We have several minor, tactical issues that keep cluttering our Level 10 Meeting™ Issues List because department heads are too lazy to solve them in their own departmental meetings. How do we enforce a strict boundary between leadership-level issues and departmental-level issues?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A cluttered leadership Level 10 Meeting™ Issues List is a symptom of a weak departmental meeting pulse. When your department heads fail to run tight Level 10 Meetings within their own teams, they default to dumping their operational noise onto the leadership team's plate, which dilutes your focus.

To protect your leadership meeting, you must enforce a strict 'delegate and elevate' filter for all incoming issues.

First, establish a clear rule: an issue only belongs on the leadership list if it directly impacts your company-wide Rocks, targets a critical metric on the leadership Scorecard, or requires cross-functional alignment between multiple departments. If the issue is isolated to a single department, it must be solved at that department's weekly meeting.

Second, the facilitator must audit the Issues List before the meeting starts. If they spot tactical, department-specific issues, they must immediately push them down to the relevant departmental list.

If a department head brings up a tactical issue during the meeting, the facilitator must stop them and ask why it cannot be solved by their own team. This forces the leader to take ownership and build problem-solving capability within their department, rather than relying on the leadership team to solve every minor friction point. Your job as a leadership team is to solve the most critical issues, not to do your managers' jobs for them.