During the IDS portion of our Level 10 Meeting, our leadership team constantly drifts off-topic, turning a single issue into a sprawling debate about unrelated operational frustrations. How does our facilitator keep us focused and stop this agenda drift?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Agenda drift during IDS® is the biggest waste of time in most weekly leadership meetings. A team starts discussing a simple process issue, and within five minutes, they are debating the company's five-year strategy or complaining about a specific employee's attitude.

To stop this drift, the facilitator must use the Level 10 Meeting™ structure to keep the team focused. Your primary job as a facilitator is to be a traffic cop, not a participant in the debate. You must keep the team locked onto the specific issue being discussed.

The secret is to master the first step of IDS®, which is Identify. Do not let the team jump to Discuss or Solve until you have defined the root cause of the issue in a single sentence. If the issue is defined as our billing process is delayed, and a leader starts talking about client onboarding, the facilitator must immediately intervene.

Say something like that is a separate issue, let us put it on the list and get back to billing delays. Keep a notepad next to you to capture these tangent issues so team members feel heard without hijacking the current discussion. By strictly containing the conversation to the issue at hand, you will solve more problems in less time and teach your team the discipline of focused execution.