Three years-ago I sat in 30-45 minute meetings on a daily basis. And though there were only 5 people in the meeting, 3 would show up late, we'd typically go on a tangent, and there was no agenda or reason for the meeting.
Though it was nice to catch-up with the team and made for great conversations (often not relevant to business), it minimized our productivity and left us wondering, "why are we meeting again?" each time we jumped into the meeting room.
Let's be real, some meetings can be a massive waste of time. And if you did the math, an hour long meeting can cost your business thousands of dollars.
Time is precious. And for any business, especially a service-based business, it's you most vital resource.
Yes, all businesses need meetings. You can't get rid of them completely. But you need the appropriate meeting structure and cadence to make them efficient, effective, and always worth the time.
So, how can we can make meetings great again?
Enter the Level 10 (L10) Meeting™ (brought to you by EOS Worldwide).
What is a Level 10 Meeting™?
In a nutshell, a Level 10 Meeting™ is a 90-minute meeting that happens weekly on the same day, same time, with the same agenda.
And yes, this also means that your meeting needs to start on time and end on time.
Where does the Level 10 name come from?
The name comes from the meeting rating.
At the end of each meeting, participants will be asked to rate the meeting on a 1-10 scale. Most meetings that don't run on the L10 framework averaged a rating of 4.
Level 10 Meetings™ strive to always be rated a 10 out of 10.
How is a L10 Meeting™ any different than any other meeting?
Aside from the same day, same time, same agenda, L10 meetings™ are much more issue driven.
L10 Meetings™ focus on identifying, prioritizing, and solving company issues rather than a hodgepodge of meeting topics that may or not be relevant.
They're much more actionable and help keep the team engaged throughout the entire meeting.
What Is the Agenda for a Level 10 Meeting™?
There are 7-main topics that are discussed in L10 Meetings™.
Each component of the meeting is timed to make the most of the total 90-minute duration. You always want to make sure you have a timer during your L10 meetings to keep you on track. Do not go over time!
Here's a breakdown of the L10 Meeting™ agenda:
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Check-in (5 minutes): This is a quick round where each member shares some good news, both personal and professional. It's designed to set a positive tone for the meeting and foster team cohesion.
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Scorecard Review (5 minutes): The team reviews the weekly scorecard. If any numbers are off track, they're identified but not solved here. Instead, they're added to the Issues List for later discussion. This section ensures that everyone is aligned and updated on the company's critical numbers.
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Rock Review (5 minutes): "Rocks" are the 90-day priorities or objectives. In this segment, each member updates the team on the status of their Rocks, stating simply if they're "on track" or "off track." If off track, the issue is added to the Issues List.
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Customer/Employee Headlines (5 minutes): Team members share any news or feedback about customers or employees. It can be both positive or negative. If there's a problem or an issue, it's added to the Issues List.
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To-Do List (5 minutes): The team reviews the To-Do list from the previous week, checking off completed items and carrying forward any that aren't yet done. Items that have been on the list for more than two weeks without being completed get added to the Issues List.
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Issues List (60 minutes): This is the heart of the L10 Meeting™. The team tackles the most critical issues identified during the meeting, aiming to solve them in the order of their importance. The EOS methodology suggests using the "IDS" approach: Identify the root cause of the issue, Discuss potential solutions, and then Solve by deciding on a course of action.
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Conclude (5 minutes):
- Recap the To-Do list for the upcoming week.
- State the cascading messages that need to be communicated to the rest of the organization.
- Rate the meeting on a scale from 1 to 10, aiming for each meeting to be a 10. This ensures continuous improvement and feedback.
By adhering to this organized agenda, L10 Meetings™ effectively tackle and resolve the most critical issues within a condensed time frame, guaranteeing that teams stay synchronized, concentrated, and proactive in their problem-solving approach.
Make sure your team is on time to the meeting. A 9am should start at 9am. Therefore, your team should arrive at 8:55am to get the pre-meeting small talk out of the way before the business talk begins.
Now that we have a bit of background on L10 Meetings™, let's walk through how you can run them inside of ClickUp.
L10 Meeting™ Agenda Template
Access our pre-built L10 Meeting™ Agenda ClickUp template, 100% free.
Why Should You Run Your L10 Meetings™ in ClickUp?
How many times has someone said they would do something in a meeting and it never ended up happening? Or maybe it did, but it took 10-20 followup messages...
The best part of running L10 Meetings™ out of ClickUp, is the ability to make your meetings much more actionable, and provide the accountability that we all need.
Running L10 Meetings™ directly in ClickUp helps you create and assign tasks that come from meetings and then check the status of those meetings weekly. Tasks won't be disappearing in this meeting structure.
Aside from that, you'll also have a much easier process for reviewing rocks, solving issues, and evaluating scorecards.
Related: How to Run EOS® in ClickUp
Running L10 Meetings™ Directly in ClickUp
Step 1: Create an Agenda Template
To begin, create your L10 Meeting™ agenda template (you can download our L10 meeting agenda template here).
This should include meeting topics you will discuss and time limits for each of them.
You can also embed your scorecard, rocks list, issues list, and to-do list directly into this document. Or you can just link out to those resources.
Step 2: Assign Meeting Tasks
Assign tasks related to the L10 Meeting™ to everyone that will be attending. This should include tasks related to prep, attending, and any post-meeting tasks.
These tasks will live in the L10 Meeting™ & To-Dos List.
Your prep tasks should direct your team to update their rocks (marking rocks as on or off track), add issues to the issues list, and update their scorecard metrics.
Giving them a task the day before the meeting will make sure everyone is prepared and ready to go.
Step 3: Run the Meeting
Run the meeting and follow the L10 structure.
You'll always want to make sure you have someone keeping and tracking time and documenting everything. Assign those duties to two members of your team to keep the meeting running smoothly and on time.
And follow the agenda.
Meetings are often time-wasters because there is no agenda or the agenda isn't followed. Stay on time and don't be afraid to stop conversation and move on to the next meeting item if necessary.
Step 4: IDS™ (Identify, Discuss, and Solve)
When it comes to IDS™ (Identify, Discuss, and Solve) in ClickUp, you'll work out of your L10 Meeting™ Issues List.
The team should've already added issues to this list, but you can ask if anyone needs to add anything else to add.
Before you begin, prioritize three issues on the list. You can use the ClickUp priority field to do this.
Your issues list should contain a view that sorts your issues by priority so that you can group all of the urgent issues together and solve those first (shown below).
Once your team has prioritized three issues, it's time to start discussing and solving. Click on the issue to open up the task details.
Hopefully there will be a task description explaining what the issue is. But regardless if there is or isn't, you'll have the issue submitter speak and explain the issue.
Once the issue is explained, begin discussing and solving it. You can take notes directly in the task description or comments section. When the issue is solved, you can close the task.
If there is an action item from this issue, you can either turn the issue into a task and be moved to the L10 Meeting™ & To-Dos List. Or you can create a separate task from it.
I recommend that you grab all of the notes from this task and paste them to the new task, or add a relationship between the two tasks to easily relate back to the issue.
Once you've solved all three issues that you've prioritized, prioritize the next three. Keep going until you run out of time.
🎁 BONUS: ClickUp Automation to Send Low Health Score Clients to The Issues List
For teams that have built a CRM inside of ClickUp, you'll be able to address client issues before they become fires during your IDS™ time (this is actually an internal process that we've built at ZenPilot and it's been extremely helpful).
You'll begin this process by creating a deals list in your ClickUp CRM (or within your client tracker).
When your account managers update these deal records and submit their client health scores, the "task", if there is a low health score, will automatically be added to the issues list for discussion (see automation below).
The "task" will not be moved to the issues list, but it will be added to the issues list and live in both lists (see screenshot below).
Need a trusted ClickUp expert to configure this process for your team? Book a call with one of our experts.
Step 5: Close the Meeting
Lastly, you'll want to close the meeting and assign all action items with due dates and time estimates.
Once your meeting is over, make sure you have everything documented, tasks are assigned out, and the team has rated your meeting on a scale of 1-10.
You can send a followup in Slack and then deploy a template for next week's meeting!
With your L10 meetings™ run in ClickUp, you stay accountable to the rhythms and everything becomes connected and actionable.
Run EOS® in ClickUp
Get the full EOS® ClickUp template to start running EOS® in ClickUp today. Track your rocks, run L10 meetings™, and IDS™ directly in ClickUp.
Build a More Productive Team With Level 10 Meetings™
I wouldn't be writing this article if I didn't believe in this framework myself.
We've used Level 10 Meeting™ agendas even before we implemented EOS®. They've been a foundational component to our success.
Meetings are actionable, our team is much more productive, and we solve plenty of issues before they become fires.
If you're not sold on the idea, I suggest you ask your team to start rating your current meetings. If you receive a lot of ratings in the 4-7 range, it may be time to change it up.
And if you'd like guidance on how to run more productive meetings in ClickUp, book a call with my team.
We've helped close to 3,000 agencies build more productive, profitable, and healthy teams and we'd love to do the same for you.
Cancel chaos.
Create clarity.
You can build a happier, more productive, more profitable team with ClickUp. We'll show you how.
