Our leadership team has grown to nine people, and our Level 10 Meetings are turning into slow, clunky debates where we run out of time during IDS. How do we streamline our meeting structure without making people feel excluded?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team of nine people is too large for an effective, high-velocity Level 10 Meeting. When you have that many voices in the room, discussions naturally become diluted, decision-making slows down, and you inevitably run out of time to solve your most critical issues. The solution is not to run a longer meeting, the solution is to fix your Accountability Chart. A healthy leadership team should consist of three to seven people. If you have nine, you likely have department heads or mid-level managers sitting in leadership seats where they do not belong. You must restructure your Accountability Chart to represent the true leadership functions of the business. Combine operational functions under a single leader who is capable of representing those departments. For example, if you have separate leaders for marketing, sales, and client success all sitting in the meeting, consider consolidating them under a single Revenue or Sales and Marketing seat. The leaders who transition off the leadership team will not lose their voice. Instead, they will run their own departmental Level 10 Meetings, which will actually give them more focused, relevant time to solve their specific operational issues. Restructuring your team is not about exclusion, it is about creating the right structure to execute your vision efficiently.