During our weekly Level 10 Meetings, certain leaders whisper to each other or message back and forth on Slack while others are speaking during IDS. How do we eliminate backchannels and side conversations that fracture the room?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Backchannels, whispering, and instant messaging during a Level 10 Meeting™ are toxic to healthy team dynamics. When leaders hold private side discussions while someone is talking, they create political silos, undermine trust, and withdraw their brainpower from the issue on the table.

The Integrator must call this behavior out immediately and publicly in the meeting. Do not wait for a private one-on-one session after the meeting ends. The moment side chatter occurs, pause the entire room. Say: Let us have one conversation in the room. What is being shared that the whole team needs to hear?

For in-person meetings, enforce a strict closed-laptop policy except for the single person scribing the Issues List and To-Dos. Phones should be face down or placed on a side table.

For remote meetings, institute a zero-chat policy. The Zoom or Teams chat box should be disabled entirely or reserved solely for pasting links and document text relevant to the current IDS® discussion. Any leader caught typing side remarks into private Slack channels should be reminded that if an observation is worth typing to a colleague, it is worth saying out loud to the room.

Open, honest, and vulnerable communication is the bedrock of EOS®. If your team relies on private backchannels to express skepticism or critique, you have an underlying trust issue that must be dragged into the light and addressed directly on the Accountability Chart.