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  • The Small Things Matter More Than You Think

    The Small Things Matter More Than You Think

    One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that you don’t always need a big initiative to make a meaningful impact on a team.

    Sometimes it’s the small things.

    A potluck lunch. Bringing in breakfast. Taking a few minutes to recognize a team that just finished a difficult project. Acknowledging that a particularly hard week was, in fact, a particularly hard week.

    These things can seem insignificant when you’re looking at them from the outside. They aren’t.

    I’ve seen what can happen when you get a group of people together around a table and ask everyone to bring something for a potluck. People put thought into what they’re bringing. They share food. They talk about things that have nothing to do with work. People who may not normally interact much get to know each other a little better.

    It sounds simple. Because it is.

    But there’s something about eating together that changes the dynamic of a group.

    And there’s another important part of these moments that often gets overlooked: recognition.

    When something significant happens in a company — good or bad — people want to know that leadership noticed.

    Maybe the team just completed a huge project. Maybe they worked through an incredibly difficult week. Maybe the company just hit an important milestone. Or maybe something went wrong and the team had to work their way through it.

    You don’t always need a formal announcement or some elaborate recognition program.

    Sometimes bringing everyone together for lunch and saying, “We know what you just went through and we appreciate it,” is enough.

    Those moments put punctuation on what happened.

    They tell people that their work was seen. That their effort mattered. That leadership understands what the team has been dealing with.

    And over time, those little moments add up.

    Culture isn’t built entirely through company values posters, annual meetings and formal recognition programs.

    A lot of it is built in the small moments when people feel like they’re part of something and know that the people leading the company actually see what’s happening.

    Don’t underestimate what a pizza lunch, a potluck or 30 minutes around a table can do for a team.

    Sometimes the smallest things have a much bigger impact than you expect.

  • Do Warehouse Teams Really Need a Traditional L10?

    One of the things I get asked about fairly often is how to run L10 meetings with warehouse teams.

    My answer is usually:

    You probably shouldn’t run them exactly the same way you run an L10 with your leadership team.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in EOS.

    I do.

    In fact, I’m a big believer in following the EOS process. The structure, the accountability and the discipline behind an L10 are extremely valuable.

    But there’s an important distinction between following the process and being rigid about the format.

    The problem with putting warehouse employees in a conference room

    Imagine taking a group of warehouse employees who spend their day picking orders, receiving inventory, loading trucks and moving product around the building.

    Then you bring them into a conference room.

    You put everyone around a table.

    You pull up an agenda.

    And you tell them they’re going to have a formal L10 meeting.

    Sometimes it works.

    But I’ve found that it often doesn’t.

    The environment can feel unnatural. People can become less comfortable speaking up. The conversation can become more formal than it needs to be.

    And if the people in the room aren’t comfortable saying what’s actually going on, you’ve lost one of the biggest benefits of the meeting.

    You can have a perfectly executed agenda and still have a bad meeting.

    Try taking the meeting to the warehouse

    One thing I’ve found to be much more effective is a simple stand-up meeting right in the warehouse.

    Same day.

    Same time.

    Same place.

    Same basic agenda.

    But instead of pulling everyone away from the operation and putting them into a conference room, you have the conversation where the work is actually happening.

    It changes the feel of the meeting.

    It’s less formal.

    It’s more conversational.

    And people tend to be more comfortable talking about what is actually happening.

    Someone can point to a particular area and say, “This is where we’re having a problem.”

    Someone can identify an inventory issue they’ve been seeing.

    Someone can bring up a process that’s slowing them down.

    You’re not just talking about the operation.

    You’re standing in it.

    That doesn’t mean throwing the L10 out the window

    This is where I think it’s important not to confuse flexibility with a lack of structure.

    I still want the same basic discipline.

    The meeting happens every week.

    It’s at the same time.

    It’s in the same place.

    The right people are there.

    You talk about what’s going well.

    You talk about what’s not going well.

    You review priorities.

    You identify issues.

    And most importantly, you solve the issues that actually need to be solved.

    The format changes.

    The discipline doesn’t.

    That’s an important distinction.

    The goal isn’t to have an L10 meeting

    The goal is to have a better-running warehouse.

    The L10 is simply a tool to help you accomplish that.

    If the team leaves the meeting having talked about the real problems, identified what needs to happen and created accountability for getting it done, the meeting worked.

    I don’t particularly care whether everyone was sitting around a conference table while it happened.

    In fact, sometimes getting out of the conference room is exactly what makes the meeting work.

    This applies beyond warehouses

    I’ve seen this principle apply to other departments too.

    A leadership team may need a very structured meeting.

    A warehouse team may work better standing in a circle on the warehouse floor.

    A sales team may have a different rhythm.

    A production team may need to spend more time looking at what’s happening on the floor.

    The underlying management system can stay consistent while the way you deliver it changes.

    That’s not abandoning the process.

    It’s making the process work for the people who actually have to use it.

    And in operations, that’s usually the point.

    Don’t confuse following the system with following the format.

    The system should create clarity, accountability and problem-solving.

    The format should help make that happen.

  • Why a Daily Meeting Cadence Saves Time Instead of Wasting It

    Mention daily meetings to most leadership teams and you’ll usually get the same reaction.

    “We don’t have time for more meetings.”

    It’s a reasonable concern. Most people have sat through meetings that should have been emails, status updates that added no value, or discussions that wandered for an hour without producing a decision.

    Bad meetings are exhausting.

    But that’s not an argument against meetings. It’s an argument against poorly run meetings.

    Over the years, one pattern has become clear: the businesses that communicate consistently spend less time dealing with confusion, duplicate work, and preventable problems. They don’t necessarily have more meetings. They have a better meeting cadence.

    A daily huddle and a structured weekly leadership meeting create a rhythm that keeps the business moving. Problems surface earlier. Decisions happen faster. Teams stay aligned. Leaders spend less time chasing updates because everyone already knows what’s going on.

    Ironically, the companies most resistant to regular meetings are often the ones that would benefit from them the most.

    Communication Doesn’t Happen by Accident

    As a company grows, communication naturally becomes more difficult.

    When there are ten employees, information spreads almost effortlessly. People overhear conversations. Questions get answered in the hallway. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what’s happening.

    At fifty employees, that starts to break down.

    At one hundred, assumptions replace communication.

    By two hundred, different departments are often operating with different versions of reality.

    Without a consistent cadence, communication becomes reactive. People share information only when something goes wrong, and leaders spend their days tracking down updates instead of solving problems.

    That’s why cadence matters.

    You shouldn’t have to wonder when you’ll hear about an issue. Everyone should know there’s a regular opportunity to raise it.

    Daily Huddles Aren’t Status Meetings

    One of the biggest mistakes I see is turning a daily huddle into a calendar review.

    Someone starts with:

    “I answered emails this morning. Then I have a meeting at ten. After lunch I’m working on invoices. Then another meeting at three.”

    Nobody needs that.

    Your coworkers already assume you’re doing your job.

    The purpose of a daily huddle isn’t to document routine work. It’s to identify anything that might prevent work from getting done.

    The conversation should quickly answer questions like:

    • Where are you stuck?
    • What decisions are waiting on someone else?
    • What problems surfaced yesterday?
    • What could prevent us from hitting today’s goals?
    • Does anyone need help?

    Those are the conversations that matter.

    Everything else is usually just noise.

    If Nobody Is Ever Stuck, Something Is Wrong

    One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that every healthy organization has issues.

    Every single day.

    Suppliers miss deliveries.

    Customers change priorities.

    Technology fails.

    Equipment breaks.

    Employees get sick.

    Forecasts change.

    If someone goes days or weeks insisting everything is fine, I usually become more concerned, not less.

    There are generally only a few possibilities:

    • They aren’t paying attention.
    • They’re solving problems without telling anyone, creating unnecessary risk.
    • They don’t feel safe bringing up issues.
    • They don’t recognize what actually deserves attention.

    None of those are good outcomes.

    A daily huddle should normalize talking about obstacles.

    Finding problems isn’t failure.

    Finding them early is good operations.

    Dig for Details

    One of the biggest responsibilities of a leader during a huddle is asking better follow-up questions.

    Imagine someone says:

    “We’re waiting on purchasing.”

    That isn’t enough information.

    Ask:

    • Waiting on what?
    • Since when?
    • What’s preventing it?
    • Who owns the next step?
    • What’s the impact if it isn’t resolved today?

    Five minutes spent getting specific often saves hours of confusion later.

    Vague updates create vague accountability.

    Specific updates create action.

    Small Problems Become Big Problems Surprisingly Fast

    Think about how many operational disasters start as something small.

    One shipment gets delayed.

    A customer doesn’t receive an answer.

    Inventory isn’t received correctly.

    A software issue affects only a few orders.

    A supervisor notices productivity slipping.

    None of these are major crises on Day One.

    Ignore them for a week, though, and suddenly leadership is spending hours in emergency meetings trying to recover.

    Daily huddles create an early warning system.

    They don’t eliminate problems.

    They make sure problems stay small.

    The Weekly Leadership Meeting Is Different

    Daily huddles keep work moving.

    Weekly leadership meetings improve the business itself.

    These meetings shouldn’t become longer daily huddles.

    Instead, they should focus on:

    • Scorecard metrics
    • Progress on major priorities
    • Department updates
    • Customer issues
    • Operational bottlenecks
    • Cross-functional challenges
    • Strategic decisions

    Most importantly, they should include time to solve issues.

    Not identify them.

    Solve them.

    Too many leadership meetings become an hour of reporting followed by, “We’ll discuss that later.”

    Later rarely comes.

    Stop Reporting. Start Solving.

    One of the best meeting habits a leadership team can develop is spending very little time reviewing information everyone already received.

    If everyone has the scorecard before the meeting, don’t spend twenty minutes reading it aloud.

    Instead ask:

    “Which numbers concern us?”

    “Why?”

    “What are we going to do about it?”

    That’s where the value is.

    Meetings should produce decisions.

    Not summaries.

    A Good Cadence Reduces Interruptions

    Without a regular meeting rhythm, every question feels urgent.

    Someone walks into your office.

    A Teams message pops up.

    An email arrives asking for a decision.

    Multiply that by dozens of employees and leaders spend their entire day reacting.

    When people know they’ll have a chance to raise issues tomorrow morning—or at the weekly leadership meeting—they stop interrupting every hour with non-urgent questions.

    That alone creates enormous productivity gains.

    Common Mistakes

    Turning meetings into reporting sessions

    People don’t need to hear what everyone did yesterday.

    They need to know what’s preventing progress today.

    Letting one person dominate

    The goal is quick visibility across the team, not a twenty-minute monologue.

    Solving every issue during the huddle

    Daily huddles should identify issues.

    Only issues affecting everyone should consume group time.

    Everything else gets assigned to the right people after the meeting.

    Cancelling meetings when things are busy

    Ironically, the weeks when people think they’re too busy for a huddle are usually the weeks they need one most.

    Pressure increases communication needs, not decreases them.

    Avoiding difficult conversations

    If people stop bringing up problems because they’re worried about blame, the meeting has failed.

    The objective is visibility, not perfection.

    A Simple Meeting Cadence That Works

    You don’t need an elaborate system.

    A simple rhythm is enough.

    Daily Team Huddle (10–15 Minutes)

    Cover only four questions:

    1. What are you working on today that others should know about?
    2. Where are you stuck?
    3. What help do you need?
    4. Are there any issues that could affect the rest of the team?

    Keep it standing if possible.

    Stay focused.

    End on time.

    Weekly Leadership Meeting (60–90 Minutes)

    A simple agenda:

    • Review scorecard metrics.
    • Review progress on key priorities.
    • Share major departmental updates.
    • Identify issues.
    • Spend the majority of the meeting solving the most important issues.
    • Assign clear ownership and due dates.

    Consistency matters more than perfection.

    A good meeting held every week beats the perfect meeting held once a month.

    Final Thoughts

    Meeting fatigue is real.

    But in my experience, it’s rarely caused by having too many meetings.

    It’s caused by having too many meetings that don’t accomplish anything.

    When teams communicate consistently, they spend less time chasing information, repeating conversations, and reacting to avoidable surprises. Daily huddles keep everyone moving in the same direction. Weekly leadership meetings create the space to solve meaningful problems instead of simply talking about them.

    The biggest shift is changing what people think these meetings are for. They aren’t a place to prove you’re busy or recite your calendar. They’re a place to surface obstacles, ask better questions, and make sure small issues don’t quietly become expensive ones.

    The businesses that scale successfully usually aren’t the ones with the most meetings. They’re the ones with the clearest rhythm of communication. Everyone knows when to raise an issue, who owns the next step, and how decisions get made.

    That rhythm creates alignment, accountability, and surprisingly, more time to focus on the work that actually grows the business.

  • Why Every Growing Business Needs to Define Its Competitive Advantage (Before It Can Scale)

    Most owners think of strategy as something they work on once a year.

    Maybe it’s an offsite. Maybe it’s a slide deck. Maybe it’s a few goals written on a whiteboard that slowly disappear as the year gets busy.

    The problem isn’t that strategy isn’t important. It’s that many companies never define the one thing everyone in the organization actually needs to know.

    Why do customers choose us instead of someone else?

    If the answer only lives inside the founder’s head, you’ve already created a ceiling on your business.

    I’ve seen companies with great products struggle because employees weren’t sure what mattered most. I’ve also seen companies with average products consistently outperform competitors because everyone—from sales to customer service to the warehouse—understood exactly what made the business different.

    Your competitive advantage isn’t just for marketing.

    It’s an operating system for decision making.

    Your Team Can’t Execute a Strategy They Don’t Understand

    Walk through almost any growing company and ask ten employees the same question:

    “What makes this company better than the competition?”

    You’ll probably hear ten different answers.

    Some will say customer service.

    Others will say price.

    Someone will mention quality.

    Another person will say speed.

    None of those answers are necessarily wrong. But if they’re all different, your organization lacks alignment.

    That inconsistency shows up everywhere:

    • Sales promises things operations can’t deliver.
    • Purchasing focuses on the lowest cost when customers actually value quality.
    • Customer service solves problems differently depending on who answers the phone.
    • Managers prioritize projects based on personal preference instead of company priorities.

    Everyone is working hard.

    They’re just pulling in different directions.

    Strategy Isn’t About Being Good at Everything

    One of the biggest mistakes I see founders make is trying to be everything to everyone.

    They want:

    • The best prices.
    • The highest quality.
    • The fastest shipping.
    • The most customization.
    • The widest selection.
    • The best customer service.

    The reality is that every business operates with limited time, people, and capital.

    Choosing what you’ll be exceptional at also means accepting what you won’t optimize.

    That can be uncomfortable for founders because saying “no” feels like leaving opportunities on the table.

    In reality, it’s what creates clarity.

    A company known for lightning-fast fulfillment builds different processes than one known for handcrafted quality. A premium apparel brand organizes operations differently than a discount distributor.

    Neither approach is wrong.

    What’s dangerous is trying to build both at the same time.

    Clarity Makes Better Decisions at Every Level

    One of the most overlooked benefits of defining your competitive advantage is how it changes everyday decisions.

    Most employees don’t need the owner standing next to them all day.

    They need a framework.

    Imagine a warehouse supervisor deciding which orders should be prioritized.

    If the company’s promise is industry-leading speed, the decision is obvious.

    If the company’s promise is flawless accuracy, the answer might be different.

    Now imagine a customer service representative handling a difficult customer.

    Should they spend extra time solving the problem?

    Offer a replacement?

    Escalate immediately?

    The right answer depends on what the company promises to the marketplace.

    Without that context, every employee creates their own version of the business.

    That’s how inconsistency creeps in.

    Your Competitive Advantage Should Shape Operations

    Many people think competitive advantage belongs in the marketing department.

    I disagree.

    Operations is where your strategy becomes reality.

    If your differentiator is fast delivery, your warehouse layout, inventory strategy, staffing model, and technology investments should all support speed.

    If your differentiator is customization, your systems need flexibility instead of maximum efficiency.

    If your differentiator is premium quality, your quality control process should be stronger than your competitors’.

    Too often, companies invest in systems or processes because they’re considered “best practices” without asking whether they actually support what makes the business unique.

    The best operations aren’t the most efficient.

    They’re the ones that reinforce the company’s strategy every day.

    Employees Want More Direction Than Most Leaders Think

    People often say employees just want a paycheck.

    That’s rarely been my experience.

    Most people genuinely want to do good work.

    What frustrates them is constantly guessing.

    Should I solve the customer’s problem this way?

    Should I spend more time here?

    Should I escalate this?

    Should I bend the policy?

    Should I protect margin?

    Should I prioritize speed?

    Every unanswered question creates hesitation.

    Clear company strengths eliminate thousands of small decisions because employees already know what success looks like.

    That creates confidence.

    Confidence creates consistency.

    Consistency creates trust with customers.

    Don’t Confuse Core Values with Competitive Advantage

    Many businesses spend time creating core values.

    That’s worthwhile.

    But they’re not the same thing.

    Core values describe how your people behave.

    Competitive advantage explains why customers choose you.

    For example:

    Core Values:

    • Do the right thing.
    • Own the outcome.
    • Improve continuously.

    Competitive Advantage:

    • We consistently deliver complex orders accurately during our customers’ busiest seasons.
    • We provide expert guidance that competitors can’t match.
    • We move faster than anyone else in our market.

    Both matter.

    But employees need both answers.

    How should we behave?

    And what are we trying to be known for?

    Simple Is Better

    One mistake I see is companies creating complicated strategic documents that nobody remembers.

    If employees need to read a 40-page strategy document to understand your company, you’ve already lost.

    Your differentiator should be simple enough that every employee can explain it.

    If someone in receiving, accounting, or customer service can’t describe what makes your business different, your message isn’t clear enough.

    Simple doesn’t mean shallow.

    It means memorable.

    Test Your Clarity

    Here’s a simple exercise.

    Ask employees from different departments these questions:

    • Why do customers choose us?
    • What are we better at than our competitors?
    • If we had to give up one thing to protect our reputation, what would it be?
    • When we’re making a difficult decision, what matters most?

    Compare the answers.

    If they’re remarkably consistent, you’ve done a good job communicating your strategy.

    If they’re all over the place, that’s not an employee problem.

    It’s a leadership opportunity.

    Common Mistakes

    As companies grow, I see the same patterns repeatedly.

    Trying to compete on everything

    Businesses that try to be the cheapest, fastest, highest quality, and most customizable usually end up mediocre at all four.

    Assuming employees “just know”

    Founders think about the business every day.

    Employees don’t have the same context.

    What feels obvious to you may never have been clearly communicated.

    Letting departments create their own priorities

    Sales, operations, finance, and customer service should all reinforce the same competitive advantage—not create competing versions of it.

    Confusing goals with strategy

    “Grow 20% this year” is a goal.

    “Become known for industry-leading fulfillment reliability” is part of a strategy.

    One tells people where you’re going.

    The other tells them how you’ll get there.

    A Practical Exercise for Leadership Teams

    If you’re leading a growing business, gather your leadership team and answer these questions together:

    1. Why do customers buy from us instead of our competitors?
    2. What would customers genuinely miss if we disappeared tomorrow?
    3. What are we willing to invest heavily in because it makes us different?
    4. What are we willing to not be the best at?
    5. Can every employee explain our answer in one or two sentences?

    If those answers aren’t clear, don’t move on to your next strategic initiative.

    Start here.

    Because once everyone understands what makes your company unique, hiring gets easier. Priorities become clearer. Investments make more sense. Employees make better decisions without waiting for permission.

    That’s when strategy stops being something discussed in the boardroom and starts showing up in everyday work.

    Final Thoughts

    As companies grow, complexity increases. More people, more systems, more products, and more customers naturally create more opportunities for confusion.

    You can’t eliminate complexity entirely, but you can give your team a compass.

    A clearly defined competitive advantage does exactly that.

    It helps employees understand not just what to do, but why they’re doing it. It aligns departments, reduces conflicting priorities, and gives people confidence to make decisions that move the business in the right direction.

    The companies that scale well aren’t always the ones with the best products or the biggest budgets. They’re often the ones where everyone—from the leadership team to the warehouse floor—understands what the company stands for and consistently reinforces it through their daily work.

    That kind of clarity doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built intentionally, communicated repeatedly, and reflected in every operational decision.

  • How Often Are You Sharing Your Vision?

    One of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make is assuming they only need to share their vision once.

    They announce it at the annual meeting. They mention it during strategic planning. Maybe they include it in a PowerPoint. Then they move on because they assume everyone understands where the company is headed.

    They don’t.

    If you want people to buy into your vision they need to hear it over and over. Not because they’re not paying attention. Because people are busy. They spend their day solving customer problems, putting out fires and trying to get their own work done. It’s easy for the bigger picture to disappear.

    That’s why I don’t think it’s possible to share your vision too often.

    There are formal ways to do it. Company meetings. Quarterly updates. Strategic planning sessions. Internal newsletters. Those moments matter because they tell your team this isn’t just another idea. This is where we’re going.

    But the leaders who create real alignment don’t stop there.

    They find ways to weave the vision into everyday conversations.

    When you’re talking about a new process explain how it helps move the company forward. When you’re discussing a customer issue connect it back to the experience you’re trying to build. When someone finishes a project point out how it moves the organization one step closer to the future you’re working toward.

    Those small moments are where people begin to connect their daily work to something much bigger.

    One of the best signs that your message is landing is when you stop hearing yourself say it and start hearing your team say it.

    When employees begin talking about the future without being prompted. When they explain priorities using the same language. When they make decisions based on where the company is headed instead of just what’s easiest today.

    That’s when you know your vision is becoming part of your culture.

    And here’s one final thought.

    The moment you start thinking, “They’re probably tired of hearing this,” is usually the exact moment you need to say it again.

    Leaders dramatically overestimate how often they communicate their vision. Employees dramatically underestimate how often they hear it.

    Your job isn’t to make sure you’ve said it.

    Your job is to make sure they’ve embraced it.

    So this week ask yourself one simple question.

    If I stopped talking about our vision today, would my team keep talking about it tomorrow?

    If the answer is no you know exactly what to do at your next meeting.

  • Building a Bigger Belief

    When a company’s used to the status quo, introducing a BHAG starts with shifting their mindset. First, open the conversation by asking: what if we didn’t settle? Get them curious—what could it look like if we aimed beyond what we’re used to?

    Next, explain that a BHAG isn’t just a lofty dream—it’s a rallying point. Show how other companies used bold goals to break out of their rut. It’s not just about the end result; it’s about rethinking what’s possible as a team.

    Then, tie the BHAG to daily actions. Break it into smaller, achievable milestones. When people see how today’s effort ties to tomorrow’s growth, they start seeing the point.

    Share your own “aha” moment—when did you realize the power of aiming higher? Personal experiences make it real, showing that mindset shifts are possible.

    Finally, ask them to take one small step today—whether it’s brainstorming possibilities or committing to a first milestone. It’s not about changing overnight; it’s about sparking the belief that growth is possible and worth the effort.