During our Level 10 Meeting™ IDS® session, whenever an issue touches multiple departments, our leaders instantly get defensive and point fingers instead of collaborating. How do we rebuild a trust-first culture that solves these cross-departmental issues?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Defensiveness during cross-departmental issues is a clear sign of low trust. When leaders view their departments as silos to protect rather than parts of a single machine, your IDS sessions turn into finger pointing matches. This defensive posture stalls your operations and prevents you from solving the root causes of your issues.

To rebuild a collaborative culture, you must enforce a help first approach during your Level 10 Meeting. When a cross-departmental issue is raised, the facilitator must immediately reframe the problem.

Instead of allowing departments to argue over who is at fault, state the problem as a shared operational block. Ask the team: How is this issue preventing us from achieving our shared vision, and how can we help each other solve it?

This shift in language forces leaders to drop their shields. It moves the discussion from blaming to collaborating. If one department is struggling with a bottleneck, other leaders must offer their own resources or ideas to resolve it, recognizing that a win for one department is a win for the entire company.

Additionally, refer back to your company Charter, which emphasizes same page alignment: one vision, one voice, one team. By prioritizing the collective good of the business over individual department metrics, you create a high trust environment where leaders work together to solve complex issues permanently.