The job of a leader can really be boiled down to 3 things:

• hire the right people
• create a set of conditions and systems which unlock their individual and collective superpowers, and
• get them the resources they need to do the work play our organization needs them to do.

Sometimes you can borrow tools and systems that have already been proven to work in other organizations, like OKRs. But other times, it’s our job as leaders to detect needs and create our own systems or approaches that align right up to the unique strengths, challenges and needs of the human beings on our team and the factual circumstances under which they are working.

I want to share an experience I had with this recently with you. My team is lean and so, so effective. I pride myself on fighting (and often winning) the good fight to get them the resources they need. But I have noticed that the most scarce resource that they want and need is actually me. Just time with me to work through a project, move something that requires my input forward, to work on their own career development initiatives that can get neglected in the face of a voracious editorial calendar and quarterly KPIs.

While the research maven on my team was struggling to find real estate for her post-it laden ethnographic research foam boards in the office, and I was struggling to find a deep bucket of time to process them with her, it hit me: my house would be perfect for this. I used to run a consulting business from the ground floor of my home, and it still has lightning speed internet, desks aplenty and The Biggest White Board Most People Have Ever Seen.  So I did a quick rebrand. What started out as “my basement” became “The Enchanted Marketing Bunker.” And I scheduled a series of 1:1 sessions on my weekly no-meeting days with each of my team members, starting with our researcher.

We’ve just begun them, but The Enchanted Marketing Bunker sessions have been, thus far, brilliant. We start a little late in the morning, to allow us to get urgent emails and such out of the way, then we “hunker in the bunker” and get to work. We start by reviewing the project and creating a clear outcome for the project overall, as well as a set of deliverables and work product we hope to have accomplished by end of day. At lunchtime we break and drive over to a waterfront restaurant, have a lunch and talk through some issues on the project, then we come back and sprint to the finish. Two pugs provide momentary snuggle breaks and comic relief throughout the day.

Results: On our first session, we took a product that had been lagging for 3 months and wrapped the entire thing, in roughly 6 hours’ time. But more importantly, it gave me the opportunity to focus on a single person and engage with them directly in a deeper way and without any of the distractions of a regular 1:1. This allowed me to get a better understanding for how to work with this person and how to optimize their role, as well as new insights into strengths and capabilities I didn’t even know they had. It also communicated how important they each are to me – as their leader and as a person. I care about each one of these people and want them to thrive, and these sessions allowed me to demonstrate this in an authentic way – as well as giving me an opportunity to just express it flat out.

We’re already planning to make the Enchanted Marketing Bunker sessions a twice annual program. The results speak for themselves. What they don’t do is explain my choice of the descriptor: “enchanted.” For that, I’ll look to Webster for help – the dictionary gives 3 definitions of the word enchant:

1. to attract or delight as if by magic
2. to cast a spell on
3. to hold the attention of as if by a spell.

As I see it, the bunker and our 1:1 offsite sessions in it possess all these qualities.

1. These sessions have delighted both myself and my team members with near magical power, by offering this precious cache of devoted time to a person and a project that is excruciatingly rare in the workaday world.
2. The spell is actually the declaration I’ve made over the sessions: by virtue of hosting them and sketching out a minimal framework for them, I’m unabashedly declaring my intention that the day result in above-and-beyond productivity and relationship growth.
3. The geographic location of the sessions in my home and away from any sort of regular office environment and the overall plan of them has so far flicked a focus switch, capturing the attention of both attendees and screening out the distractions that inhibit deep creativity, innovation and problem solving on a regular workday where meetings, calls and emails are tough to escape.

So, leaders, think about it. What’s your team’s equivalent of the Enchanted Marketing Bunker?