Module 4 · Lesson 4.3b · Senior leaders
Meetings as a signal, for senior leaders
Whether your senior meetings are deciding, or renegotiating meanings that could be settled once.
Key idea
If a senior meeting spends its time agreeing what the facts are, a few shared definitions will do more than any change to the agenda.
In this lesson
- The weekly status meeting
- What the meeting load is telling them
- When the meetings are right
- Reading your own senior calendar
The weekly status meeting
Harbourline · Cork, Kraków, Pune and Hartford
Every Monday, Harbourline’s delivery leaders from Cork, Kraków, Pune and Hartford join a cross-office status meeting. Martin Hale, the Chief Delivery Officer, chairs it. Each office reports which projects and services are “on track” and which are “at risk”.
The meeting takes 90 minutes, and most of that time goes on one question: is this project really at risk? Kraków calls a project “at risk” when the build is behind plan. Pune calls a service “at risk” only when users are affected. Hartford calls an account “at risk” when the client sounds unhappy. Cork tries to reconcile the three.
The result is a long discussion every week, a status report that means something different on every line, and leaders who no longer trust the colours on it.
Try it
What “at risk” means, office by office
Choose an office to see what it means when it reports a line as “at risk”.
| “At risk” means | The build is behind plan. |
|---|---|
| Every Monday | 90 minutes, most of it on one question: is this really at risk? |
Each meaning is reasonable. Together they make a status report that means something different on every line.
What the meeting load is telling them
A heavy meeting load at senior level is a signal worth reading carefully. It doesn’t necessarily mean the senior team is weak or disorganised. More often it means there is an interface where the investment hasn’t been made: real-time negotiation standing in for an agreement that was never written down.
Harbourline’s Monday meeting exists largely because “at risk” has never been defined. Each office is applying its own reasonable meaning, and the meeting is where those meanings are reconciled, again, every week.
The fix is not a longer meeting or a more detailed template. It is to agree, once, what “at risk” means across the offices: the attribute being judged, how it is measured, and the threshold that turns a project or service amber or red. The senior team should own those thresholds and revisit them as the business learns, rather than leaving them fixed by whoever built the report. Once agreed, the status report can be read rather than debated, and the meeting can spend its time on the projects that genuinely need a decision.
When the meetings are right
Some senior meetings are exactly the right tool. A meeting that decides between competing priorities, resolves a conflict between functions, or handles something genuinely new is doing work no definition can do. Harbourline’s Enterprise Execution Forum, which decides issues escalated from the teams, is one of these.
The question is whether a meeting is making decisions, or repeatedly negotiating meanings that could have been settled once.
Reading your own senior calendar
For each recurring senior meeting, ask four questions.
Try it
Deciding, or reconciling meanings?
Pick one recurring senior meeting and answer each question.
1. How much of the time goes on agreeing what the facts are, rather than deciding what to do about them?
2. Are the same words argued over every time, such as “at risk”, “on track”, “committed” or “approved”?
3. Would the discussion be shorter if every office used the same meaning?
4. Are the decisions it makes recorded, with an owner and a date, or remade next time?
Pause and think · your notes
Look at one recurring senior meeting you chair or attend.
How Alex would answer
Agree the attribute, the method and the threshold once, with the senior team owning the thresholds. Then the report can be read rather than debated, and the meeting can decide.
What to take away
- A heavy senior meeting load often means meanings are being reconciled, not decisions made.
- Agree what words like “at risk” mean across offices, with the senior team owning the thresholds.
- Keep meetings for deciding between priorities, resolving conflicts and handling what is genuinely new.
Your progress
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