What are you doing tomorrow at 10:55?

Tim Purpura, the publisher of our sister publication, Security Systems News, has started gathering all company employees in our production department for a five-minute meeting at 10:55 each day.

In the event that you lose track of time, Tim's advertising coordinator, Cath Daggett, travels the halls of our little cubeland dinging a bell to remind everyone.

To keep the meeting limited to five minutes, Tim sets the timer on his iPhone.

The purpose of the meeting: Share something positive about your work (a story that has gotten so many hits on the web, an account representative who has sold so many ads), share a motivational quote (a recent contribution of mine: “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,” something I'm light on some days), share an interesting word (today's: williwaw—it's windy up here in Maine)…you get the idea.

Although our meetings are, at least right now, much less formal, the inspiration behind them is a recent article in Inc. Magazine titled “This Study Says Stop Working and Do This at 11 a.m. Every Day.”

Managing Editor Theresa Flaherty will attest that I dislike meetings (how productive are they most of the time?) and I dislike warm-and-fuzzy meetings even more. Theresa can't make fun of me for this because she feels the same, probably more strongly. In fact, she hasn't showed up for one of these meetings yet. Associate Editor Tracy Orzel, on the other hand, is often the first person to show up. In this morning's meeting, Tim even let her lead.

We've had these meetings for a couple of weeks now, and I have to admit, I'm a believer (I'm also, since Justin Bieber's new album dropped, a Bieleber - I don't even know who I am anymore).

If nothing else, these meetings are a great exercise in reflecting on what you're doing at work and finding out what's going right. And five minutes is the perfect length for a meeting, IMHO (Did I just use a text abbreviation in a work blog? Sigh).

All of this got me to thinking about the rites and rituals that you have incorporated into your businesses.

We write a lot about reducing costs, increasing efficiency and other goals of running an HME business, but these more personal touches of management and leadership can have just as much of an impact. When your employees are focused on the positive and feel energized (I'm not kidding: Every meeting ends in a huddle), it can only help you reduce costs, increase efficiency and tick off every other goal you have for your business.

So what are you doing tomorrow at 10:55?