The short version
- A cadence on paper fails when the gaps between meetings are unmanaged. That is where the real coordination happens, in direct messages.
- Design the rhythm around what each meeting decides, and design the space between meetings around what has to be answerable.
- At 200 people in three countries, the binding constraint is not meeting design. It is whether information is available without a person.
- Publish the rhythm in every relevant local time. A cadence that reads correctly in only one country is a cadence for one country.
At around 200 people, informal coordination stops working and a deliberate operating rhythm becomes necessary. Most companies at this stage design the meetings carefully and leave the space between them entirely undesigned, which is where most of the coordination actually occurs.
"Cadence on paper; reality is DMs."
The cadence on paper and the reality
The document says weekly leadership, fortnightly business review, monthly all-hands, quarterly planning. Sensible, and mostly what the company does.
Then observe a week. Between those meetings, hundreds of direct messages move decisions, chase status, ask for context, and escalate things that had answers. None of it is in the rhythm document, none of it leaves a record, and the volume is higher than the meeting hours by an order of magnitude.
So the operating rhythm on paper describes perhaps a tenth of how the company actually coordinates, and the other nine tenths runs on individual availability, which is exactly the thing three countries make unreliable.
A rhythm that works at this size
| Cadence | What it decides | Who is in it |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly, 45 min | Trade-offs between functions this week | Function leads only |
| Fortnightly, 60 min | Anything off plan, and what changes as a result | Leads plus the owners of off-plan items |
| Monthly, 30 min | Nothing. It informs, and it is recorded | Everyone, optional, in two time-zone sittings |
| Quarterly, half day | What we start, stop, and commit to | Leads, with written input from teams beforehand |
Two features matter. Every recurring slot has a stated decision type, so it can be cancelled when there is nothing of that kind. And the monthly explicitly decides nothing, which is what allows it to be optional and recorded rather than mandatory and repeated.
What has to be true between meetings
The rhythm only holds if three things are answerable without booking anything.
- Where does this stand. Any commitment, any project, at any hour, without asking its owner.
- What was decided, and by whom. Including decisions made in a meeting one country could not attend.
- Who owns this. One name per area, published, so questions route without a human router.
Those three carry the nine tenths. With StandIn, each person confirms a ninety-second brief at the end of their day, mostly pre-drafted from the work they already did, and while they are off, their StandIn answers questions from it in their words, with a source under every answer, and never guesses. Function leads stop being routers, the direct-message volume falls, and the meetings get their time back for actual trade-offs.
The rhythm then runs on answers being available between meetings rather than on senior people being available. See StandIn for leadership teams.
The three-country adjustments
Four specific changes, none of them expensive.
Publish every recurring slot in all three local times, in the calendar invitation itself. Run the all-hands twice rather than once, or record it and take written questions, so no country is systematically the one that watches a recording. Give each country a named decider for operational calls so routine decisions do not cross a seam. And re-anchor recurring meetings twice a year when the clocks change on different dates, which otherwise silently moves your 17:00 slot to 18:00 for one country.
The pattern to avoid is a rhythm that is convenient in the headquarters country and merely tolerable elsewhere, because that is how the office furthest from the money ends up with the worst hours and the least influence.
Common Questions
What does an operating rhythm look like at 200 people?
A short weekly for cross-function trade-offs, a fortnightly review of anything off plan, a monthly information session that decides nothing, and quarterly planning. Each slot needs a stated decision type so it can be cancelled when empty.
Why does our cadence keep being bypassed by direct messages?
Because the gaps between meetings are undesigned. People need answers continuously and the rhythm only provides them weekly, so the rest arrives as individual requests. Fix what is answerable between meetings and the bypassing drops.
Should the all-hands be mandatory?
Not across three countries. Run it twice or record it with written questions, and make attendance optional. A mandatory meeting at a bad hour is a tax on one region rather than a shared ritual.
How often should the rhythm be reviewed?
Quarterly, against one question per slot: what did this decide that could not have been decided in writing? Slots that fail that test twice running should be cut rather than reformatted.
When you're off, your StandIn is on.
It answers your teammates' questions from work you've already done, in your words, with a source under every answer.