We want to roll out EOS® to our sales and operations teams, but they insist that the standard Level 10 Meeting™ agenda does not fit their daily workflow. How do we enforce the 'one way' to do EOS® while still giving our teams the flexibility they need to hit their numbers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

There is a dangerous temptation when cascading EOS® to let individual departments customize the tools. This always leads to a fragmented company culture and a breakdown in organizational alignment. You must hold the line on the standard Level 10 Meeting™ agenda.

The Level 10 Meeting™ is designed to be universal because it addresses human behavior and team dynamics, not department-specific tasks. The ninety-minute agenda works just as well for a sales team as it does for accounting or operations.

If your sales team complains that they do not need to review Rocks or that ninety minutes is too long, the root cause is usually a lack of understanding of what the meeting is for. They are likely using the meeting to give status updates rather than solving major structural issues.

To give your teams the flexibility they need while keeping the system intact, focus on customizing the inputs, not the agenda. The sales team should have a Scorecard with sales-specific leading indicators. Their Rocks should be sales-focused priorities. Their Issues List should be populated with client and market challenges.

Enforcing the one way to do EOS® ensures that any employee can step into any department's meeting and immediately understand how to participate. Keep the agenda identical across all tiers of your organization, and let the content of the meeting reflect the team's unique operational focus.