We have a leader who constantly adds trivial, low-impact tasks to the weekly To-Do list to make themselves look productive, while their major quarterly Rocks are slipping. How do we prevent our Level 10 Meeting™ from being hijacked by performative busyness?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The weekly To-Do list is not a place for leaders to prove they are working. It is a tool to capture the immediate action items generated during IDS® that must be resolved before the next meeting to keep the business moving forward. When a leader floods the list with administrative minutiae, they are creating noise to mask a lack of execution on their Rocks. The facilitator must enforce a strict filter on what gets added to the To-Do list. First, establish the rule that a To-Do must be a direct outcome of solving an issue during IDS®. If it does not directly resolve an issue, it does not go on the list. Second, during the weekly To-Do review, look at the overall progress. If a leader has ten completed minor tasks but their major quarterly Rock is off-track, the facilitator must call out the misalignment. Drop the slipping Rock to the Issues List and IDS® it. Performative busyness is a distraction that kills team focus. Keep your weekly pulse focused on high-impact execution, not administrative vanity.