A recent Harvard Business Review article reported the following alarming facts:
- A Fortune 50 company estimates losses in excess of $75 million per year due to poor meetings
- 25% of meetings are spent discussing irrelevant issues
- 73% of employees do other work in meetings – employee disengagement issue
- 9 out of 10 people daydream in meetings
If you’re familiar with the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), you know the importance of rocks, scorecards, and meeting pulses to help drive growth and accountability in your business. One of the most impactful EOS tools is the L10 – a weekly 90-minute meeting focused on identifying issues, getting team input, and leaving with clear ownership of next steps.
The magic of the L10 lies in its ability to dramatically increase employee engagement by making every team member feel heard and invested in the success of the company. Here’s how it works:
Setting the Stage for Psychological Safety
Before diving into the agenda, the L10 starts with a check-in where each person shares a personal win and a business win from the past week. The personal win can be something as simple as finally getting a good night’s sleep or taking their kid to a cool event. The business win should relate to an accomplishment, metric hit, or major task completed for the company that week.
This casual sharing of wins serves two main purposes. First, it gets the positive vibes and energy flowing by having people reflect on and celebrate their recent successes. Starting the meeting in a peak state rather than just diving into problem-solving tends to breed more creative thinking and collaborative discussion.
Secondly, the cross-pollination of hearing about personal lives and work achievements helps build trust, empathy and psychological safety amongst the team members. When people feel comfortable being vulnerable and sharing their human side, it enables much more openness for when issues get discussed later. A team with high psychological safety tends to have higher engagement, more risk-taking, and better problem-solving.
Reporting & Analytics
Each team lead then reports on their Scorecard Measurables, which are the core metrics and “rock” progress over the last week. The Scorecard Measurables provide visibility into the key numbers and priorities that each team is responsible for driving. By reporting on these metrics and quarterly goals (called “rocks”) each week in the L10, it drives focus and accountability. Teams have to be transparent about their progress, successes, and shortcomings. This weekly exercise reinforces ownership and results-driven behavior as no one wants to show up to the L10 empty-handed or having missed their marks.
Identify the Issues
The heart of the L10 is the cascading discipline of getting issues out on the table. As one issue is resolved, the lead will “take a jackhammer” to it by asking “What’s the real, root issue here?” This dynamite questioning technique consistently drives teams to unearth and face into core challenges rather than treating symptoms.
Team Input
As each issue gets discussed, the lead makes sure to get input and perspective from every single team member. This simple act of intentionally having every voice heard breeds incredibly high levels of engagement, creativity, and collective brainpower.
Resolve & Assign
For every issue raised, the team aims to identify next steps and assign out clear owners and due dates before moving on. This leaves no bottlenecks and gives the team clear line of sight into who is responsible for driving what forward.
Wrap & Rate
At the end, the lead offers a quick recap of the meeting making sure everyone is on the same page, and the team rates the effectiveness and value of the meeting itself. This promotes an environment of continual improvement.
While just 90 minutes long, the L10 is one of the highest impact meetings a leadership team can run each week. By driving focus, accountability, team problem-solving, and clear ownership of next steps, it dramatically improves execution while increasing employee morale, engagement, and productivity. Teams who embrace the L10 constantly report feeling heard, empowered, and unified in driving real company progress.
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