How to run a Level 10 Meeting™ (L10) that actually works

Picture this: a weekly meeting that actually starts on time, doesn't derail into a venting session, and systematically crushes your biggest business roadblocks before you even stand up to stretch.

Now look at your actual calendar. You probably recognize the recurring block that never quite works. It starts late, wanders from topic to topic, and one person's update swallows half the time. People check their phones. Nothing really gets decided, and by the end the team drifts back to their desks wondering where the ninety minutes went.

This isn't a problem with your team's dedication, it is a design problem. The leadership teams who get the most out of their weekly meetings don't have a secret superpower, they just run them with a structure that protects their time and sanity every single week.

This guide breaks down how to build that exact rhythm: you will learn what an L10™ actually is, walk through the agenda step-by-step, review the common traps teams fall into, and learn how to keep everything organized so your momentum doesn't vanish the moment the meeting ends.

What is a Level 10 Meeting?

A Level 10 Meeting is a structured, weekly 90-minute meeting designed to keep teams aligned and focused on solving their biggest business problems. It is a core tool of EOS.

It also helps to know where this meeting sits. EOS® runs on a meeting pulse: annuals to set the vision and plan the year, quarterlies every 90 days to review Rocks and stay aligned, and the Level 10 Meeting™ every week to keep it all on track. The annuals and quarterlies set the direction. The weekly L10™ is where the team keeps Rocks moving and clears the Issues that come up in between, so nothing waits until the next quarter to get addressed.

The name "Level 10" comes from the rating system used at the very end of the meeting: before leaving, every participant rates the meeting's productivity on a scale of 1 to 10. The goal is to run a meeting so focused and effective that everyone honestly rates it a 10.

When a meeting genuinely earns a high score, it is because:

• Everyone arrived on time and fully present

• The agenda flowed smoothly without getting sidetracked

• The team prioritized their top issues to discuss

• The team identified, discussed and solved deep-rooted issues rather than just putting a temporary band-aid on them

• Everyone left with clear ownership of their next steps

This rating is valuable because it offers real-time, honest feedback. If someone rates the meeting a 6, it isn't a failure: it is a helpful signal.

It gives the L10 facilitator a perfect opportunity to ask a simple question: "What would it have taken to make this a 10?"

The answer is usually something concrete, such as starting late or spending too much time on a minor issue. Consistently asking this question week after week is the key to transforming a mediocre meeting into a productive session over the span of a quarter.

Level 10 Meeting agenda: The 90-minute breakdown

To make sure everything fits into a ninety-minute block, every Level 10 Meeting follows the exact same seven segments in the exact same order. Think of these timings not as strict limitations, but as helpful boundaries designed to protect your problem-solving time: the period reserved for Identifying, Discussing and Solving (IDS’ing) issues. Everything leading up to that point is structured to move quickly so you can dedicate a full, uninterrupted hour to solving your biggest challenges.

• Segue: 5 minutes

• Scorecard review: 5 minutes

• Rock review: 5 minutes

• Customer & employee Headlines: 5 minutes

• To-Do List review: 5 minutes

• IDS™ (Identify, Discuss, Solve): 60 minutes

• Conclude & rate: 5 minutes

1. Segue (5 minutes)

Start the meeting by sharing a bit of good news. Each team member takes a moment to share one personal win and one professional win from their past week. 

While this might feel a little like corporate summer camp at first, it serves a practical purpose: it helps everyone transition out of their busy daily tasks, and reminds a hardworking team that good things are actually happening alongside the challenges. Keep it to five minutes so it sets a warm, positive tone without becoming a lengthy catch-up.

2. Scorecard review (5 minutes)

Next, your team takes a quick look at its weekly numbers. A well-designed Scorecard highlights a few key measurables, each with an assigned owner and a clear target, so you can see at a glance whether a number is on track.

A quick word on what you're measuring. The most useful Scorecards lean on leading measurables, the activities your team controls week to week, rather than lagging ones that only report the result after the fact. Revenue closed is a lagging number: by the time it dips, the quarter is already slipping. Sales conversations booked is a leading number: it tells you today whether next month is on track, while there's still time to do something about it.

The secret to this segment is maintaining a fast pace. Since you aren't analyzing or diagnosing anything just yet, you simply call out each number and note if it is on track. If a metric is off track, you immediately add it to the Issues List and keep moving.

It can be tempting to stop and try to fix a bad number right away, but doing so will derail your schedule. Save those discussions for the dedicated hour at the end.

3. Rock™ review (5 minutes)

Apply that same quick rhythm to your Rocks: each owner simply reports whether their priority is currently "on track" or "off track" without adding extra details or explaining the background story.

If a Rock is slipping, simply drop it onto the Issues List so the team can address it thoroughly during the IDS portion of the L10. Five minutes is plenty of time because the status of a Rock should ideally be a clear on track or off track, and if you find yourself needing a full paragraph to explain where things stand, that is a sure sign the topic deserves a spot on the Issues List.

A full guide to setting, owning and tracking quarterly priorities.

4. Customer and employee headlines (5 minutes)

This is a brief window for sharing quick, bullet-point updates about your customers and team members. It might be news that a key client is struggling, that an exciting new hire has accepted an offer, or that someone on the team is going through a tough time.

These headlines are designed to keep everyone informed without turning into a long conversation. Again, if an update requires real attention or a solution, simply add it to the Issues List to address later.

5. To-Do List review (5 minutes)

The To-Do List covers the short-term, seven-day action items that were assigned during last week's meeting. Run down the list and mark each item as "done" or "not done." Typically, a healthy team completes about 90% of their to-dos each week, primarily because these items are designed to be small, manageable commitments rather than massive, multi-week projects.

If an item isn't finished, avoid spending time discussing the reasons why during this segment. Instead, it either carries over to next week or, if there is a deeper roadblock in the way, you move it to the Issues List.

6. IDS™: Identify, Discuss, Solve (60 minutes)

This segment is the heart of the entire meeting. Everything from the first twenty-five minutes was designed to gather, organize, and prioritize your Issues List so you can spend this precious hour where it matters most.

Begin by prioritizing: take a look at the entire list and select the top three most critical issues, which are the ones that will have the biggest positive impact on the business if you resolve them this week. Then focus entirely on the first issue, working through it completely before even glancing at the second.

The letters in IDS are intentional:

Identify

Dig deep to find the root cause of the problem. Often, the initial issue brought to the table is just a symptom of something deeper. For example, a concern like "the close rate dropped" might actually turn out to be "the pricing structure changed without training the sales team." It is worth spending real time here, because once you have identified the true issue, you are already halfway to a solution.

Discuss

This is the space for your team to openly share their thoughts, with one important guideline: everyone says what they need to say once. Repeating the same point in different words doesn't move the conversation forward, it just creates noise. The facilitator's role here is to gently keep the conversation moving and prevent the team from looping.

Solve

Wrap up the discussion with a clear, actionable outcome. This could be a firm decision or a set of specific to-dos assigned to a single owner with a one-week deadline. A true solution means the issue is resolved for good, rather than just being postponed. If the same problem pops up again next week, it's a sign that you didn't quite solve it, but perhaps just stepped around it.

You likely won't clear your entire list during this hour, and that is actually by design. Successfully resolving a few key issues for good is far more valuable than skimming through ten and leaving them all half-solved.

7. Conclude and rate the meeting (5 minutes)

The final five minutes are all about wrapping things up cleanly. First, quickly rattle off the newly assigned to-dos so everyone is clear about their commitments next week.

Next, flag your cascading messages. These are the key decisions that need to reach the rest of the company directly from leadership, preventing the company rumor mill.

Finally, go around the room for the ultimate moment of truth: have everyone rate the meeting out of 10.

Getting to the real root cause is the hardest part of the hour. We wrote a full guide on it.

Common Level 10 Meeting mistakes to avoid

When first adopting the Level 10 format, almost every team runs into a few common, predictable hurdles. Realizing why these slip-ups happen is the fastest way to build a productive weekly routine.

Solving Issues too early in the agenda

This is easily the most common pitfall. When a measurable looks off on the Scorecard, the natural urge is to dive into  it immediately. Doing so can quickly eat up twenty minutes, derail the agenda, and leave you with no time for the IDS portion.

To avoid this, stick to a firm boundary: during the reporting segments, off-track items are simply noted and placed on the Issues List, saving all problem-solving for the designated hour.

Jumping to discussion before identifying the actual problem

Because teams naturally want to find solutions, it is easy to grab an issue and immediately start proposing fixes. Unfortunately, this often means you are only treating the symptom while the core problem remains. Taking a moment to slow down and ask, "What is the real issue underneath this issue?" can save a great deal of time and effort.

Arriving at the meeting with an outdated Scorecard

If the measurables aren't updated before you begin, the first few minutes of the meeting turn into a frantic dig as everyone scrambles to find their data. Keeping the Scorecard current before the meeting starts makes a world of difference.

Allowing the L10 To-Do list to grow without completion

When tasks continually slide from week to week without being addressed, the list piles up, and team members can easily start feeling like these commitments are optional. If a particular to-do has rolled over for three weeks in a row, it is no longer just a task. Instead, it is a deeper issue regarding capacity or clarity, and it deserves a spot in your IDS discussion.

Giving polite, dishonest ratings

The rating system only works if everyone tells the truth. If a team routinely rates every session an 8 just to avoid hurting feelings, they lose their best tool for improvement. Rate the meeting based on how it actually went, and view lower scores as a constructive way to build a better rhythm.

Treating the weekly L10 schedule as flexible

Keeping the meeting on the same day and at the same time each week is a core part of its design. When teams treat the Level 10 Meeting as something that can easily be rescheduled, the habit often begins to fade away within a few months. Prioritizing this weekly block helps build a consistent, reliable routine.

How to run Level 10 Meetings using Success.co

Running a precise weekly alignment meeting on scattered documents and dusty spreadsheets is like trying to steer a ship with a broken compass and a prayer. It is tedious, things get lost, and someone always ends up annoyed. Success.co is built from the ground up to automate the preparation work and keep your team hyper-focused:

Sync your calendar in seconds

Connect Google or Microsoft Calendar with a single click. From there, you can load up pre-set, EOS-compatible templates such as the Level 10 Meeting, Quarterly Pulsing, Focus Day, or Annual Planning. No more copying and pasting templates like it is 1999.

End the "where are we?" confusion

Success.co assigns clear roles for your Facilitator and Scribe. During live meetings, the exact section the Facilitator is looking at automatically highlights on everyone else's screen in real time. Plus, a smart sidebar clock ticks down your remaining minutes, keeping everyone honest.

One-click Issue creation

When a measurable misses on your live Scorecard or a priority stalls during the Rock review, do not pause to debate it. Hit the quick "Drop it down" button to instantly log it as an Issue, To-Do, or Headline. It safely files the problem away in one click so you can keep the reporting train rolling.

The wonderful "Tangent Alert" button

We all have that one teammate who loves to turn a quick status update into a twenty-minute storytelling monologue. When the conversation starts veering off a cliff before the IDS block, anyone in the room can smash the Tangent button. This fires a screen-wide alert to check the distraction and drag everyone's focus right back to the agenda.

Easy prioritization of Issues

When you reach the IDS hour, ranking your top three Issues takes a couple of clicks. Prioritize what matters most, work through each Issue, and turn a solved one into a fresh To-Do with a clear owner, all in the same place.

Automated meeting summaries

The second you wrap up and capture your ratings, Success.co automatically fires a clean summary email to the whole squad. And if your leadership team wants to go old-school and run a strictly no-screens meeting, you can download a clean PDF of the agenda in one click.

The biggest benefit, however, is what happens between your weekly gatherings. Because your Rocks, Scorecard metrics, and To-dos are housed in a single, accessible space rather than buried in an old presentation, you can spot an off-track Rock the week it begins to slip rather than a month later.