Our leadership team is struggling to distinguish between what belongs in Customer and People Headlines and what belongs on the Issues List, which leads to us wasting time debating minor announcements or missing critical warnings altogether. How do we define a hard line between a headline and an issue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A headline is a one-sentence, factual update about a customer or an employee that requires zero discussion and zero action from the team. It is strictly informational. An issue is anything that is a problem, an obstacle, an opportunity, or a decision that requires the leadership team to identify, discuss, and solve.

The confusion usually happens because leaders share a headline that has a hidden problem attached to it. For example, a leader might say, our top account manager just resigned. That is a headline, but it is also a massive issue that will disrupt client success and capacity.

The rule for the team is simple. When you share a headline, you state the facts in ten seconds or less. If there is any complexity, any downstream impact, or if it requires a change in resources, the person sharing it must immediately say, and I am dropping that to the Issues List. If they do not, the facilitator must step in and say, is that just a headline, or does it need to go on the Issues List? By keeping this boundary sharp, you protect the rapid-fire nature of the headline section and ensure that any real operational threats are properly routed to the IDS portion of the meeting where they can be solved systematically.