We transitioned our departmental teams to their own Level 10 Meetings, but now our leadership team is getting flooded with escalated issues that these departments should be solving themselves. How do we draw a hard line between what gets solved at the department level and what gets escalated to the leadership weekly pulse?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you roll out the Level 10 Meeting agenda to departmental teams, escalation confusion is common. To stop this flood, you must establish clear boundaries based on your Accountability Chart and organizational authority.

A department head should only escalate an issue to the leadership team if it meets one of three strict criteria. First, the issue requires resources or budget that exceed the department's defined authority. Second, the issue requires direct cross-departmental cooperation that cannot be resolved through peer-to-peer communication. Third, the issue directly threatens a company-wide Rock or a critical scorecard metric.

If an issue does not meet these criteria, it must stay in the departmental Level 10 Meeting. If a department head tries to bring a low-level issue to the leadership pulse, the Integrator must push it back down immediately. Ask the department head if they have run the issue through IDS with their own team first. Most of the time, they have not.

By forcing departments to solve their own problems, you build leadership capability throughout the organization. This aligns with the leading, managing, and accountability discipline. It keeps your leadership team focused on strategic priorities and exit readiness instead of fighting daily departmental fires. Keep the line clean and do not let your leadership team become a dumping ground for problems that belong further down the Accountability Chart.