We rolled out Level 10 Meetings to our departmental teams, but our middle managers complain that they do not have enough real issues to fill the IDS portion, resulting in short, superficial meetings that feel like a waste of time. How do we help our managers find and solve deep issues at the departmental level?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a departmental Level 10 Meeting™ ends early because of an empty Issues List, it is almost never because the department is running flawlessly. Instead, it is because the team lacks the trust or the training to identify and call out operational friction. They are likely confused about what actually constitutes an issue at their level.

To fix this, middle managers must understand that an issue is not just a massive, company-threatening crisis. An issue is anything that is standing in the way of the department running more efficiently. This includes a minor process bottleneck, a clunky software tool, a communication gap, or a scorecard metric that is consistently bordering on red.

Train your managers to actively harvest issues throughout the week. If a team member complains about a repetitive task or a delayed handoff from another department, that is an issue. If a customer sends a piece of negative feedback, that is an issue. The manager should log these items immediately on the departmental Issues List.

Furthermore, the manager must lead by example. They should deliberately put their own challenges on the list to show that vulnerability is safe. When the team sees that IDS® is a collaborative tool to make their daily jobs easier, they will stop hiding friction and start actively bringing issues to the table to drive real operational efficiency.