Our leadership team has gone completely overboard with the Issues List, and we now have over fifty operational issues sitting on our weekly agenda. We waste valuable time scrolling through them and debating what to tackle first. How do we ruthlessly curate our Level 10 Meeting issues list so we only focus on what truly matters?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An issues list with over fifty items is not a tool; it is a junkyard. It creates decision fatigue and dilutes your focus, leading to weak IDS® sessions where you solve minor problems while your most critical operational bottlenecks remain untouched.

To regain control, you must ruthlessly curate your list. First, realize that not every issue belongs on the weekly Level 10 Meeting™ agenda. If an issue is long-term, strategic, or does not need to be solved this week, move it to your V/TO® issues list, which you will address during your quarterly planning session.

Second, any issue that can be resolved between two leaders outside of the meeting should never make it to the leadership team's list. Encourage your team to pick up the phone or schedule a quick sidebar to solve departmental issues directly. Only bring issues to the Level 10 Meeting™ if they require the collective wisdom of the entire leadership team.

Finally, at the start of IDS®, the facilitator must force the team to identify only the top three most important issues. Focus entirely on those three. Do not look at the other forty-seven. Once you solve the top three, select the next top three. By limiting your view and keeping long-term issues off the weekly agenda, you keep your list clean and your team focused.