Our weekly Level 10 Meetings are getting clogged with massive, long-term strategic questions that we cannot possibly resolve in ninety minutes. How do we keep our weekly issues list focused strictly on short-term tactical problems?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ is designed to manage the immediate ninety-day pulse of the business. When your team brings long-term, high-level strategic questions to the weekly Issues List, it stalls your progress and prevents you from solving the tactical bottlenecks that are hurting you today.

To keep your weekly meetings lean and focused, you must use the V/TO® and understand the difference between weekly issues and long-term issues. Weekly issues are problems that must be solved this week to keep your scorecard metrics green and your quarterly Rocks on track.

If an issue does not affect the current quarter, it does not belong on your weekly Level 10 Meeting Issues List. It belongs on your long-term Issues List, which is located in Section 7 of your V/TO®.

The facilitator must ruthlessly filter the issues as they are added. When a leader raises a strategic issue, such as launching a new product line next year or restructuring a department next quarter, the facilitator must intervene.

Acknowledge the importance of the topic, but immediately move it to the long-term Issues List on the V/TO®. These strategic issues are reserved for your quarterly and annual planning sessions, where you actually have the dedicated time and space to debate them properly.