Our weekly Level 10 Meeting starts with the segue, but our leadership team members treat it like a casual catch-up hour, taking three or four minutes each to ramble about their weekends or tell long stories. How do we tighten this transition so we actually start the business review by minute five?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The segue is designed to transition your team from working in the business to working on the business. It is a mental hard stop to clear your head. If your team is using this time to tell long stories or discuss their personal weekend itineraries, you are wasting the momentum of the meeting pulse. The entire segue for a leadership team of five to eight people should take no more than five minutes total.

To fix this, the facilitator must set a strict boundary. Each person gets fifteen seconds to share one personal best and one professional best. There is no room for back-and-forth conversation, questions, or comments from other team members. If a leader starts telling a detailed story, the facilitator must interrupt and ask for the headline.

You must enforce this discipline immediately. A great way to build this habit is to have the facilitator go first to model the behavior. State your personal best in one sentence, state your professional best in one sentence, and immediately pass to the next person. If someone shares a major milestone, a quick nod of acknowledgment is acceptable, but the meeting must move forward. Keep the transition sharp so that by minute five, you are looking at your scorecard.