Our leadership team goes through the motions of the Level 10 Meeting and updates their Rocks, but they are privately resisting the structure and complaining that EOS is treating them like school children. How do we break through this silent resistance and get them to embrace the tools?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Silent resistance from a leadership team usually means they view EOS as administrative overhead rather than a tool to solve their actual headaches. To break this resistance, you must tie the tools directly to their pain.

When a leader complains about the rigidity of the Level 10 Meeting, they are usually missing the value of the Issue Solving Session. Shift their focus away from the checklist and onto the actual issues they want resolved. If they are going through the motions, you are likely failing to run a true IDS session. The Identify, Discuss, and Solve step is where the value lives.

Next, audit their workload. If they feel like they are being treated like school children, it might be because their Rocks are too micro-managed or their weekly To-Dos are being assigned to them instead of being self-selected.

You must also evaluate if there is a conative mismatch. Use the Kolbe A Index to see how your leaders naturally solve problems. A leader with a high Fact Finder or Quick Start score will react poorly to rigid structures if they do not see how the tools accelerate their natural problem-solving style.

Stop forcing compliance. Instead, challenge your resisting leaders to bring their absolute biggest, ugliest business problem to the next meeting and use the IDS process to solve it permanently. Once they experience the relief of a solved bottleneck, the resistance will evaporate.