We have successfully rolled out departmental Level 10 Meetings™, but now our managers are spending all week attending multiple L10s, leading to meeting fatigue. How do we structure departmental participation to prevent calendar bloat for cross-functional leaders?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Calendar bloat is a common side effect of scaling departmental Level 10 Meetings™ without clear boundaries. To protect your managers' time, you must strictly define who needs to be in the room. The first step is reviewing your Accountability Chart. Every Level 10 Meeting™ should correspond to a specific seat or function on the chart, not a collection of interested observers. Managers should only attend the Level 10 Meeting™ for the team they directly lead and the one led by their own manager. They should not be attending meetings for other departments just to stay informed. To keep cross-functional teams aligned without requiring their physical presence in multiple meetings, rely on the cascading issues process. If a marketing issue affects sales, the marketing leader should solve it internally first, or cascade it to the leadership team L10 to be solved at that level. Additionally, ensure that every meeting starts and ends exactly on time, adhering to the strict ninety minute rule. If a department can consistently run its meeting in sixty minutes because their focus is narrow, let them do so. The goal of the weekly pulse is traction, not maximum seat time.