Our departmental Level 10 Meetings are constantly running over ninety minutes because our middle managers spend their time arguing about big-picture corporate policies instead of solving their own team-level operational issues. How do we keep our departmental L10s focused on their specific seat responsibilities?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When departmental Level 10 Meetings™ start debating corporate-level strategy, they run out of time to solve their own operational issues. This is a common failure point that occurs when teams do not understand the boundaries of their Accountability Chart. To fix this, you must train your managers to use the cascading issues process. First, establish a clear rule: a departmental team may only solve issues that are within their direct control. If an issue requires a change in company policy, budget, or cross-departmental structure, it does not belong on their local Issues List. Instead, the departmental facilitator must identify the issue and cascade it up to the leadership team's Issues List. Second, the leadership team member who sits on both the leadership and departmental teams must act as the gatekeeper. If they hear their departmental team start discussing a corporate-level issue, they must stop the conversation and state, this is a leadership team issue, I will cascade it up. Third, ensure your departments have clear local Rocks and Scorecards. When a department has its own specific metrics to focus on, they are far less likely to drift into high-level corporate debates.