We have department heads who only pay attention during their own scorecard and rock reviews but remain completely silent and disengaged during the rest of the Level 10 Meeting™. How do we get these siloed leaders to actively participate in the entire meeting?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When department heads only engage during their own updates, they are operating as functional managers rather than true leadership team members. This siloing is highly damaging, especially if you are preparing the business for a clean exit. A healthy leadership team must co-own the entire organization, which means every member must actively contribute to solving issues across all departments during the IDS® portion of your Level 10 Meeting™.

To break this disengaged behavior, your Integrator must actively draw out the silent leaders. You must establish the expectation that everyone at the table has a voice and a duty to help solve the company's biggest bottlenecks, regardless of their department.

- First, the facilitator should directly ask silent leaders for their perspective on issues outside their domain, saying something like, I want to hear your operational perspective on this sales bottleneck.
- Second, evaluate these leaders against your Core Values and the GWC™ standard for their seat, as a leadership team member must want, capacity-wise, to contribute to the whole business, not just their local silo.
- Third, ensure that the issues placed on the list are framed in a way that impacts the entire leadership team, forcing cross-functional collaboration during discussion.

If a leader continues to sit in silence, it is a sign that they may not belong on the leadership team. Moving them to a departmental seat or coaching them on their strategic responsibilities is necessary to build a self-sustaining business that can thrive without the owner's constant intervention.