The weekly review: one hour that fixes the quarter
28 Aug 2026 ManagementRituals
You meet every Sunday for a full hour. Each rep walks through their deals, says "still following up" about most of them, and you finish without a single decision. The meeting is not redundant, its structure is wrong.
First rule: do not narrate what everyone can see
The deal list is on the screen; it does not need reading aloud. The review is for decisions, not reports. Everyone opens their pipeline before the meeting, not during it.
The hour's structure
| Minutes | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | Two numbers: new value entered this week, and closed |
| 5–25 | Stuck deals, past the upper quartile for their stage |
| 25–45 | This month's forecast deals: what event is awaited for each? |
| 45–55 | One blocker that needs your decision |
| 55–60 | Three written commitments with names and dates |
Three questions per deal, no more
- "What event are we waiting for, and who performs it?", if the answer is "waiting for them to reply", that is hope, not an event.
- "By when?", a date. Without one, the deal is not in the pipeline.
- "What prevents closing it today?", surfaces the unspoken objection.
Kill dead deals in the open
Reserve five minutes weekly for: "Which deals do we declare lost today?" And make declaring a loss a respected act, not an admission of failure. A team afraid to declare losses carries an inflated pipeline that deceives everyone — including itself.
What must not happen in the review
- One-to-one coaching, defer it to a separate session.
- Blame in front of the team, it makes everyone hide what is stuck.
- A technical discussion, two people engage and everyone else leaves.
After the meeting
Three written commitments sent in one message, and used to open next week's meeting. A review whose commitments are never followed becomes a ritual with no effect.
How to know it is working
After a month, ask: how many decisions did it produce? If you cannot count at least five, the meeting is a report read aloud, and that is an email, not a meeting.