Ever leave a meeting feeling like you talked about a lot but didn’t actually solve anything?
You reviewed project updates, discussed customer concerns, worked through staffing challenges, and everyone contributed. But then the following week, many of the same issues showed up again. I see this all the time with leadership teams, especially in technology integration businesses where there’s no shortage of projects, service calls, and daily fires competing for attention.
The difference between a mediocre meeting and a great one isn’t how much gets discussed — it’s how much gets solved.
That’s exactly why EOS includes a tool called IDS: Identify, Discuss, Solve. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most powerful disciplines a leadership team can build because it shifts the conversation from reacting to symptoms to solving the issues that are holding the business back.
Identify
The first step is to Identify the real issue. This is where most teams struggle. Someone points out that projects are running behind, another person suggests hiring more people, and someone else recommends new software. Before long, the team is debating solutions without first agreeing on the problem they’re trying to solve.
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In my experience, the first issue on the table is rarely the real one. What looks like a project management problem may actually be a sales handoff issue, unclear accountability, or a capacity planning challenge. Slowing down long enough to identify the root issue almost always leads to a better solution.
Discuss
Only once you’ve identified the issue is it time to Discuss it. Healthy discussion isn’t about everyone agreeing — it’s about creating enough trust for people to challenge assumptions, ask hard questions, and say what everyone else is thinking. Some of the biggest breakthroughs I’ve witnessed happened when a leadership team stopped talking around an issue and finally addressed what was really getting in the way.
Solve
Finally, it’s time to Solve. A solution doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does need to be clear. By the end of the conversation, the team should have made a decision, assigned ownership, and agreed on the next step. Without those three things, you’ve simply had an interesting conversation, not a productive meeting.
When issues aren’t solved at the root, the cost extends far beyond one frustrating meeting. The same conversations resurface quarter after quarter, progress on your biggest priorities slows, and people begin to wonder whether raising issues is even worth it. Then comes what I call the “meeting after the meeting” — the hallway conversations, side texts, and Slack messages where the real discussion happens without the right people in the room. That’s when alignment breaks down and decisions become fragmented.
One of the reasons IDS works so well is that it becomes part of your weekly rhythm. In a Level 10 Meeting, the majority of the agenda is intentionally reserved for solving the team’s most important issues, not simply sharing updates. That’s what transforms meetings from status reports into decision-making sessions where leaders tackle the issues that matter most. If your leadership meetings feel more like updates than opportunities to move the business forward, make a change and reach out, I will share a free download of the Level 10 Meeting Agenda.
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If your team is having the real conversation after the meeting, it’s worth asking why it didn’t happen during the meeting.
The healthiest teams create enough trust to surface the hard issues in the room, solve them together, and leave aligned. That’s when meetings stop feeling mediocre and start becoming the engine that moves the business forward.
Haley Patterson, certified EOS implementer, helps entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. If you want to learn more about EOS, she offers a 90-minute complimentary value-add session for leadership teams. Contact [email protected] for details.
