We notice that many of the weekly operational issues we bring to our Level 10 Meeting are actually repeating symptoms of people failing to GWC their seats. How do we identify when a tactical issue is actually a structural Accountability Chart problem, and how should we redirect it?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is common for leadership teams to spend weeks trying to solve tactical operational problems when the root cause is actually a people issue. If you keep seeing the same operational issue reappear on your list week after week, it is usually a sign of a structural breakdown in your Accountability Chart.

To identify this, your facilitator must push the team to get to the root cause during the Identify step of IDS. Ask yourself if this issue would exist if the right person was in the right seat, fully executing their roles. If the answer is no, then you are not dealing with a process problem. You are dealing with a GWC issue.

Once you realize the issue is structural, you must immediately redirect it. A standard weekly Level 10 Meeting is not the venue to debate someone's fit or performance in front of the entire team. Instead, the issue should be moved to a private, one-on-one discussion between the seat owner and their manager.

The resulting To-Do from your meeting should simply be for the manager to have that private conversation. By removing sensitive people debates from the weekly meeting, you protect team trust and ensure that performance issues are handled with the respect and privacy they deserve.