Our leadership team rarely reaches the bottom of our Issues List, and critical long-term structural problems get pushed aside every week for urgent operational noise. How do we fix this?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An Issues List that never clears is standard; a healthy business will always generate issues. The problem arises when low-value, urgent operational fires consistently jump ahead of deep, structural business challenges. When a leadership team spends every single week solving tactical noise, strategic progress halts, enterprise value stagnates, and the executive team becomes glorified firemen.

To fix this imbalance, you must overhaul how you prioritize your top three issues at the start of IDS. Never sort the list chronologically or tackle easy items to build false momentum. The Integrator must ask the room: 'Looking at our total list, which single issue, if solved permanently today, moves the needle furthest for the health of this company?'

If an issue is purely tactical and affects only two people, take it off the Level 10 Issues List. Send it to a separate offline conversation or push it down to a departmental Level 10 Meeting where it belongs. The executive Level 10 Issues List should be reserved for company-wide bottlenecks, cross-departmental breakdowns, and threats to quarterly Rocks or Scorecard goals.

Furthermore, utilize the quarterly pulse to sweep the list. If an important structural issue is too large for a weekly 60-minute IDS session, do not let it linger as weekly clutter. Move it directly to the V/TO Issues List to be solved thoroughly during your next off-site Quarterly Planning session.