Level 10 Meeting (L10)

DefinitionExampleRelated4
On this pageDefinition
Definition
The fixed, ninety-minute weekly leadership meeting in EOS, covering a check-in, a scorecard review, quarterly priority updates and issue solving.

Why it matters

A meeting without a fixed shape sprawls. Updates run long, the real problems get squeezed into the last ten minutes, and people leave having discussed everything and decided nothing. A fixed agenda keeps the routine parts short, because each has a small slot, and protects an hour for the part that moves the business.

The sameness is deliberate. When everyone knows what comes next and who owns which number, the team spends no energy on how the meeting runs and all of it on the issues.

A weekly rhythm also catches problems early. A number off target on Monday is on the issues list the same day, instead of turning up in a monthly review when it has already cost a month.

How to apply it

  • Hold it at the same time every week and start and finish on time.
  • Review a live scorecard rather than reading numbers from memory, so the metric slot takes minutes.
  • Drop anything off target onto the issues list instead of debating it there and then.
  • Solve issues with IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve), and end each with a to-do that has one owner.
  • Read the ratings. If the average keeps falling, change something about the meeting.

What it is

The Level 10 Meeting is the weekly team meeting at the centre of EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System described by Gino Wickman in the book Traction. The name comes from the aim of rating every meeting a 10 out of 10. The agenda never changes:

  • Check-in, five minutes: each person shares one piece of good news, personal and professional.
  • Scorecard, five minutes: the weekly numbers are checked, and anything off target goes to the issues list.
  • Rock review, five minutes: each quarterly priority is marked on or off track.
  • Headlines, five minutes: customer and team news, one sentence each.
  • To-do list, five minutes: last week's to-dos are done or not done.
  • Issue solving, sixty minutes: the top issues are worked through in order of importance.
  • Conclude, five minutes: the to-dos are recapped and everyone rates the meeting from 1 to 10.

Common mistakes

Turning the meeting into a round of status updates, which belongs in the headlines or in writing. Skipping weeks, which breaks the rhythm that makes problems surface quickly. Inviting people who do not own an issue or a number.

Worked example

Suppose a fourteen-person services company holds a long, unstructured leadership meeting each Monday and often ends it without a decision. The team adopts the Level 10 Meeting from EOS: a ninety-minute slot, the same agenda each week, and a scorecard reviewed before the meeting. The scorecard, goals and issues sit in Bloom Growth OS, so the routine items take about thirty minutes. Issues go onto a shared list, and the rest of the hour goes to the top three, in order of importance. In the month before the change, the team recorded nine decisions. Six weeks after it, the count was 22, and the average rating of the meeting rose from 4 to 7 out of 10.

Tools in the example

Some links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no cost to you. It never decides a ranking. How we work with partners

Related terms

  1. Article

    EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)

    The wider framework the meeting belongs to.

  2. Article

    Rocks (Quarterly Priorities)

    The priorities reviewed in the third slot.

  3. Article

    Scorecard (Weekly Metrics)

    The numbers reviewed in the second slot.

  4. Article

    Operating Cadence

    The full rhythm of meetings the L10 is one part of.