When our departmental Level 10 Meetings™ identify a systemic issue that requires leadership team intervention, those issues often get lost in transit or take weeks to reach our leadership board. How do we create a clean, immediate escalation path for issues moving between different meeting pulses?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When departmental Level 10 Meetings identify a systemic issue, those issues must move quickly to the leadership team. If they get stuck, your front lines lose trust in the process, and critical operational bottlenecks go unresolved.

To build a clean escalation path, establish a clear rule for when an issue should be kicked up to the leadership team. An issue should be escalated if it fits one of three criteria:

- It requires a budget or resource allocation beyond the department's authority.
- It requires a change to a company-wide process or policy.
- It is a cross-functional bottleneck that the department cannot solve alone because it involves another team that refuses to cooperate.

When these criteria are met, the departmental facilitator must formally escalate the issue. They do this by adding it directly to the leadership team's Issues List, clearly labeling it as an escalation from their department.

During the leadership meeting, the team does not just solve the problem in a vacuum. They must communicate the resolution back down. The department head is responsible for taking the solution back to their team's next weekly pulse. This completes the feedback loop and keeps the entire organization aligned.