Let The Right Hand Know What The Left Is Doing
Imagine the impact of your right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing in your own human body? You couldn’t ride a bicycle. You would have a hard time using a knife and fork to cut your food. It would be amusing to watch you clap your hands. Life would definitely be interesting!
Is your business interesting but not in a good way? Because your business body’s right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing? Think of it, how often do you hear, “well Sales just doesn’t understand what we do in Operations” or “Finance doesn’t care about making revenue, they just want to limit us in Sales.” Or even worse is if your customer asks, “Do your departments not communicate?”
My client was experiencing the benefit of powerful weekly Level 10 Meetings with their executive team which has increased the communication across all functions so they are contributing to solutions for the greater good of the organization . . . their business body! The 3 main things that happen in a Level 10 Meeting are 1) reporting on what’s important, 2) holding each other accountable to actions, and 3) solving issues for the greater good.
Reporting on What’s Important
In a Level 10 Meeting, teams report on what’s most important in terms of numbers (Scorecard), priorities (Rocks), and people headlines (good or bad news with customers and employees). This quick update on these important items gives us an overview of the health of the organization and if we are on or off track to our agreed goals. It’s an update from the “left” hand, “right” hand, and other parts of the business body. It’s also a great opportunity to celebrate successes and bring up issues that are keeping the team from being better. If there is an issue for discussion, then we “drop it down” to IDS referenced below.
Holding Each Accountable to Action
The next section of a Level 10 Meeting is To Do’s, or 7-day actions that are either done or not done. Every week, the Leadership Team commits to actions that are important to the team to keep priorities moving forward or getting issues to a resolution. Checking in every week to see if these were done increases the accountability and informs each other what the “left” and “right” hands are doing. This isn’t meant to be a To Do list for everything that Leadership Team member is accountable for based on their Accountability Chart, but a To Do that reaches the level of importance that needs to be reported at the Leadership Team level.
Solving for the Greater Good
The last main section of a Level 10 Meeting is IDSing, or solving issues. First the team prioritizes the top 3 issues to solve. Then follow the EOS issues solving track called IDS which stands for Identify, Discuss, and Solve. My client was really referring to the magic of the IDS process when they stated the right hand “shaking” the left hand. This process helps create healthy dialogue across the Leadership Team in solving issues for the greater good. Egos are put aside, blaming is cast away, and functional heads put their individual desires aside to fight for what’s on their Vision/Traction Organizer. They may agree to disagree on the solution, but they “shake” hands and move forward in solidarity. Then they move to the next 3 priority issues to solve until time is out.
If your Leadership Team is accomplishing these 3 main things weekly in your meetings (Reporting, Accountable Actions, Solving Issues), then you’ll be doing the hokey pokey and with your right and left hands and doing it well . . . admired by all companies that know the powerful impact of the right hand “shaking” the left hand.
To Your Business Health TM!