A workplace Huddle is more than just a staff meeting. Discussing the financials and critical elements of your business is a vital part of the Great Game of Business®, but more importantly, the Huddle is an opportunity to focus on the people responsible for those numbers and the story behind the numbers. In the Huddle Cycle, numbers are forecast and shared in a series of meetings from daily departmental check-ins to weekly company-wide gatherings, driving employee engagement and serving as a self-correcting measure to keep the company on the path toward achieving its goals. To better understand what's involved in creating a Huddle rhythm, let's break down the three main types of workplace Huddles: the Pre-Huddle, the Management Huddle, and Company-Wide Huddle.

  Newbies to the Great Game, seasoned company owners, and CEOs alike are often bothered by this question: How do I get my leaders and front-line employees more engaged in The Game? A few years back, I was asking this question at my own company, Tasty Catering. While our company soared immediately following the implementation of GGOB, our Game engagement faded after about eight months. Although financial improvements were still evident on our scoreboard, I could tell by the faces and body language in our weekly Huddle that something was “off.” We needed a boost.

Amy’s Ice Creams’ workforce is made up primarily of millennials, most of which are seasonal employees. In the short time these younger workers are with Amy's, this Great Game All-Star company maximizes engagement in order to make a lasting impact on employees' futures, as well as the success of the business. Take a look at what Marketing and Communications Director, Aaron Clay, has to say about the company's fun, fast-paced and positive Huddles combined with open-book management, and his four guidelines for enhancing engagement in your team's Huddles.

The Huddle cycle consists of a series of meetings where financial and operational numbers are shared and forecasted. These meetings include a Pre-Huddle, Main-Huddle and Post-Huddle, all with different focuses and objectives. When performed properly, the Huddle Cycle saves time despite the additional meetings by providing improved communication within your company, better execution of your tasks and strategies, and a clear understanding of how each employee affects the success of the company. 

Creating an informed and engaged workforce doesn't happen overnight...and isn't sustainable without the dedication and focus of the whole team. To help get your Game off on the right foot in the new year, here's a list of must-know tips from our best blogs to help The Game excel at your company.

Your company Huddle is your weekly opportunity to intentionally communicate with your team. This list of ideas and tips will help you refresh, expand, and even strengthen your Huddle and ensure your whole team is engaged and informed. Check out these best practices for getting the most out of your Huddle, whether it be in person or virtually! Use these tips to make your next team Huddle a big success.

  Effectively playing The Game in a company with multiple locations can be a challenging due to the complicated logistics of conducting Huddles in the workplace, playing MiniGames™, and communicating information with dispersed workforces.  Check out the creative ways these two Great Game practitioners use technology to bring their people together:  

  You may know that Zingerman’s Roadhouse is a full-service restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI, with a reputation for really good American food and great service - and you many also know that we’ve practiced open-book management since opening in 2003.  That’s not to say we’ve always done it perfectly, at any of the Zingerman’s businesses! One thing we’ve learned time and again is that the culture of the huddle is a good pulse on how the business is doing overall, and that’s even more true when you’re talking about the team in the kitchen.

  At The Great Game of Business®, we love to see the progress of our practitioners and hear about their Great Game journeys. Check out the video below featuring Big Brothers Big Sisters Lone Star's live Huddle from the BBBS National Conference as they reveal results from their first year of implementing the Great Game.

The workplace Huddle is perhaps one of the most beautiful components of the Great Game of Business.  There is something special about getting everybody in the same room to go over how the company is doing financially and physically that astonishes people. No outsider who comes to SRC to see a successful Huddle ever leaves disappointed in the level of engagement, curiosity and fulfillment in each of SRC’s employee-owners.

We're Jenner Ag and we are a practitioner host for The Great Game Experience. We're very excited to partner with The Great Game of Business team for this event. We wanted to tell you a little more about our story and how we practice open-book management in our organization.  Before we had ever heard about The Great Game of Business, Jenner Ag was a profitable company… but we knew we had more potential. Although the profit sharing program the company had implemented years ago was quite successful, the management team could feel it getting stale. Worse, the employees had come to view it as more of an entitlement than something they had to earn. It desperately needed reenergizing.

A weekly, company-wide recitation of the full financials may sound like an absolute snooze-fest, but Huddles at work can really be an exciting weekly morale boost - if the focus is on people and not numbers. Yes, numbers are important, but the people behind those numbers – and the stories of how they achieved those numbers – are even more important. Here are six ways to make your work huddles more engaging and people-centric without losing the numbers.