Keeping Everyone “In the Loop”

One of our recent challenges as we’ve been growing is learning how to keep everyone “in the loop” with all that’s happening in the gym.  As you all know, a CrossFit gym is not a typical work environment where all staff keep exactly the same hours.  In fact, some of our trainers have predominantly morning schedules, some have more evening oriented schedules, and some are training clients both in the early morning and in the evening.

Our friend Roy made the analogy that our gym operates much like a beehive where the gym is the hive and the trainers are bees, coming and going according to the schedules they set for themselves. This can make effective communication difficult.  Even if everyone is in the gym at once (pretty rare) it can be challenging to get in more than a few sentences, as folks are usually teaching classes or with private clients…so again there is not a lot of time to touch base on any number of gym related goings on. We have a calendar in the office where we post relevant dates and events, etc…but this has left much to be desired when it comes to feeling connected with everyone and on the same page when it comes to different training topics or client issues.

In the last two months we’ve made 2 changes to address this:

1.     Weekly “In The Loop” email newsletter

This is a short little email I send out on Sunday that highlights any important information for the upcoming week.  It allows me to recognize good performance as well as make note of things we all need to work on.  Other items we mention:

• Client birthdays for the upcoming week
• Client alerts (clients with health concerns that everyone should be aware of)
• Client successes (Ryan B. lost 15 pounds in his first 3 weeks!) etc.

2.   Monthly meeting

Many folks (notably Timothy Feriss) have largely eschewed the traditional meeting.  The virtual company is held up as the new model.  Everyone working independently for the greater good, toward the common goal. Why waste time with a meeting when there is this thing called email?

Turns out we are still human and face time is more valuable than you might think. Our folks wanted a monthly meeting. In fact, they requested it.  A time to chat about and review various movement progressions as well as feel connected with each other and with regards to general operations and gym related topics. So, three months ago we brought back the traditional meeting.  But in an effort to make the time valuable and productive we keep the agenda simple and straightforward.

• We review any pertinent gym related topics…questions regarding particular clients, discuss new On Ramp classes, etc…about 10 minutes max.
• We discuss any movement/programming related questions….15 minutes or so.
• A personal favorite, “speaking baseball” an opportunity to help develop everyone’s ability to articulate and respond to some common and some not so common topics related to coaching, nutrition, and CrossFit. (more on speaking baseball in my next post This takes about 30 minutes.

As it turns out having some monthly face time doesn’t have to be a waste of time.  It can be productive, valuable and even fun:)