We are wasting a massive amount of time during our weekly Level 10 Meeting™ because our leadership team tries to design the entire solution and map out every process step during the ninety minutes instead of just agreeing on the next step. How do we stop these deep-dive rabbit holes?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic facilitation failure where the team confuses solving an issue with executing the solution. The purpose of IDS® is to identify the root cause of a problem, discuss the options, and decide on a solution. The solution is almost always a to-do assigned to one person to do the work offline. It is not to write the policy, build the spreadsheet, or redesign the workflow inside the room. If the team starts arguing about individual words in a document or gets into technical step-by-step planning, the facilitator must step in. Use the phrase: We are entering a rabbit hole. We have agreed on the solution. Who is taking the to-do to execute this outside the meeting? Once a leader accepts the to-do, the issue is solved. Move to the next item immediately. Your ninety minutes are for high-level alignment, not deep operational execution. If the solution requires input from multiple leaders, the to-do should be to schedule a thirty-minute working session later in the week. Keep your weekly pulse moving fast and save the deep dives for offline work.