Our leadership team has started using the five-minute segue to drop passive-aggressive hints about internal conflicts instead of sharing actual personal or professional bests. How do we stop this toxic behavior and get our meeting off to a clean start?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The five-minute segue is designed to transition your team from working in the business to working on the business. It is a tool to clear your mind, build human connection, and start the meeting on a high note. When team members use this time to share backhanded compliments or drop veiled complaints about other departments, they are abusing the transition and poisoning the energy of the Level 10 Meeting™. The facilitator must shut this down immediately. If a leader shares a best that is actually a disguised issue, the facilitator must stop them mid-sentence. Remind the team of the purpose of the segue. It must be a genuine personal or professional best. Tell the individual to save their operational complaint for the Issues List and immediately drop it down there. Do not let them elaborate or defend their passive-aggressive comment. Transition immediately to the next person. If this behavior is a recurring pattern with a specific leader, the Integrator must have a one-on-one conversation outside the meeting. Use the Accountability Chart and the Core Values to address the behavior. Explain that using the segue as a weapon violates team trust and slows down the collective pulse. The segue must remain a clean, positive psychological threshold. Keep it fast, keep it genuine, and keep the operational garbage where it belongs, which is on the Issues List.