We have a hybrid leadership team where three of us are in the office and three are remote. During our weekly Level 10 Meeting™, the in-room team naturally dominates the conversation while the remote members end up as passive observers. How do we level the playing field so we do not have a two-tier meeting?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you have some people sitting around a physical table and others staring at a screen, you create an immediate power imbalance. The in-room team reads body language, interrupts naturally, and dominates the room. The remote team members check out and become passive observers. To fix this, you must adopt a strict one-screen-one-person rule. Even if three leaders are sitting in the same building, they must retreat to their individual offices and log into the meeting on their own devices. This democratizes the screen real estate. It ensures that every face is the exact same size on the monitor and every voice has the same digital weight.

If you must meet in a shared room, the facilitator must run a remote-first protocol. This means remote participants are always called on first during the Segue, the Rock review, and the IDS® prioritization. Never let the physical room dictate the pace of the discussion. If you do, you lose the collective intelligence of half your leadership team. It is about commitment to the Same Page pillar of your company charter. Either you are fully present together or you are fully structured to ensure equal participation. There is no middle ground that works.