During the Good News segue of our Level 10 Meeting, leaders regularly use their business win to recap active projects or pitch new initiatives, running out the clock before we touch the Scorecard. How do we keep business good news strictly celebratory without letting it turn into an unauthorized project update?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The Good News segue exists for one psychological reason: to transition your leadership team out of individual firefighting mode and into a cohesive, collaborative mindset. It is not an executive briefing, and it is definitely not an opportunity to smuggle a pet project past the gatekeeper.

When a leader uses their business update to deliver a five-minute state-of-the-department speech, the facilitator must cut them off immediately. Establish a crisp ground rule: business good news is a headline of victory, not an update on progress. A valid update sounds like: "We closed the Acme contract for two hundred thousand dollars." An invalid update sounds like: "We are currently redesigning the Acme onboarding workflow and here are the three stages we are testing."

If a leader begins describing process, timeline, or next steps, the Integrator should step in with a standard phrase: "Great win. Keep it to the victory. If there is an operational dependency here, drop it down to the Issues List."

Enforce a strict sixty-second limit per person for both personal and professional news combined. Go around the room in a fixed sequence. If someone crosses the sixty-second mark, the facilitator holds up a hand and moves to the next seat. It feels sharp the first time you do it, but high-performing teams respect the boundary. By protecting the five-minute cap on your segue, you preserve the full sixty minutes required for IDS®, which is where real enterprise value is built.