Our department heads are hoarding problems throughout the week, waiting for the weekly Level 10 Meeting™ to bring them up, which results in minor issues delaying daily operations and clogging our weekly agenda. How do we teach our team the difference between a weekly L10 issue and something that must be solved in real time?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The Level 10 Meeting is a sacred ninety-minute block designed to solve structural, strategic, and high-impact operational issues. It is not an alternative to daily leadership. When your department heads hoard minor, day-to-day problems and wait for the weekly meeting to address them, they are slowing down the business and clogging the Issues List. This behavior often stems from fear of making a wrong decision or a lack of clarity on their authority. To break this bottleneck, teach your team the rule of local resolution. If an issue can be solved between two department heads in a quick, five-minute phone call or Slack thread during the week, they are expected to do so immediately. It should never make it to the weekly L10 Issues List. When a leader tries to add a minor, localized issue to the list, the facilitator should ask: "Have you two discussed this directly?" If the answer is no, drop it from the weekly agenda and instruct them to solve it outside the room. Reserve the L10 Issues List for problems that require the collective brainpower of the entire leadership team, affect multiple departments, or impact your quarterly Rocks. By forcing real-time decision-making, you empower your leaders to run their seats on the Accountability Chart with high autonomy, which is a critical step in building a self-sustaining business prepared for a clean exit.