The Rituals Driving Communication at Barrel

Borrowed

"Peter Drucker has said, in the context of troubled companies, that it’s impossible to change a company’s 'culture' but you can change its “habits.”

From "Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys)" by Joe Coulombe [Book]

Learned

Last Thursday, I was in New York City to meet with the other Barrel Holdings agencies for our quarterly session. It was a productive day discussing Q3 performance, sharing ideas, and learning from one another.

With Barrel co-founders, Peter & Sei-Wook, now fully transitioned the holding company, we changed up the format for this meeting, introducing a few presentations throughout the morning and afternoon. As part of the agenda, I did a session on shifting our services from an hourly model to value-based packages and what we've seen so far.

One topic that we discussed over lunch was the evolution of communication at Barrel and overall, how important it is to company culture, especially in a distributed team format.

For me, it comes down to three key components:

1. Communication Inspires Action. As Peter Drucker said, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” But it’s not enough to measure—you have to create systems and habits to communicate results regularly, make space to discuss them, and get clear on the next actions to progress.
   
2. Information is Power. The more informed the team is on what's important, the more ownership they can take.
   
3. Learn Together. It’s important to make space to celebrate the wins, and losses, and discuss growth opportunities. While seemingly small, building a habit around this creates camaraderie and strengthens team collaboration, all driving toward more impactful outcomes in the work.

While I just wrote about the Friday update emails I've been sending in last week's BL&T, I thought it worthwhile to break down the other key pieces of our communication strategy at Barrel today.

There are additional rituals like stand-ups and discipline meetings that I won't mention here. Instead, I'll focus on the recurring activities that involve both leadership and the wider team on a weekly or monthly basis.

New Business & Financial Performance

• Barrel Business Performance Update (Email): A weekly update email covering booked revenue for the quarter, the latest wins, and the previous week's team utilization. This keeps leadership and client services teams aligned on our business performance and capacity.
  
• BD (Business Development) Daily Brief (Email): The BD Daily Brief email highlights top priority deals for the day, new leads, status updates, and what’s on our radar. It keeps everyone looped into business development efforts, next steps, and deal status.
  
• Weekly Biz Dev & Accounts (Meeting): Held every Tuesday, this meeting focuses on reviewing the pipeline and discussing all active and potential deals to ensure our business development efforts stay on track.
  
• Weekly Client Services Finance Meeting (Meeting): This meeting reviews financial performance across all our accounts, giving us a clear view of how projects are tracking.
  
• Weekly Resourcing Meeting (Meeting): The Team Leads meet with Client Services weekly to review current resourcing across their respective teams and identify gaps in upcoming resource allocation.

Collaboration, Camaraderie, & Knowledge Sharing

• Tuesday Meetups (Meeting): These meetings evolved from our in-person Bourbon Fridays, where we toasted the week with pizza and drinks. Today, these all-hands meetings are a platform for discussions on relevant topics, designed to share ideas and learn from one another. We also include time for team shoutouts.
  
• Insider Newsletter (Email): Sent on Thursdays, this newsletter highlights in-progress work, recently presented projects, and some fun Q&A for team birthdays and anniversaries. It’s also where we share important updates from our tech partners relevant to the team.
  
• Friday Update Emails (Email): In this email, I share weekly highlights, insights, and thoughts. It's casual, and the format is evolving. It’s a personal way to keep the team in the know. More on this here.
  
• Monthly Team Meetings (Meeting): Our most formal meeting, with contributions from multiple team members, covers everything from agency announcements to new business updates and project launches to debrief takeaways and team/client trivia. It’s always a fun session and a nice way to celebrate monthly progress.

Leadership, Strategy, & Client Success

• Weekly Pulse (Meeting): Held every Wednesday with me and our Team Leads, this session focuses on pipeline updates, outreach efforts, account status, and the key topics in a given week. It keeps us connected on how initiatives are tracking and creates space to take any necessary decisions to keep up the momentum. More on this here.
  
• Weekly Account Status (Meeting): A dedicated meeting with me and our Client Services team to review updates and progress on all accounts. Super helpful in removing roadblocks and staying proactive across all client engagements.

Laying everything out like this has been a helpful exercise. It’s something we’ll keep refining as we evolve as a team, but having this breakdown is a nice way to spot opportunities for improvement, streamline where possible, and fill any gaps.

Thought

Where are the biggest gaps in my communication strategy today?