- Most of a ninety-minute weekly meeting goes to processing issues.
- It delays decisions until the meeting.
- A written weekly update replaces it.
- One decision pitch meeting a month is the only meeting you need.
On this page
What went wrongWhat I run insteadSlow in the right directionAt the end of the monthHow to make the switchI used to be the president of an automotive suspension manufacturer, and we ran on a system called EOS®. In that system they have something called L10s, or Level 10 Meetings™. These meetings were meant to talk about a bunch of things. But sixty minutes of the ninety was dedicated to issues. Processing your issues.
And all that became was a sixty-minute complaining session every single week.
What went wrong
You could have talked about this throughout the rest of the week. Somebody could have had a conversation. This all could have been dealt with otherwise. What it did was delay making decisions until you had this Level 10 meeting. Then people complained about it, and somebody would go on for fifteen, twenty minutes about a problem.
Just because you talk more doesn’t mean that things actually get done.
More communication is not always best. Sometimes the best thing is setting a clear destination, where you need to go in the GPS, and then letting people adult. Now go do it. And if you run into a problem, let me know and we’ll see if I can help you out.
What I run instead
I run on monthly cycles. I have something called a decision pitch meeting, where people come and pitch their ideas at the end of every month, and we decide whether it’s going to be done or not, based on whether it moves us toward our goals.
Then every week, the person who owns each priority just provides an update. Is it on course or is it deviating? If it’s deviating, we can come in and help you, and we can have a discussion. But I don’t need a meeting to do that.
- What got done
- The gift-a-membership page went live on Monday, and the offer email went to 1,200 current members on Wednesday. We sold 38 gift memberships in week one, against a target of 30. Most came from the email, not the website. Nine buyers added a second gift.
- Challenges
- Two installers didn’t know how a gift gets redeemed, so one customer got a different answer from each. I wrote a short redemption script and sent it to every technician on Thursday. Checkout on phones is also dropping people at the payment step. Dana is looking into it, but we haven’t found the cause yet.
- Next steps
- Email past customers whose membership lapsed on Tuesday. Fix phone checkout before that email goes out. Check redemptions on Friday to make sure the script is working. If week two comes in under 30 sales, I’ll add a reminder text on Thursday.
We are adults. We can have conversations throughout the week.
Slow in the right direction
Velocity requires speed and direction. If you’re moving with L10s, you’re moving slow in the right direction. What we want to do is move fast in the right direction. Monthly cycles ensure speed. The decision pitch meeting makes sure you’re actually moving in the right direction constantly, not just once a quarter.
At the end of the month
Once the month is over, we track whether each priority was executed or failed. We do that for the company, for each area and for each person. If we have a trend of failed or executed, then we know how people are doing. And I don’t need to be in ninety minutes of issue processing every week.
How to make the switch
- Agree on your big goals, so everybody knows where you are going.
- Have each owner post a weekly update instead of reporting in the meeting.
- Deal with issues as they come up. Have the conversation that week.
- Hold one decision pitch meeting at the end of the month for next month’s ideas.
EOS® is a registered trademark, and Level 10 Meeting™ is a trademark, of EOS Worldwide, LLC. Unbreakable OS is not affiliated with or endorsed by EOS Worldwide.
