Our leadership team members are excellent at running their individual departments, but they treat our weekly Level 10 Meetings like updates on their own silos rather than taking ownership of our company-wide V/TO goals. How do we break down these departmental walls?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When leaders focus only on their own departments, the business struggles to scale and prepare for an exit. You must shift their perspective from department heads to company leaders who happen to run departments.

Start by changing how you run your weekly Level 10 Meetings. Do not let leaders spend time reporting on departmental updates. The scorecard and Rock review should quickly identify what is on track and what is off track. Any discussion must be saved for the IDS portion of the meeting, where the team solves issues that affect the entire company.

During the IDS portion, force leaders to weigh in on issues outside of their departments. For example, have your finance director help solve a marketing issue, or have your operations head contribute to a sales problem. This collaborative problem solving builds trust and breaks down silos.

Additionally, align their incentives with company-wide results rather than individual department targets. If their quarterly bonuses are tied directly to achieving the overall V/TO goals and hitting the company margin targets, they will naturally care more about the success of other departments. Ensure every leader understands that a crack in one department is a canyon for the entire company.