During Customer and Employee Headlines, our leaders get confused about what qualifies as an informational headline versus what belongs on the Issues List. What is the filter for dropping a headline down to IDS?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The five-minute Customer and Employee Headlines section exists solely for team awareness, not debate. When teams fail to understand the boundary between an informational update and an operational bottleneck, meetings either drag or miss critical risks.

Use a simple filter to determine whether a headline drops down to the Issues List:
- Does this information require a decision, an action, or cross-departmental coordination? If yes, it is an issue.
- Does this event represent a pattern, a systemic failure, or a risk to a quarterly Rock or Scorecard metric? If yes, it drops down.
- Is this simply an update that helps the room stay informed about people or customers, requiring no operational change? If yes, it stays a headline.

The person reporting the headline must share the news in two sentences. They state what happened, identify whether it is good or bad, and conclude with one of two phrases: informational only or drop it to the list.

The Integrator must cut off immediate discussion. If a leader starts offering an opinion or asking investigative questions about the headline, the Integrator steps in and asks: Do we need to IDS this today? If the answer is yes, write it on the Issues List immediately and move to the next headline. If the answer is no, silence the conversation and continue the agenda.

Protecting this boundary keeps reporting under five minutes and ensures real problems receive structured problem-solving during the 60-minute IDS block rather than reactive commentary during headlines.