Our leadership team starts the quarter with great intentions for our Rocks, but by week six, daily operational emergencies always take over and our Rocks stall out. How do we build a weekly cadence that keeps Rocks moving forward when the business is constantly on fire?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When daily firefighting kills your Rock momentum, it is a sign that your leadership team is trapped in the business instead of working on it. Rocks represent the strategic priorities that will break your business out of this firefighting loop. If you let operational emergencies take over, you guarantee that next quarter will bring the exact same fires.

To break this cycle, you must weaponize your weekly Level 10 Meeting™. During the Rock review portion of the agenda, leaders must report their Rocks as on track or off track. An off-track Rock is not a failure, it is an immediate trigger to drop that Rock down to the Issues list.

Once the off-track Rock is on the Issues list, use the IDS® process to identify why it has stalled. Do not accept the excuse of being too busy. Dig deeper. Is the leader bottlenecked by daily tasks because their seat is poorly designed? Have they failed to delegate operational work?

If a Rock is off track for two consecutive weeks, the team must step in to help solve the bottleneck or reallocate resources. Create a culture where admitting a Rock is off track early is rewarded, while waiting until week eleven to reveal a stalled Rock is unacceptable. By forcing weekly visibility and using IDS® to clear roadblocks, you keep your Rocks moving regardless of operational noise.