Level 10 meeting is a meeting that should be rated as a 10. Before we dig into the topic, it is important to know how these meetings came to be.
If you work for a company or you are a business owner, you know that meetings are a crucial part of any successful business. Meetings are organized with the main purpose of having interaction between coworkers, exchanging ideas, and following up on what is important to do in the following period of time.
A meeting can be very successful if all parties know exactly what they are doing, if they all have the same goals in mind, and if they all agree on the proposed strategies. However, in reality, this is not always what happens.
EOS (Entrepreneur Operating System) is a system that helps entrepreneurs manage and run their businesses more efficiently. When they asked their business leaders to rate their meetings, the average rate was 4. That was pretty disappointing!
This is why they developed the Level 10 meeting, which has a goal of scoring 10 points if rated. Level 10 meeting should last for 90 minutes and it should follow a certain agenda, which will be presented further in the article.
Level 10 Meeting Goal
The goal of a Level 10 Meeting is to enhance communication and teamwork. It also focuses on creating placement and accountability within the leadership team, and finally navigating the company toward its goals.
The meeting goal is that problems are resolved efficiently, that everyone has a chance to speak, and that tasks are assigned to the right people and followed up on.
Level 10 Meeting Principles
There are a few principles that need to be satisfied in order to have a successful level 10 meeting:
- Same day every week
The idea is that every level 10 meeting is scheduled on the same day every week. So for example, if you want to schedule it every Friday, it needs to stay scheduled on Friday each week. All of your employees will know that Friday is a meeting day and they will prepare for it accordingly.
- Same time every week
If you decide to schedule your level 10 meeting every Friday, you can choose to do it in the morning or afternoon. It is important to always stay consistent with the time of the meeting. This will let your coworkers know when and how to prepare for it. So, for example, if you choose to schedule it on Fridays at 10:00 AM, it should be like that every week.
- Same agenda every week
The agenda of your meeting should not change. Later in the article, we will give you the ultimate guide to what the level 10 meeting agenda should look like and what it should entail.
- Start and end on time
It is important to stay mindful of other people’s time and energy. If your meeting should end in 90 minutes, do not extend it and always hold a 100-minute meeting. It is immediately not worth a 10 when you exceed your time limit and make people sit longer than they planned to.
Level 10 Meeting Agenda
When it comes to the level 10 meeting agenda, there are a few things that you need to pay attention to. This agenda is always up to some customization according to your teams and company rules, but here are the important steps you should include in the level 10 meeting agenda:
Greetings and positive feedback (ca. 5 minutes)
Start your meeting on a positive note and try to remind your coworkers why teamwork is important. Mention some successes and positive stories. This will motivate your team to listen to your proposed actions further in the meeting as well as contribute to the meeting with their own ideas.
KPIs or Scorecard (ca. 5 minutes)
This part is dedicated to a short review of the company’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and other metrics. The goal of this quick review is to point out what is going well and what is lagging. Your employees need to be aware of this in order to know which actions they need to take and which tasks are a priority.
Rock review (ca. 5 minutes)
Quarterly goals, or “rocks,” need to be reviewed regularly and you need to know how their progress develops. If there are obstacles in the progress or if it is lagging somewhere, it is crucial to resolve these issues so that everyone knows what their further tasks are.
Customer and employee headlines (ca. 5 minutes)
Customer or employee feedback is important because it can tell you in which areas you did well and in which areas you need improvement. This can serve as a good guide for you and your team when planning further responsibilities.
A to-do list (ca. 5 minutes)
You need to make sure that everyone is aware of what their responsibilities are and that your team members have a clear view of their tasks. Also, it is important to discuss the previous meeting allocation and see where everyone’s progress is.
Issues list (60 minutes)
Since issues are almost always at the center of any meeting, this part will take the most time. New or ongoing issues that your business faces will be the focus of this meeting and you will need to develop a strategy as to how to deal with them. You will also need to allocate your team members accordingly and you will need to discuss this in further meetings.
Conclusion (ca. 5 minutes)
This is the final stage of the meeting where you wrap up and review any action items that you assigned during the meeting. This is supposed to provide your team with the responsibilities and expectations once again as a reminder of who is assigned to what.
Meeting Minutes
This is an optional activity but it can be very useful for you. If you want to make meeting minutes and always remind your team members what the main points of discussion were, we suggest using Easynote to create them in just a few clicks.
How To Prepare For a Level 10 Meeting
In order to prepare for a meeting like this, you need to improve your organizational skills.
Level 10 meeting is a structured meeting so you might need a little bit of extra preparation each week in order to fulfill the mentioned agenda.
You can write yourself to-do lists, notes, important questions, and a summary of your workweek. Sometimes it can be a very stressful task because there are many things you need to think about and pay attention to. This article will help you avoid meeting conflicts.
Luckily, there are many apps and different tools out there that will help you with your organizational skills and save you a lot of time doing repetitive tasks or tasks that you need to finish fast.
For example, you want to talk to your coworkers before the level 10 meeting and you want to ask them a few quick questions. It is much easier to complete this using an app and do a quick video call that will help you gather your information than it is to use e-mail or other means of communication.
Plus, using an app can facilitate these tasks because a good time-management app has all meeting apps integrated into itself. One of these apps is Easynote.
Use Easynote to get organized
Easynote is a 5-in-1 tool that can help everyone from project managers, scrum masters, and HRs to all other employees. It is a tool that offers you an overview of everything -everywhere.
Easynote’s ultimate dashboard lets you track all your different plans, tasks, and projects- all in one place. You will never feel lost or feel like you are missing something while using this user-friendly software.
Its useful features will save you a lot of time while planning and organizing your level 10 meetings. You can use any templates you need, customize your plans, and track your project’s process through the app.
Many users have found it very useful when it comes to collaboration as well. You can easily tag your coworkers to certain projects or tasks. Also, you can follow the process of the project or how much time or resources you have left.
Possible Level 10 Meeting Problems
There are a few possible level 10 meeting problems or negative sides that might happen. Next part of the article will tell you about them, and help you prepare for them.
You cannot hold a meeting at a set time or on a set day
This issue might happen if the project manager or HR is unavailable on the set date. Usually, this happens due to personal or professional obligations. Also, events that you didn’t plan for might appear that need to take place at the time when you planned your level 10 meeting. This can completely disturb your schedule. There are a few ways you can go around this problem.
- If HR or Project Manager is taking days off, you can find someone who will replace their role.
- In case there are other events, try to move them to the later hour.
- If none of this is possible, and there is no way you can hold the meeting at the set time and date, we recommend that you skip the meeting for that week. You can always present all the gathered data at the next meeting.
Your coworkers do not want to follow through
Let’s imagine that you are a business owner and you want to implement a certain strategy for your business. However you think this strategy is perfect for your company and your product, your coworkers might disagree.
It is important to listen to them, and evaluate their suggestions. However, if you still think that you want to do it a certain way, stay firm in your decisions.
There also might be problems with one team or one coworker who does not agree with certain strategies, schedules, or plans. In this case, it is good to relocate that person to another team. This might help them to thrive in the new, better surrounding.
If this is not possible, you might want to give them space to express themselves in other less important tasks. 1-on-1 meetings are also always a good option. Whichever way you choose to solve this problem, do not let it disturb your meeting agenda.
Your meeting needs to be longer than 90 minutes
This is never desirable because your coworkers planned the day according to this meeting. It is always a bad idea to exceed the time planned. That is not how a meeting worth a 10 should be.
Try to stay concise and on point, preparing all your important notes and questions beforehand.
Level 10 meeting is ”too structured”
Many might complain about how level 10 meeting has a ”too structured” agenda. This agenda leaves no room for creativity or flexibility. This is true, however, there are many ways you can integrate creativity into your meetings and make them more engaging. During the 60-minute Issues List part of the agenda, there is space for a lot of innovative ideas to present the topics.
Employees might not prepare for the level 10 meeting
Level 10 meetings require a lot of preparation. You need to finish all the documentation and tasks needed for the meeting and gather previous meeting notes. This is not easy even for people who are well-organized, let alone for those coworkers who are not sure how to gather all the important data.
You should look into tools that might help you and your teams stay organized, such as Easynote, and save a lot of time and confusion.
It is hard to make all your coworkers respect such a structured agenda. But once they get a gist of it and get used to these detailed weekly meetings, they will be ready to present all their successes and dilemmas to the team. This awakens productivity and inspires teams to do better, which is a business owner’s number-one goal.
