During an EOS® quarterly session six months after starting their EOS journey, my client shared the power of the Level 10 Meeting™ by stating, “Not only does the right hand know what the left hand is doing, they’re actually shaking hands!”
Imagine the impact of your right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing in your own body. You couldn’t ride a bicycle. You would have a hard time using a knife and fork to cut your food. It would be amusing to watch you clap your hands. Life would definitely be interesting!
Is your business interesting, but not in a good way? Where the right hand of the business body doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? Think of it… how often do you hear, “Well, Sales just doesn’t understand what we do in Operations” or “Finance doesn’t care about making revenue, they just want to limit us in Sales.” Or even worse is if your customer asks, “Do your departments not communicate?”
The Power of Weekly Meetings
My client was experiencing the benefit of powerful weekly Level 10 Meetings with their executive team which has increased the communication across all functions of the company. They are contributing to solutions for the greater good of the organization.
The three main things that happen in a Level 10 Meeting are:
- reporting on what’s important
- holding each other accountable to actions
- solving issues for the greater good
Reporting on What’s Important
In a Level 10 Meeting, teams report on what’s most important in terms of numbers (Scorecard), priorities (Rocks), and people headlines (good or bad news with customers and employees). This quick update on these important items gives us an overview of the health of the organization and if we are on or off track to our agreed upon goals. It’s an update from the “left” hand, “right” hand, and other parts of the business body. It’s also a great opportunity to celebrate successes and bring up issues that are keeping the team from being better. If there is an issue for discussion, then we “drop it down” to the Issues List.
Holding Each Accountable to Action
The next section of a Level 10 Meeting is To-Dos, or seven-day action items that are either done or not done. Every week, the leadership team commits to actions that are important to the team to keep priorities moving forward or getting issues to a resolution. Checking in every week to see if these were done increases the accountability and informs each other what the “left” and “right” hands are doing. This isn’t meant to be a to-do list for everything that a leadership team member is accountable for based on their Accountability Chart™, but a to-do that reaches the level of importance that needs to be reported at the leadership team level.
Solving for the Greater Good
The last main section of a Level 10 Meeting is solving issues through the Issues Solving Track™ or IDS™ (Identify, Discuss, Solve). After creating an Issues List, the team prioritizes the three most important issues. This process helps create healthy dialogue across the leadership team in solving issues for the greater good. Egos are put aside, blaming is cast away, and functional heads put their individual desires aside to fight for what’s on their Vision/Traction Organizer™ (V/TO™). They may agree to disagree on the solution, but they “shake” hands and move forward in solidarity. Then they move to the next three priority issues to solve until time is out.
If your leadership team is accomplishing these three main things in its weekly meetings, then your right and left hands will be getting along well… admired by all companies that know the powerful impact of the right hand “shaking” the left hand.
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