When we try to run IDS in our Level 10 Meeting, the person who owns the issue becomes highly defensive and derails the discussion, meaning we never actually get to the root cause. How do we keep our IDS sessions objective and focused on the issue rather than the person?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Defensiveness during IDS® occurs when team members feel that identifying a problem is an attack on their personal competence. To break this dynamic, you must separate the person from the seat on the Accountability Chart. The goal of IDS® is to solve the issue for the long-term health of the business, not to assign blame or put someone on trial.

Start your IDS® session by clearly defining the issue using objective data. Instead of saying that a leader is failing to manage their team, point to the Scorecard metric that is off track. Frame the issue around the process or the system rather than the individual. As the meeting leader, you must step in immediately if the conversation turns personal. Emphasize that the entire leadership team shares the responsibility to solve the issue, even if it falls within one specific seat.

Encourage the defensive team member to practice being humbly confident. This means admitting when they need help and being vulnerable enough to let the team support them. If a leader continues to derail the discussion, the Integrator must take them aside outside of the meeting to address their behavioral alignment. Within the Level 10 Meeting™, keep the focus entirely on solving the problem, and remind everyone that a healthy team is one that can look at hard truths objectively.