Our leadership team struggles to select the top three issues during the IDS® portion of our Level 10 Meeting™ because every department head insists their operational bottleneck is the most critical. How do we objectively prioritize without hurting feelings?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When everything is a priority, nothing is. To stop the weekly debate over which issues to tackle first, you must remove emotion from the prioritization process. The team must look at the Issues List through the lens of your V/TO® and your quarterly Rocks, not departmental bias.

Before you begin IDS®, the facilitator should ask the team to look at the list and identify which issues, if left unsolved, will directly prevent the company from achieving its quarterly Rocks or hitting its 1-Year Plan. Those are automatically your top three issues.

If there are still too many competing problems, use a simple voting system. Give each leader three quick votes to place on the issues they believe are most critical for the entire organization, not just their department. The issues with the most votes become numbers one, two, and three.

Once the top three are selected, you must work them in order. Do not touch number two until number one is completely solved. This focus prevents the team from cherry-picking easy tasks or getting distracted by minor departmental gripes.

Remind the team that their primary loyalty is to the leadership team, not to their individual departments. By aligning your weekly prioritization with your larger strategic targets, you ensure that your Level 10 Meeting™ drives true company-wide traction rather than resolving localized friction.