Our leadership team is growing, and we now have nine people sitting in our weekly Level 10 Meeting™, which makes IDS® feel like a slow-moving committee. How do we trim the meeting attendee list without making excluded managers feel demoted?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A Level 10 Meeting™ with nine people is no longer a nimble leadership team pulse. It is a town hall. When too many people are in the room, IDS® becomes highly inefficient, individual accountability dilutes, and meetings drag on without real resolution. A healthy leadership team consists of three to seven people.

To solve this, look at your Accountability Chart, not personal feelings. Your weekly pulse must align strictly with the major functions of your business. If you have people in the meeting who do not head a major function, they should not be there.

Transitioning these leaders out of the weekly meeting is not a demotion. It is a structural necessity for scale. Explain to them that their time is better spent leading their own departments and running their own departmental Level 10 Meetings™. They will still have a direct line to the leadership team through their department head, who will represent their issues and metrics.

Make the transition clean. Re-evaluate the seats on your Accountability Chart and define who truly owns the seats that report directly to the Integrator. By keeping the leadership pulse tight and focused, you speed up decision-making and give your department heads the autonomy they need to run their own teams effectively.