Half of our leadership team sits together in our main conference room while the rest dial in remotely on Zoom, which creates side conversations and leaves remote leaders disengaged. How do we run a Level 10 Meeting when the team is split between in-person and remote?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Hybrid meetings are the worst of both worlds. The in-person group dominates the discussion, engages in local side chatter that microphones fail to catch, and relies on subtle room body language that remote participants cannot see. Meanwhile, remote leaders feel like passive observers watching television, so they tune out, check Slack, and stop fighting for solutions during IDS.

To fix this dynamic, enforce the one-in, all-in rule. If even one member of your leadership team is remote, every single person joins from their own laptop on their own camera with a dedicated headset, even if three of you are sitting in the same building. This establishes equal presence, identical audio quality, and complete parity across the entire team.

Running the meeting this way requires specific operational boundaries:
- Close the main conference room door and spread leaders out into private offices so audio does not echo.
- Keep cameras on at eye level at all times with self-view hidden to prevent vanity fatigue.
- Have one person share their screen displaying the software agenda while everyone else keeps the gallery view front and center to watch faces.
- Use the chat box strictly for dropping reference links, never for side conversations or jokes during the pulse.

A Level 10 Meeting requires intense, uninterrupted psychological presence. You cannot solve systemic business bottlenecks when half the room is laughing at an in-person joke that the remote finance head cannot hear.