I am an owner currently sitting in four seats, including Visionary, Head of Sales, and Product. During our weekly Level 10 Meetings, my leadership team gets confused because I constantly jump between my high-level Visionary ideas and my tactical product issues. How do I organize my weekly flow and manage my own split personality so I do not derail our leadership team meetings?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Sitting in four seats is a temporary necessity for many growing companies, but it becomes a major bottleneck if you do not compartmentalize your roles. When you sit in a weekly Level 10 Meeting, you must be hyper-conscious of which hat you are wearing at any given moment. If you mix your strategic Visionary thoughts with your tactical Product seat concerns, you will give your team whiplash and stall decision-making.

To manage this split personality, use these three practical tactics:

- Declare your hat. Literally state which seat you are speaking from during discussions. Say, speaking as our Head of Sales, here is our current pipeline block, or speaking as the Visionary, here is a long-term idea we need to capture on the V/TO.

- Respect the Integrator. When you are sitting in your tactical sales or product seats, you report to the Integrator for those functions. You must submit to their operational authority during the meeting, even though you are the owner.

- Use the Issues Solving Session. Do not let your Visionary ideas hijack tactical discussions. If you have a big-picture strategic thought, write it down and move it to the long-term Issues List on your V/TO rather than derailing the weekly Level 10 Meeting.

Your ultimate goal is to delegate these seats as you prepare for an exit. In the meantime, strict mental separation is the only way to keep your leadership team aligned and productive.