Our weekly Level 10 Meetings are turning into long, rambling status updates instead of actual problem-solving sessions. How do we force our leadership team to transition from reporting to active issue resolution?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your Level 10 Meetings™ are dragging on with status updates, you are wasting valuable executive bandwidth. The entire purpose of the Level 10 Meeting™ is to identify, discuss, and solve problems, not to listen to people read their reports. To fix this, you must ruthlessly enforce the timing and discipline of the meeting agenda. The reporting section of the meeting, which includes the Scorecard, Rock review, and people headlines, should take no more than fifteen minutes total. Leaders must only report whether their numbers are on track or off track, and whether their Rocks are on track or off track. There is absolutely no storytelling allowed during this portion. If a number or Rock is off track, it simply gets dropped down to the Issues list to be handled later. Once you transition to the IDS® portion of the meeting, you should have at least sixty uninterrupted minutes to solve issues. Teach your team to prioritize the Issues list before you start. Do not just start at the top; pick the top three most critical issues facing the business and tackle them first. When you run a disciplined meeting where leaders know they cannot hide behind lengthy status reports, they are forced to come prepared with real solutions. This focus on active issue resolution builds a healthy leadership team that functions cohesively and collaboratively, driving real progress every single week instead of just rehashing the past.