Our managers have developed a habit of holding pre-meetings before their Level 10 Meeting to align their stories and filter issues before presenting them to leadership. How do we dismantle these pre-meetings and restore raw operational transparency?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Pre-meetings are a clear indicator of low trust and fear of conflict. When managers meet ahead of time to sanitize problems, align stories, or decide which issues are safe to show leadership, they are protecting themselves rather than solving operational reality. This practice burns hours of productivity and hides systemic risks until they turn into crises.

The Integrator must address this head-on during the next quarterly pulse or executive session. Clarify the core expectation: the Level 10 Meeting is built for messy, unfiltered operational reality. Bringing an issue to the table is not an admission of managerial incompetence; hiding an issue is.

Audit your leadership team's reaction when bad news is delivered. If managers face public dressing-downs or defensive hostility whenever a metric is red, pre-meetings are their natural defense mechanism. The leadership team must reward leaders who bring raw, unvarnished problems to the list. When a manager identifies a significant issue, acknowledge the transparency before moving into IDS.

Kill the time waste directly by making pre-meetings a specific issue on the leadership Issues List. Instruct managers to eliminate any standing sync scheduled within 48 hours of the Level 10 Meeting. Train them that their issues do not need pre-packaged consensus before entering the room. An issue only needs a clear problem statement and an owner who can explain what is broken. By removing the fear of exposure, you kill the administrative bloat of pre-meetings and accelerate problem solving across the business.