We have rolled out Level 10 Meetings™ to our departmental teams, but there is a major disconnect where critical front-line issues are not being escalated to the leadership team in a timely manner. How do we build a clean communication bridge between our departmental L10s and our leadership L10?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

As you scale and roll out Level 10 Meetings™ to your departmental teams, you must ensure that information flows cleanly up and down your Accountability Chart. Without a clear escalation path, critical front-line issues can get stuck in departmental silos, leading to operational bottlenecks.

To build this bridge, establish a strict protocol for escalating issues. If a departmental team identifies an issue during their L10 that they cannot solve because it requires leadership approval, cross-departmental coordination, or additional resources, they must formally escalate it.

The department head is responsible for moving that issue to the leadership team's short-term Issues List. When they do, they must clearly state why it is being escalated and what specific decision or help they need from the leadership team.

Conversely, the leadership team must also push issues down. If an issue on the leadership list is actually a tactical problem that should be solved by a specific department, send it down to that department's L10 list.

This up-and-down flow keeps your leadership team focused on high-level tactical and strategic issues while empowering your departmental teams to solve their own problems, ensuring alignment across the entire organization.