Our weekly Level 10 Meetings are filled with endless discussions about surface-level complaints, but we never seem to solve the underlying operational bottlenecks. How do I train my leadership team to dig deeper and find the root causes during our IDS sessions?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your Level 10 Meetings™ consist of endless talking without resolution, your team is solving symptoms instead of root causes. This is a common trap that wastes time and leaves the same issues popping back up week after week.

To fix this, you must strictly enforce the IDS® process. The I stands for Identify, and it is where your team must spend most of their time. When an issue is read from the list, do not let anyone start discussing it immediately. First, ask the owner of the issue to state the real problem in one clear sentence.

Train your leadership team to ask why multiple times to peel back the layers. For example, if the issue is a missed sales target, the symptom is the red number, but the root cause might be an outdated onboarding system or a bottleneck in product delivery. Do not move to Discuss until the actual root cause is identified.

Under Our Charter, your team must have the Trust and vulnerability to speak openly and honestly, even when it points to their own department. Once the real root cause is exposed, the Solve portion becomes incredibly simple and results in a clear, actionable to do. This discipline will transform your weekly meetings from complain sessions into execution drivers.