During our fully remote Level 10 Meetings, our team members use private Slack or Teams chats to debate issues and comment on the meeting in real time, bypassing the actual verbal IDS process. How do we kill these side-channel discussions?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Side-channel chatting during a remote Level 10 Meeting™ is a toxic habit that destroys trust and derails healthy conflict. When team members debate issues in private text threads instead of speaking up, they are hiding their true thoughts from the rest of the leadership team. This passive-aggressive behavior prevents real resolution and leaves the team with half-baked solutions during IDS®.

You must establish a zero-tolerance policy for side-channel messaging during your weekly meeting pulse. Before the meeting starts, every leader must close their internal communication apps entirely. The only software open should be your EOS® tracking tool or your shared scorecard spreadsheet.

The facilitator must call out this behavior directly. If you notice a leader smiling at another screen or typing furiously while someone else is speaking, stop the meeting. Ask them directly: It looks like you are discussing this issue offline. Please bring that feedback to the group right now so we can solve it.

Open, honest communication is the foundation of any healthy leadership team. If a remote team member cannot share their perspective out loud on the video call, they are violating the core tenets of the Meeting Pulse. Force the conflict into the open. If they continue to run side discussions, treat it as a core values issue and handle it outside the meeting.