The meeting is about helping you shape a new way or a different path. It's about letting everybody be heard. It's about discussing and having real discussions about what has worked in the past and what the new direction is.
In today's Circuit Breaker episode, Bob and Greg look at a tool they use frequently: the Gut Check. Bob recalls a consumer packaged goods company that ran into legal and patent issues while developing a product. The team had to hold a "Gut Check" meeting. Discover how this meeting proved very useful. They will explain why a Gut Check is a powerful tool, but also why it can be dangerous if not used properly.
You will understand why Gut Check meetings should not be held on a regular basis, but only when significant changes are coming and when there are tradeoffs that require input from all stakeholders, among other considerations. They'll also have an annoucnemnt to make about this season of the Circuit Breaker show.
Join Bob and Greg for this thought-provoking discussion on a "gut check" meeting.
Enjoy!
What You'll Learn in this Show:
- An example of a Gut Check.
- The dangers of a Gut Check meeting.
- Why Gut Check meetings are helpful in startups.
- The purpose and role of a Gut Check.
- And so much more...
Resources:
[00:00:00] We were working with a consumer packaged goods company, right?
[00:00:02] And at some point they had the project charter and they had started going down
[00:00:07] a path for developing this product.
[00:00:10] And in the middle of it, we actually found out that there's some very big
[00:00:14] regulation issues wrapped around it.
[00:00:16] There's also some patent issues that we had to look at and that we didn't
[00:00:20] anticipate that were happening.
[00:00:21] And so at some point in time, you know, everybody had, you know, their orders
[00:00:25] and we're kind of moving along.
[00:00:26] And one of the things we did is kind of said we usually run with people and say, we're gonna talk about one of the, say one of the more important ones and it's called the gut check meeting. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I love a gut check meeting. A gut check meeting is when you might be at a crossroads or you have to get other people on information very quickly.
[00:01:43] It could be you have to, there's a new direction,
[00:01:47] things like that.
[00:01:48] Some context has changed of some sort the podcast perspective, we would be talking about, okay, what should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What worked well? All those types of discussions would happen in a gut check. And I think it's a very important tool because it gives you, first, it allows everybody to give their position, and then it gives you the new language coming out.
[00:03:01] It's about discussion and debating and, you know,
[00:03:04] I'll say scoping and all that kind of stuff.
[00:03:07] And so it's about like, we're just going to keep going. That's something for them to solve. And ultimately what we were able to do is kind of help reframe around the patent issue from a legal perspective and then give it to the technical people to actually figure out a way around the patent. And so it helps to kind of redirect the technical people from running down that path and violating it to basically figure out a way around it.
[00:04:21] And so part of this is as new information came everybody to hear it at once and actually get to debate whether that's a good thing, bad thing, or whatever. Well, there's like three or four implications to it.
[00:05:41] One is about what are we gonna do differently,
[00:05:43] but then two, how do we communicate that?
[00:05:45] And what do we communicate to whom, when, and where?
[00:05:47] And so you want to,
[00:07:02] a gut check is a very powerful tool,
[00:07:03] but it can also be dangerous,
[00:07:04] and we want to make sure people are aware of that.
[00:07:06] How is it dangerous?
[00:07:07] I know it's dangerous, but how do you think it's dangerous? things that can happen in those meetings because what you don't want it to be is just a, uh, everybody come in, throw up and leave frustrated. Yeah. The end of a, of a gut check should be unification. Yes. Understanding where we're going. Yes. Understanding what worked and didn't work. Yep. So that we can make better trade-offs later. Yep. And a new language for the team. Yep. Right.
[00:08:23] So that's, that's the purpose of this and that's why it everybody has a voice. Now in every team, there's people that have voices and people that have votes. And you have to make sure you understand that. And separate the difference between them. I think the other thing is making sure everybody's heard, but at the same time, being able to prioritize to what are the things we really need to do.
[00:09:40] And so part of it is that,
[00:09:42] that's why sometimes it takes up to four hours,
[00:09:44] cause you want to make sure that you're getting
[00:09:46] that subtlety in and getting the buy-in. hairy projects that you might need three of them. Because maybe you're going after something that no one else has done in the world. Then obviously you're going to have a lot of different learnings, unknowns that you uncover that could actually change the direction you're going. Exactly. And if you see something changing your direction, you need a gut check. If you just need status on where everybody is,
[00:11:01] you just status me.
[00:11:02] That's completely different.
[00:11:03] That's right.
[00:11:04] The gut check is almost like there's enough knowledge that's in a very constructive way of moving forward as opposed to just getting stuff out and pointing fingers. So it requires a certain level of finesse, which you're very good at, I'm not so good at. Well, it depends. That's why we have two people doing it because sometimes you need a little force and sometimes you need finesse and sometimes you need this.
[00:12:20] So we're working pairs.
[00:12:22] I think just to go really quickly on what the meeting is,
[00:12:25] the meeting is about helping you shape the new way Attacked. Attacked or threatened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we want to stay away from them as much as possible. You can't stay away from it completely. And I think, yes, you have to talk about roadblocks, which are what didn't work. But you need to frame it in about this project, not it didn't work because of a person or a function or whatever. So I think that's what you have to do.
[00:13:40] What this isn't about, this isn't about, this shouldn't be about calling people out on the
[00:13:44] carpet.
[00:13:45] No.
[00:13:46] This shouldn't be about finger pointing, which is a similar thing. Remember time and space is time and space in the project and time and space in people's work. The workflow, yep. Right, so if you try to pull one out when someone's in the middle of doing a big hairy coding job or experiment or something like that, they're probably not gonna be totally engaged. So you have to give people time and space for that as well.
[00:15:02] And you have to be,
[00:15:02] because remember you want the dialogue.
[00:15:05] The dialogue, the less about the past. Yeah, but I just want to make sure
[00:16:20] you're not dragging the past along with you
[00:16:22] because you don't need to do it anymore.
[00:16:24] There's a lot of stuff where people-
[00:16:25] Correct, which is new direction
[00:16:26] and scoping correctly, right?
[00:16:27] And what I don't want people, for this one is as you think about, and a gut check can be used in personal life. And we know people have used it for very serious decisions in their life like divorce. Yes. We've actually known people have done that. They've done a gut check and realized that- It was not, it was time to move on in a new direction. So as you look at your work, maybe some personal stuff,
[00:17:41] is there a time where you need to get other people on board
[00:17:45] or you need to hash something out just use the tools as we kind of talk about it. Think about what it is and then make sure whoever you're doing this with, you now have a shared understanding of the new direction, unpacked as thoroughly as you can without getting too personal and too directional. Cause you always need people to have space to be able to do their own thing and try to do it in the most genuine way
[00:19:02] without laying over and just letting anybody
[00:19:05] do what they want,
[00:19:06] but then also not coming down to that pointing fingers.