We recently acquired a competitor and consolidated our leadership teams, but our weekly Level 10 Meetings™ are now bloated with twelve people and have become highly political. How do we restructure this meeting to maintain traction without alienating the new executives?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A Level 10 Meeting™ with twelve people functions more like a town hall than a focused leadership team gathering. Bloated meetings invariably lead to political posturing, superficial discussions, and a critical lack of traction. It is impossible to effectively solve complex operational issues with a dozen voices contributing simultaneously.

Redesigning Your Accountability Chart

To rectify this situation, your immediate priority must be to redesign your Accountability Chart. Do not compromise your company's foundational structure simply to accommodate the egos of newly acquired executives. A healthy, high-functioning leadership team typically consists of three to seven individuals who GWC™ (Get it, Want it, have the Capacity to do it) their respective major functional seats within the business. For more on ensuring the right people are in the right seats, see [how to assess if an internal candidate is ready for the Integrator seat](/qa/promoting-internal-operations-manager-integrator).

Here's a step-by-step approach to restructuring:

• Define the Right Seats First: Begin by outlining the ideal structure for the combined entity, focusing solely on the necessary seats, not the individuals who will fill them. This ensures a design-first approach rather than an accommodation-driven one.
• Place the Right People in the Seats: Once the optimal structure is clear, assign individuals to those seats based on who truly GWC™s the role. This objective approach ensures efficiency and prevents political maneuvering.
• Reassign Non-Leadership Roles: Those who do not sit on the core leadership team should be placed in appropriate departmental leadership seats.

Empowering Departmental Leaders

These departmental leaders will then be responsible for running their own Level 10 Meetings™, enabling them to solve localized issues and manage their teams effectively. This decentralized approach ensures that:

• Your weekly leadership pulse remains focused, fast-moving, and highly productive.
• Your business operates by design, not by compromise, which is attractive to future buyers looking for [operational playbooks for strategic premium multiples](/qa/operational-playbooks-for-strategic-premium-multiples).

For effective Level 10 Meetings, it's crucial to [review your weekly scorecard in under five minutes](/qa/how-to-review-scorecard-under-five-minutes) to keep discussions sharp. If your team struggles with assigning issues, consider [using the Accountability Chart to stop the blame game during meetings](/qa/using-accountability-chart-to-stop-blame-in-ids).

Leveraging AI for Efficiency

Regarding AI's role, remember that AI should never "sit in the room" during your Level 10 Meeting. Instead, it serves as a powerful tool that:

• Works before the meeting to prepare and analyze data, ensuring accurate and timely information.
• Works after the meeting to capture decisions, track accountability, and monitor progress on Rocks and To-Dos. For example, AI can be used to [optimize EOS Scorecard metrics and improve accountability](/qa/ai-in-optimizing-eos-scorecard-metrics-and-accountability).