Our departmental Level 10 Meetings are turning into carbon copies of our leadership Level 10 Meeting, with managers simply repeating the same corporate issues instead of solving departmental problems. How do we establish a clear line of demarcation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Departmental Level 10 Meetings™ must focus on departmental execution, not on rehashing company-wide strategy. When your departmental teams spend their ninety minutes discussing high-level corporate issues, it is a sign of poor delegation and a lack of role clarity on your Accountability Chart.

To fix this, you must establish a strict filter for what belongs on a departmental issues list. Departmental meetings should only address issues that the department has the authority, resources, and GWC™ to solve. If an issue requires cross-functional approval or changes company-wide policy, it must be escalated to the leadership team's issues list, not debated locally.

Conversely, if the leadership team solves an issue that affects a department, that solution must be clearly communicated down, freeing the departmental team to focus on their specific metrics and Rocks.

Teach your department managers to ruthlessly filter their weekly issues list. If a team member brings up a corporate strategic issue, the manager must redirect them to focus on the immediate operational bottlenecks in their court. By keeping departmental Level 10 Meetings™ highly tactical and focused on local execution, you keep your front-line teams aligned and prevent them from wasting precious time on issues they cannot control.