What The Flip Is a 5 Minute Friday?
It’s a management tool that I’ve used for years…
A wise employee of mine once told me that when I shot him an email asking about something, or asking him what he was working on, I created an emergency for him. He didn’t know if something was a casual request, an immediate need that I had at the moment or what. He had no choice but to treat everything as an emergency.
So, I backed off of the drive by emergency bomb and started doing something worse…
I started having TEAM MEETINGS (Ugh...)
My idea was that we would all discuss what was going on, help each other, work together…it was going to be great.
What it turned into was each team member simply throwing up a bunch of things that they were working on so that I knew…and everybody else just twiddled their thumbs waiting their turn.
Plus, I never thought about the fact that if things aren’t going well, or a team member is struggling (personally or professionally), they probably didn’t necessarily want to air all that dirty laundry publicly.
So. the “updates” that I wanted were largely sanitized. I never got the info that I really wanted (and the team didn’t get anything out of it at all…)
Once I really thought about it, the “team meeting” was for me…not the team.
Emergencies & Status Meetings are HUGELY inefficient
I stumbled on the idea of the 5 Minute Friday (5MF) because I needed the info, but I wanted to protect my staff from the drive by emergency that I used to create. And I didn’t want them to sanitize what they share because it is in front of a coworker.
In addition to other things like 1 on 1s, team leader meetings and the like, we kicked off 5 Minute Fridays – and suddenly, I had a better sense of what was really happening.
This paradigm was so helpful for me that I started asking partners & contractors to do it as well.
As we got bigger, we still did 5 Minute Fridays, but instead of everything coming to me, it started going to team and group leaders, who in turn would include the most important updates from their teams into the 5MFs that they sent to me.
Because My Clients Are SOOO Busy, I Started Using 5MF With Some 1 on 1 Coaching Clients
This exercise really started to create clarity with and for my clients. Distilling down your weeks into short plans demands clarity.
Our meetings were more efficient because we had a running list of activities and challenges, and we could start to see trends before they became issues.
This 5MF paradigm is why we are able to offer personalized coaching in our Agency Kickoff program at such a stupidly low price.
What Exactly Is a 5 Minute Friday?
It’s a really simple exercise, and while you can take as long as you want to fill it out, we find its better to focus on being quick. If you turn it into a hard process, no one will do it. And the idea is that it is a snapshot so you can gain insight and see patterns quickly.
The format is really simple – its just 4 questions:
- What I Worked On This Week
- What I Am Going To Work On Next Week
- What Am I Concerned About
- What Am I Happy About
Get an example 5 Minute Friday – an actual one that I did for myself – I still use this as a self-management tool, too.
