How do we handle a leadership team member whose positive personal or professional news during the Level 10 Meeting™ segue turns into a ten-minute storytelling session that derails the entire schedule before we even look at the Scorecard?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A highly talkative leadership team member can easily turn a quick positive news sharing exercise into a ten-minute narrative that derails the entire schedule. When this happens, it cuts directly into your IDS® time, leaving the team with fewer minutes to solve critical business problems. The solution is to set a strict expectation that the Segue is a one-sentence personal highlight and a one-sentence professional highlight. The facilitator must enforce this boundary with humbly-confident authority. If a team member begins to elaborate on the details of their weekend trip, the facilitator needs to interrupt gently but firmly by saying, 'That sounds amazing, let's keep moving so we protect our time today.' You must remind the team that the Level 10 Meeting™ structure works because of its predictability and timing. In the context of John Maxwell's levels of leadership, a great facilitator gains permission to lead the room by demonstrating consistent competence and keeping the team focused on results. Letting one person dominate the first five minutes is a failure of meeting discipline. If the talkative behavior continues, have a brief one-on-one conversation outside of the meeting. Use the employee-centric feedback approach to ask them how they feel the meeting flow is going and point out how their long stories impact the group's ability to get to the Issues List. Once they realize they are taking valuable time away from solving issues, they will self-correct.