We are rolling out Level 10 Meetings™ to our departmental teams, but we are struggling to keep the department-level scorecards and issues focused on tactics instead of strategic leadership problems. How do we keep departmental L10s in their proper lane?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Departmental Level 10 Meetings™ are critical for driving traction deep into your organization, but they fail when they become forums for high-level strategic debates. Your leadership team handles the strategy and the V/TO®. Your departmental teams must focus on tactical execution.

To keep departmental meetings in their proper lane, you must strictly define the scope of their scorecards and issues. A departmental scorecard should only track weekly, leading indicators that directly influence the department's specific goals. It should not track high-level corporate metrics that the team cannot directly control.

Similarly, the departmental Issues List must only contain problems that the department has the authority to solve. If an issue requires a budget change, a cross-departmental policy shift, or an adjustment to your overall strategy, it does not belong in the departmental meeting. The department head must identify this boundary and elevate the issue to the leadership team's Level 10 Meeting™ instead.

Train your department managers to act as gatekeepers. When a team member brings up a strategic issue, the manager must stop the discussion immediately, explain that it belongs at a higher level, and put it on their own list to escalate. This keeps the departmental team focused on daily execution.