Ask any owner how Monday morning starts and they will tell you about the numbers. Production. Quotes. Dials if they still count those.
That is the wrong first question in a rough month.
I have sat in those meetings. The board is already up. Last week's production is in red or it is not, and that is the first thing anyone looks at. Coffee on the table. The CRM open. The owner goes down the list and starts with whoever is light. The producer who is already halfway out the door can hit every number you ask about and still be gone by November. He has an explanation ready. Pipeline. A quote that should land this week. He has been rehearsing it since he parked. The resignation letter is late news. The decision happened on a Tuesday in month seven when nothing felt like it was working and nobody asked about anything he could actually change.
People do not quit at the start. They quit when the week has no floor they can stand on. Habits produce results. A hope about the month does not.
What to ask instead
Ask about the standard. The one thing they fully control. One excellent conversation. Ten dials before lunch. One life quote presented, closed or not.
Did you do it. Yes or no.
Then shut up for a minute and let them talk.
This feels backwards if you are the one accountable for production. I know. I am still accountable for it. Asking about production in a bad month is a conversation about something they cannot fix before dinner. Asking about the standard is a conversation about something they can.
The pace problem is simple. You get asked about the number, so you ask about the number. The standard looks small next to a month that is light. So you skip it. You go to the dashboard first because the dashboard is what you will have to explain to someone else. The producer already knows the first question. He performs the number. You both leave the meeting having talked about a result neither of you can change by noon.
People stay for evidence they are still moving. A nineteen-day streak in a flat month is evidence. A lecture about annual goals is not.
One Great Conversation a Day is enough of a standard if you actually ask about it. Ten dials before lunch is enough if the call block starts at nine and the ten actually happen. One life quote presented is enough if they have to tell you whether they sat in front of someone with it. The standard is boring on purpose. Boring is what you can repeat.
The part owners skip
If you build a daily standard and never mention it on Monday, you have built a poster.
It has to be the first thing. Before the dashboard. Before the quote report. One person, three minutes, what they did, not what they sold.
I will be honest about the veterans. A couple of them run on annual goals and never wobble. They already built their own version of this years ago and do not call it anything. They know what they will do at nine and they do it. They will sit through the three minutes and look bored. That is fine. You are not performing for them. Do not design the week around them. If you build Monday for the person who never needs the question, you will keep opening with production and the person who needs the question will keep performing.
Design it around the person in month seven who is still showing up and has privately stopped believing.
That person can look fine on a board. They can hit a number in a week and still be gone in ninety days. Nobody quits at the start. They quit when the only thing anyone asks about is a result they cannot move this morning. The standard is the thing they can move. If you do not ask, they stop doing it, then they stop believing, then they leave. In that order.
This Monday
Pick the person you are most worried about. Do not start with their number. Start with the standard.
Write the questions on a card before anyone sits down. Sit down before the rest of the meeting starts, at nine or after, not as a leftover once the dashboard has eaten the room. Three minutes. Not a speech. Ask the three questions if those are the three you named, or the one if you only named one.
Did you have one excellent conversation last week. Did you make ten dials before lunch on the days you said you would. Did you present one life quote.
Yes or no. Then shut up.
Write down what they say. One line. If they start explaining the month, bring them back to the yes or no. The explanation is how the meeting turns back into a production meeting. If you have two people you are worried about, still start with one. The board can wait. After the three minutes you can open production. Not before. If you reverse that order the standard becomes a footnote and they will treat it like one. The month-seven person is watching whether you mean it.
If they cannot tell you whether they hit it, you do not have a standard. You have a hope.
— dp
P.S. Know one person who leads a team that talks to customers? Forward this. That's how The Cadence grows.