One Meeting Question Can Shift Focus From Execution to Learning

Weekly business meetings often focus heavily on task completion and accountability, but this emphasis can hinder innovation and learning. Bruce Eckfeldt, a strategic business coach and former CEO of an Inc. 5000 company, argues that most leadership teams are measuring the wrong things. The standard rhythm of checking if tasks are done and identifying blockers makes companies efficient at repeating existing processes, rather than discovering new ones.

Eckfeldt suggests that the same meeting cadence used for execution can also be used for innovation. Instead of solely tracking task completion, he proposes integrating a focus on "validated learning." This involves shifting the meeting's objective to not only ensure work gets done but also to capture insights and changes in understanding, similar to how progress on deliverables is tracked.

The core of his strategy is to introduce a single, standard question into the weekly meeting: "What did we learn, what assumption changed, what did we stop doing?" By making this a required output, teams are encouraged to actively identify and articulate their learnings. This simple shift prompts individuals to approach their work with a mindset geared towards discovery and adaptation, rather than just task fulfillment.

Furthermore, Eckfeldt advocates for visually tracking this learning on the same scoreboard as project deliverables. By logging experiments run, assumptions tested, and initiatives abandoned, companies can make learning tangible. This practice ensures that insights, whether from successes or failures, are acknowledged and integrated, fostering a culture of continuous adaptation and innovation without requiring additional meetings or off-sites.