Have you struggled to find 90 minutes for your leadership team to meet every week? Do you continue to shoplift time and hijack people throughout the week for issues in your business? If so, it’s time to give your Level 10 Meeting™ a tune-up. Our most successful clients tell us they can’t imagine their business without their Level 10 Meetings. In fact, they don’t know how they ran their meetings without them! Take these three steps to improve the quality of your weekly meetings.
Prepare
Prepare for your Level 10 Meeting as you’d prepare for your most important prospect or client. With all you do in a day, preparing for the Level 10 Meeting can seem like a low priority. But your company deserves the time and attention every week.
- Review your tools, including your Scorecard, Rock sheet, and To-Do and Issues Lists. Determine your top three issues to solve and drop down any off-track numbers or Rocks.
- Review your past week’s calendar. It may also trigger issues you want to discuss.
- Look over the Level 10 Meeting agenda 3–12 hours before your meeting. Determine the most important things for you to focus on solving this week.
- Think through what you want from the meeting and be clear about getting what you want.
- Ensure you have accurate numbers and completed To-Dos, and that your Rocks are on track. Plan to bring any relevant information to address issues on the list.
When everyone prepares, your meeting will run more efficiently, leaving more time for solving issues.
Get Energized
Your leadership team Level 10 Meeting is the most expensive meeting you have. Think about it. You have the most senior minds at the table, ready to solve issues and work on the business for 90 minutes.
Show up like it matters. If you see something off track or not working, be brave enough to enter the danger. Have those tough conversations.
Passionately work to solve issues, especially if you disagree with another leadership team member. Your Level 10 Meetings are only as good as your attitude. Come to the table committed to the greater good.
Preparation and energy link together. If you’ve prepared well, you’ll be excited and ready to tackle issues. If you haven’t prepared, you will wait for others to run the meeting. It’s YOUR meeting. Act like you own it.
Identify the Root Cause
Failure to identify the root cause of an issue leads to inefficiencies. Not only do you waste time solving a superficial issue, but when you don’t attack the root cause, you actually create more issues.
Learning to identify the root cause of an issue using the Identify, Discuss, Solve (IDS™) tool takes patience and practice. But it’s worth the effort.
- You must stay in the Identify phase until you can clearly state your issue in one sentence. If you can’t, keep digging. Keeping issues concise forces people to continue to dig into the root cause.
- In the Discuss phase, once you’ve found the root issue, things should move quickly. Everyone will get a chance to weigh in with their perspective once, but only once. More than that is politicking.
- The last step, Solve, creates the action items and To-Dos that need to be captured and assigned ownership. If you don’t capture and assign accountability, the issue will return. This step leads to solving the issue once and for all.
Level 10 Meetings provide a key piece of keeping your team aligned and efficient. For example, you learn to put non-time-sensitive issues on the list during your week instead of interrupting one another. When you do this well, you’ll get time back in your week to focus on what you do best.
If your meetings feel stuck and you don’t experience a 10 rating at your Level 10 Meetings, begin with these practices. Preparation, engaged energy, and clear identification of root causes will get you out of your rut and back to work.
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