Roam founder Howard Lerman believes in five-minute meetings.

Lerman said he got the idea for five-minute meetings from Teddy Roosevelt that he read about in a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Companies schedule 45-minute meetings to decide stuff less important than the president of the U.S. So we instituted five-minute meetings. But you have to be intentional,” Lerman said.

Speaking at the Build Summit in NYC which was organized by @APompliano and @andruyeung, Lerman said he used five-minute sessions to connect directly with 100 employees in one day.

He asked each person: “What are you working on?”

He walked away with a comprehensive overview of the company. The employees left feeling heard.

Knowing that he can come across as a bit intense, Lerman said he avoids eye contact by pretending to take notes. He says he discards them afterward.

“Super Bowl ads are 30 seconds long. It’s amazing what you can learn in five minutes.”

Lerman, who previously founded Yext, started Roam last year. It’s a tool that helps remote workers connect virtually. Roam has 263 paying clients and a waiting list of more than 1,000.

What makes Roam different is that it layers the communication features of Slack and Zoom on a virtual map that shows where and with whom employees are meeting.

“With Roam you get a Marauders map for the office which gives you a feeling for the mood and energy. Who is there and who is talking to who. It gives you an extra signal,” Lerman said.

Lerman shared several other management hacks.

The first is to eliminate regularly scheduled one-on-ones, which he says clog your calendar, sap productivity and encourage employees to complain.

“It tends to turn into a therapy session,” he said. “I think it could be better to have a group setting to share the information with the team.”

The other is booking a call for the management team every Sunday night.

“Everyone is working Sunday nights anyway. So we get everyone together for an indefinite amount of time and then the whole team is ready to go Monday.”

Lerman said he’s been doing Sunday night meetings for 17 years.

He advises start ups to be careful letting venture firms dictate their growth strategy.

“VCs are like the Fed setting the growth target for the economy. If you work backwards and try to solve for a growth number, VCs will make you do things that are unnatural.”