When we run IDS® in our Level 10 Meeting™, our leadership team rushes to solutions without spending enough time identifying the root cause, leading to half-baked fixes that fail within a month. How do we slow the team down to properly diagnose issues before jumping to action steps?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Rushing to solutions is a natural instinct for high-performing, action-oriented leaders. In the Level 10 Meeting™, teams often hear a symptom of a problem and immediately start listing to-dos to fix it. This hasty approach guarantees that the real, underlying issue remains unresolved and will reappear on your issues list next week.

To break this cycle, you must strictly enforce the discipline of the IDS® process.

- Spend at least sixty percent of your IDS® time on the Identify phase. Do not allow anyone to propose a solution until you have dug deep enough to find the root cause of the problem. Ask why five times to get past the surface-level symptoms.
- Require the owner of the issue to clearly state the problem in a single sentence. If they cannot define it simply, they do not understand it yet.
- Encourage healthy conflict during the Discuss phase. Ensure every leader has the opportunity to share their perspective, especially those from other departments who might see the issue differently.
- Only transition to the Solve phase once there is consensus on what the true problem is. The solution must then be translated into a specific, action-oriented to-do with a single owner and a clear deadline.

By forcing your team to slow down and focus on diagnosis, you will resolve issues permanently, saving hundreds of hours of repeated discussions.