Episode 31: Monday Mornings at Graceada
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Joe Muratore:
So many things can be solved quickly when four or five minds in different layers of the organization focus on together, you can know who should deal with that issue. You have the authority there in the vice president to say, yeah, can you take care of that? Or can you guys work together and solve this and report back? And so there's no issue of, well, how do I highlight this issue and how do I bring the resources together to solve this issue? The quarterback has decided that moment, this group will tackle this thing in this way. And that issue gets put to bed.
Moderator:
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Ryan Swehla:
So today we're talking a little bit about Monday Mornings at Graceada Partners, and what a Monday morning looks like and how we prepare our week.
Joe Muratore:
Mondays are tough. I sort of feel like I get work brain all week and then I go into the weekend and it takes a couple days for me to get out of work brain. And then Monday morning it's work. You come in, you're like, wait a minute. All right, what's the mission? Where am I? What is this place? But that's why I think it's important to talk about Monday mornings at our office, because we create structure around that. So people don't wander in and try to figure out what the mission is and where we're going and how we're going to collaborate.
Ryan Swehla:
And we start that with a framework that we've used pretty heavily in our organization, which is this book called Traction by Gino Wickman. It's called The Entrepreneur Operating System. And the idea is that you create more structure and predictability around how you run as an organization. And one of those out products is this idea of a level 10 meeting.
Joe Muratore:
So every Monday at 10:00 AM, we have two overarching departments, operations and finance, and they have a joint part. And then they break into their individual parts. And the VP of finance leads, finance and the VP operations leads the operations part. But we start each week with an agenda. We start each week with a plan. And there's a set formula that you go through in that meeting. It brings issues to the table and every single week, every Monday morning, there's cross-functional discussion about key issues and then discussion within departments about the most important initiatives for that week, and how they're going to collaborate to make those happen.
Ryan Swehla:
So maybe let's talk a little bit about why those meetings are so effective. So one of the things that I particularly appreciate about the meetings, although it's a little bit of a downer is the section called issues.
We have a section dedicated every Monday morning to bringing up and talking about issues. And we try to start that or those leading the meeting, try to start that with a blank slate. So the idea is what's a issue that you see right now? Rather than diving into issues that have been discussed before, those get addressed as well. But you start with a blank slate so that people are provoked to bring up things that are challenges, things that need better coordination, better discussion. And that part of the meeting always ends up being a really edifying because at the end of the day, we come away with a plan. We come away with steps that need to be taken to improve upon our operations.
Joe Muratore:
And productivity goes up. So many things can be solved quickly when four or five minds in different layers of the organization focus on together. You can know who should deal with that issue. You have the authority there in the vice president to say, yeah, can you take care of that? Or can you guys work together and solve this and report back? And so there's no issue of, well, how do I highlight this issue and how do I bring the resources together to solve this issue? The quarterback is decided that moment, this group will tackle this thing in this way and that issue gets put to bed. So that's a wonderful thing.
Ryan Swehla:
Yeah, I'd say another thing is just the cross-pollination that occurs. So the way we have it structured, the operations team meets and then the accounting team meets. And in between they have an overlap section where they're meeting together and what that allows is issues to be brought up and also discussions to occur that involve the entire team so that people from different aspects of the business hear about other aspects of the business.
Joe Muratore:
We haven't talked about the idea of becoming better each week, maybe an easy way to say this is becoming 1% better each week. The idea that in a year or two, you get 100% better, but also this leans to Jim Collins' idea of the flywheel, with each skill the first time you do it's like, oh, ah, that really hurt. And the next time it's like, okay, and the third, fourth, fifth, it starts to get fast. And increasingly it gets to with almost every issue, it's I've seen that one before, or we did that one before, or we solved that one before and how can we improve our processes around this? How can we improve our process manual around this? How can we improve our workflow around this? And this Monday morning meeting promotes getting those flywheels turning faster and faster and more easily.
Ryan Swehla:
And I would say when we first started, which was now years ago, the issues part of the meeting was almost more crisis. It was crisis management. We have this problem,
Joe Muratore:
Oh yeah.
Ryan Swehla:
What do we do? What do we do? And now as the organization matures, and we have more process around what we do, it tends to be more focused on improving those processes versus reactive crisis mode. Although not to say that doesn't happen, but it's less.
Joe Muratore:
But it's a process of discovery too, in that when you, especially more early on, you'd solve one problem and you realize there's five problems below it you didn't even know about. And as you keep digging and growing and finding those new problems and solving those new issues and then building the process around them, as they say, putting out the fire and then setting a fire extinguisher next to that fire. So next time it pops up, it gets put out quickly, as you do that more and more the severity and the magnitude of the issue starts to get very much lower and much more manageable.
Ryan Swehla:
I think another thing that those meetings reinforce is the flatness of the organization because everyone is in the room. Everyone has an equal voice. There's not really any hierarchy in the meeting except that one person runs the meeting. But other than that, it does offer an opportunity for everyone to provide their input. And there have been times where an analyst level person or a very entry level person brings up issues that need to be addressed. And that haven't been talked about before. And it gives a form for people to feel comfortable. I'd say another thing I appreciate about the meeting is that we start with an icebreaker and that helps flatten the room.
So an icebreaker is often a question and it might be a question that is off, usually it's personal sometimes, it's where do you like to go on the weekends? And other times, it's what was one of the most challenging moments in your life? And what that does is it lowers the walls. And it allows people to get to know each other on a more authentic level. And it starts the meeting with humility and with vulnerability that allows the rest of the meeting to flow even better.
Joe Muratore:
I often hear people talk about the gift of vulnerability, but when we encourage vulnerability within our organization and teach that vulnerability is a strength, it promotes that positive caring and humble trait throughout the organization and makes us more flexible and more, I don't know, in a stronger position than if we were rigid and only putting out our marketed front, so to speak. So today we have a lunch and learn, that's sort of an extension of the Monday Morning meetings and we've done a few of those now, maybe four or five. How do you think those have gone?
Ryan Swehla:
Yeah, I like the lunch and learns because there is a lot of institutional knowledge in our organization. And inevitably that gets spread to just those that are immediately influenced by that person's area of expertise. And a lot of times, the rest of the organization isn't aware of that piece of knowledge. And so we've used lunch and learns as an opportunity. It's a voluntary time. People can show up if they want to. There's various topics. And those topics are around areas of our business or areas of our strategy or what we're doing. And it allows everyone an opportunity to have a better understanding, I guess, of the big picture or the pieces that go into that big picture.
Joe Muratore:
Yeah. Well, interestingly, today we're doing one called, where have we been and where are we going? And part of that is, given the size of the organization now and the growth over the last year, there's a whole lot of people that don't even really know us. I mean, we're so used to having started this. It's like we know everyone really well and they know us, but increasingly it's interesting for them to not know the story of what got to hear and then not to know what's in our brains. But the real trick that we're trying to inspire is to encourage them to write their story on this organization. And I think that's going to be our big takeaway at the end is to have them think about how their story will make the group story much better, but I think it'll be a great conversation and a great chance for us to connect with the whole team and for them to connect with each other.
Ryan Swehla:
And I think at the end of the day, those Monday Mornings starting the week is something that we will always do as long as this organization is in existence, because it helps set the tone for the rest of the week.
Joe Muratore:
Yeah, well, we just started this new thing. Cross-functional job shadowing. Part of the inspiration there was, I think it's Chick-fil-A that has all of its its managers and corporate office work in the restaurants. And my wife worked for In-N-Out in HR for many years. And they were great at that too. And we have properties in different geographies and we are going to have people out at different properties. When you're at a property sitting with a property manager for the full day, number one, you get to know that person, number two, there's like downtime. And you start to walk the property. Maybe you meet some residents or meet some tenants or sit in the lobby and get a sense of what this building is and what this neighborhood's like. And that collective knowledge comes back to headquarters and makes the place stronger.
And now when they're in a Monday morning meeting and an issue comes up, someone could say, well, I was at that property two weeks ago and here's what I... We're really missing it on that. Or, hey, have you met this person? They're incredible. And those networks, those bonds, those little hooks strengthen the whole organization and allow the culture to move out and also for us to see areas of opportunity and risks and bring those inside.
Moderator:
Thank you for listening to Durable Value, an investors' podcast where we demystify commercial real estate with safe sound investment strategies to help you balance your portfolio. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to rate it on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more, visit graceadapartners.com, where you'll find more information, investors' tools, case studies and more. This podcast is hosted by Joe Muratore and Ryan Swehla. It's produced, edited and mixed by Melodic, with intro music by Ian Post. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.
Summary
We talk about our Monday morning meetings which happen every week at the same time and follow the same structure. These "Level 10" meetings set the tone for the week and make sure our mission and values are at the forefront of the week's decisions.
Runtime
12:11
In this episode:
Creating structure at the beginning of the week
Addressing and resolving issues
Setting weekly growth metrics
Solving problems through well-defined processes
Giving everyone an equal voice
Spread knowledge through “lunch and learns”
Cross-functional job shadowing