In our weekly Level 10 Meeting™, the Good News segue constantly runs long because leaders use their personal update to deliver elaborate emotional monologues or deep therapy sessions. How do we keep the personal check-in grounded?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The Good News segue is an operational tool designed to transition busy executives from their daily inbox fire drills into a focused, present leadership team. It is not an open mic, a counseling session, or a forum for emotional processing. When leaders treat it as unstructured therapy, it consumes valuable time and deflates room energy before work even begins.

Fix this by strictly defining what constitutes personal good news. It must be a discrete, positive event from the preceding seven days that can be stated in two sentences or less. Good examples include a child passing a driving test, running a personal best, or completing a home renovation project. It is not an ongoing monologue about personal stress, marital tension, or existential fatigue.

The facilitator must manage the segue with crisp mechanics:
- Five-minute timer: The segue has a strict five-minute hard cap for the entire room. If you have five leaders, each person has sixty seconds total for both personal and professional news.
- Intervene on rambling: If an executive begins narrating an emotional backstory or drifting into a philosophical reflection, the facilitator cuts in politely: Celebrate the win, keep it to one headline, and pass the baton.
- Save personal support for off-line time: If a leader is genuinely struggling through a major crisis, the leadership table should support them outside the meeting. The Level 10 Meeting is the operational heartbeat of the company. It cannot become a support group without sacrificing its ability to drive business performance.

Set the standard clearly. You want real human connection, but you want it delivered with professional discipline.