Meetings aren’t anyone’s favorite part of the day. Sometimes they go long, or sometimes one person takes up all the air in the room. At the end of it, you might feel like you’ve wasted precious time without any problems being solved.
But meetings don’t have to be that way. With the right structure, you can get more done in one 90-minute meeting than you ever thought possible. The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) is designed to create a more efficient ecosystem for your business—including meetings. In this blog, I’ll divulge some of my best secrets for having smoother meetings.
The EOS Meeting
Weekly EOS meetings are called Level 10 meetings. This is because, at the end of every meeting, each team member rates the meeting from 1-10. The ideal is for these meetings to always be level 10. (That’s not always attainable—more on that later!) L10s always follow the same agenda, they always start at the same time and end at the same time, and they are always held on the same day. Level 10’s for the Leadership Team are 90 minutes long. Let’s break that down.
Segue: 5 Minutes
As everyone gets settled in for the meeting (that starts promptly on time!) segue from small talk into shop talk. Open the meeting by going around the room and sharing good news—best work news and best personal news. This segue is also a reminder that instead of working in the business, you are now working on the business for the next 90 minutes.
Scorecard: 5 Minutes
You’ll take the next five minutes to review Scorecard items. Together, you’ll examine the five to 15 most important numbers in the organization and make sure they are on track toward your goal. Don’t discuss any issues yet. If something is off track, move it to the IDS portion of your agenda.
Rock Review: 5 Minutes
Similarly, you’ll take five minutes to review Rocks. Same process—report either “on track” or “off track” for each Rock. If a Rock is off track, move it to IDS. It will be tempting to start discussing off-track items but save it for IDS.
Customer and Employee Headlines: 5 Minutes
Headlines are just that—short and sweet. These are any customer or employee news or issues from the week. If there are any issues or bad news, move them to IDS.
To-Do List: 5 Minutes
To-dos are seven-day action items. In this section, review the to-dos from the previous meeting. Report on each to-do as “done” or “not done.” If it’s done, strike it from the list. If it’s not done, leave it there. To-dos should never stay on the list for more than two weeks.
IDS: 60 Minutes
Here it is—the moment you’ve been waiting for! IDS is finally your time to identify, discuss, and solve issues that have arisen over the previous week or as a result of the report-out at the top of the meeting. I’ll dive deeper into IDS later in this blog.
Conclude: 5 Minutes
With five minutes remaining, it’s time to conclude the meeting. First, recap your new to-do list, including to-dos that came out of IDS and any to-dos that carried over from the previous week. Second, discuss whether any messages need to be communicated more broadly to the rest of your organization. Decide how you are going to communicate these decisions and through what medium. Then, rate the meeting from 1-10 (more on this later as well.)
There you have it—the 90-minute Level 10 meeting. It’s straightforward by design—there’s no need to overcomplicate it. In the next section, I’m going to highlight some additional pro tips you can follow to make every L10 meeting a 10.
4 Secrets to Smoother Meetings
Review Everything First
It might be easy to jump right into the issues, but take time to review before you do. At an L10, you should review:
Scorecard metrics with a simple “on track” or “off track” statement.
Rocks with a simple “on track” or “off track” statement.
Client and employee headlines in one sentence or less.
Reviewing is not the time for discussing or getting into the issue (if there is one.) Save that for IDS. When you report out on the previous week (or the previous quarter), it gets everyone on the same page and helps you effectively mine out issues that will be discussed later in the meeting.
Don’t Discuss Until IDS
If an issue arises from your review, don’t discuss it until IDS. IDS is sometimes known as the Issues Solving Track—meaning your 60 minutes of IDS is your container for discussion. Anything reported as “off track” gets moved to IDS. Trying to discuss these issues too soon can derail the meeting or prevent you from identifying the real issue.
IDS is designed to help you identify the real issue, discuss it in a way that everyone is heard, and solve the issue forever. Let’s break it down even further:
Identify
The stated issue is rarely the real issue. If a Scorecard measurable is off-track, the issue is usually not that it’s off-track. There’s something else beneath the surface. Don’t move forward with IDS until the real issue is revealed.
Discuss
In an open and honest environment, share your thoughts and ideas. Now is the time for everything to be put on the table, both positive and negative.
Solve
When you feel that everything is on the table and the discussion is getting redundant, move to solve. It’s more important that you decide on something more than what it is you decide—so decide! Most of the time you’ll have consensus from the whole team, but if you don’t, the Integrator has the authority to make the final decision.
Find the Real Issue
I can’t stress this enough—the stated issue is rarely the real issue. An issue is defined as a problem, obstacle, barrier, idea, or opportunity. Essentially, if it’s unresolved, it’s an issue.
I have a few tips that can help this go smoother:
Start with the three most important issues. The IDS portion of your meeting should take 60 minutes (the majority of the meeting.) Start by identifying the three most important issues. Solve these issues in order of importance, and then move on to the next three. This helps you prioritize issues and prevents you from wasting precious meeting time.
You won’t always solve every issue. Issues might go unresolved when the meeting concludes, and that’s okay. It’s more important to end on time than to exhaust your team trying to solve every issue. There may be days when you solve every issue, or there may be days when you solve only one. As long as the most important issues were solved, then you had a successful meeting.
Rate Every Meeting
Rating every meeting—weekly L10s, quarterly meetings, and annual meetings—helps your team strive for better meetings every time. And meetings don’t have to be perfect for them to be good meetings. Strive for a rating of 8 or better from each team member. There’s no hard and fast rating system, but consider asking yourself a few questions to rate the meeting better:
Did we start on time and end on time?
Was everyone heard?
Did we solve real issues forever?
Did we avoid tangents or side conversations?
If someone rates the meeting below 8, they should offer a feedback statement as to why. That way, you and your team know what to do better next time.
Start Every EOS Meeting On the Right Track
With EOS, meetings can transform from the most tedious part of your week to one of the most productive times with your team. When EOS is properly implemented into your process, amazing things can happen. Your workplace can become an ecosystem where good ideas thrive, important things get done, and your team is celebrated and encouraged.
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