de reuniões diárias pode ser um poderoso alicerce para PMEs que buscam alinhamento interno, formação contínua e maior consciência colectiva. Implementar um encontro de trinta minutos por dia com a equipa pode transformar um grupo de pessoas numa equipa verdadeiramente coesa e motivada.

Imagine começar cada dia ou turno com uma reunião estruturada, onde não só se passam informações práticas e logísticas, mas também se reafirma o propósito da empresa, se celebram pequenas vitórias e se realça a importância do trabalho de cada membro da equipa. Para as PMEs, este espaço diário é uma oportunidade de reforçar a formação técnica e de manter todos cientes das metas e valores da empresa, criando um sentimento de pertença.

Essas reuniões podem servir como momentos estratégicos para formações rápidas, alertas de actualizações importantes (seja de legislação, produtos ou processos) e para garantir que todos na organização estão alinhados. Além disso, é uma excelente forma de gerar accountability de forma acessível e consistente. Assim, todos sabem o que se espera e têm um fórum aberto para expressar dúvidas ou preocupações.

PMEs que adotam esta prática podem experimentar um salto na eficácia operacional, maior satisfação dos colaboradores e, por consequência, um aumento na satisfação dos clientes. 

Parte IV, Parte III, Parte II e Parte I.