If an unexpected market shift or client departure mid-quarter completely kills the relevance of an active individual Rock, do we kill the Rock entirely, rewrite it, or force the owner to keep tracking it on the Level 10 Meeting agenda?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A Rock is a ninety-day priority that you commit to completing to drive traction toward your One-Year Plan. However, blind adherence to a metric or priority that has been rendered completely useless by a major external shift is bad business. If a Rock is truly dead, you must address it openly during the next Level 10 Meeting. Put the status of the Rock on the Issues List for IDS. During the discussion, the leadership team must collectively agree that the Rock is no longer relevant to the company's direction. If the team agrees, you have two options. First, you can officially kill the Rock and remove it from the active list. If you do this, the seat owner does not get a pass for the quarter. They must focus their freed-up capacity on supporting other company Rocks or executing critical operational tasks. Second, if a pivot is required, you can rewrite the Rock to align with the new reality, but only if there is still enough time in the quarter to achieve a meaningful result. Never allow a leader to quietly drop a Rock or change its parameters on their own. Any adjustment to a quarterly priority must be validated by the leadership team. This maintains absolute transparency and keeps everyone aligned on the same page.