During the customer and employee headlines section of our Level 10 Meeting, our team members consistently bring up complex problems that require deep discussion, turning a five-minute reporting step into an unorganized debate. How do we keep headlines brief and separate them from the Issues List?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The customer and employee headlines section is a five-minute reporting step on the Level 10 Meeting™ agenda. It is designed to share good or bad news about key relationships so the team is aware of what is happening. It is not a place to solve problems. When a headline turns into a debate, your meeting pulse is compromised.

To protect your agenda, you must build the discipline of dropping headlines to the Issues List. When a leader shares a headline, such as a major client threatening to leave or a key employee turning in their resignation, the facilitator must immediately stop any discussion.

The facilitator should ask one simple question: Do we need to IDS this today? If the answer is yes, the headline is immediately added to the weekly Issues List. If the answer is no, the team notes the information and moves directly to the next headline.

Never allow any back-and-forth discussion during the headlines section. It is strictly for sharing information. By keeping a hard line between reporting and problem-solving, you ensure that you save your collective intelligence and energy for the IDS® portion of the meeting where it belongs.