10 Reasons Your L10 Meetings Suck

Your L10 is on the calendar and you want it to be the meeting that gives your week momentum.

Then Monday night arrives and you’re still chasing numbers. Someone hasn’t updated their To-Dos. The screen share decides to fight you. The team starts talking in the Scorecard section, and you can feel the meeting slipping before you even hit Issues.

That’s how poor performance starts eating the time you were trying to protect.

Here are ten common reasons L10s lose momentum, and the practical fixes that get your time back.

Table of Contents

• The Timing
• The Technology
• What Agenda?
• Distractions
• Lack of Preparation
• Urgent Over Important
• Stuck In Discuss
• Lack of Vulnerability
• Same Person As Chair And Scribe
• You Use The Full 90 Minutes, Every Time
• The Integrator Effect: A Stronger L10 Every Week
• What’s Next

The Timing

An L10 at 8am on a Monday morning sounds fine until you’re living it. People arrive rushed, still clearing email, still getting their head in the week, and the meeting starts flat. When the time of day feels wrong, the room never quite catches up.

Solution: Consider moving it to an hour or two after the working week starts, so you have a buffer to get your act together and walk in ready to run the meeting properly.

The Technology

A meeting can lose momentum quickly when the PC, logins, shared screen, or EOS tool isn’t cooperating. The room waits while someone troubleshoots, and the energy disappears before you’ve even hit the Scorecard.

Solution: Test it all before the meeting. Make sure screen share, logins, meeting file, and audio are working so you start clean. Additionally, use Strety to smooth out the administration of the meeting with our meetings function. 

What Agenda?

The meeting starts in a freefall when the agenda isn’t used the way it was intended. The first sections turn into discussion, the pace disappears, and you hit Issues late with less focus.

Solution: Use the agenda as designed. The first 5 sections and approximately 25 minutes are for reporting, not discussion. From the Segue to To-Dos, keep it to sharing and reporting. When discussion comes up, drop it into the Issues List and solve it there.

Distractions

Phones, smart watches, side conversations, and people checking out all slow the room down. Once distractions are normal, the meeting feels longer, heavier, and less productive.

Solution: Keep it in check with a clear “no electronics” rule, then stick to it consistently.

Lack of Preparation

When To-Dos aren’t updated, the team has to sit through “umm and arr” updates and half-remembered status reports. You end up spending meeting time finding clarity you could have brought in with you.

Solution: Take time out before the meeting to get clear. Five minutes should do the trick. Update your To-Dos and walk in ready to report.

Urgent Over Important

Urgent problems will keep showing up during the week, and they’ll keep trying to hijack your meeting. When the L10 becomes a place for today’s noise, the important issues that drive traction stay unresolved.

Solution: Deal with the urgent as they arise. Take the underlying important issues to the L10 and solve them there. That’s the best use of your time.

Stuck In Discuss

IDS is Identify, Discuss, Solve. The meeting stalls when you identify and discuss, then stay there. You circle the same points and walk out without a decision, owner, or next step.

Solution: Bring the team back to Solve. Ask out loud, “Are we getting closer to a solve here?” or “Is this discussion still productive?” Then move to a decision and a clear To-Do.

Lack of Vulnerability

An L10 works when real issues get put on the table. When the meeting turns into a polite catch-up and a walkthrough of the agenda, the real problems don’t get solved and they show up again later in messier ways.

Solution: Treat the L10 as the most important meeting of the week. Bring the real issues into the room and solve them. Honesty matters, and pretending everything is ok creates drag for everyone.

Same Person As Chair And Scribe

When the person running the meeting also scribes the meeting, everyone waits while they type To-Dos, Issues, and notes. Pace drops, attention wanders, and the flow breaks repeatedly.

Solution: Share the load. Take turns running the meeting and scribing it. It helps everyone understand the agenda and the flow, and it means anyone can jump in with a moment’s notice to run the meeting if they have to.

You Use The Full 90 Minutes, Every Time

Some meetings drag to 90 minutes because the team finishes the agenda, tackles issues, and then sits in silence while someone tries to think of what else to solve. The meeting time becomes a habit, not a guide.

Solution: Treat the timing as a guide. The 90 minutes is the maximum meeting duration, not a weekly target. When you’ve worked through the agenda and solved what needed solving, end the meeting.

The Integrator Effect: A Stronger L10 Every Week

Most teams already know what makes an L10 work. The struggle is carrying the weekly load that keeps it working every single week.

An EOS Integrator takes ownership of your meeting rhythm and holds the details that usually create drag:

• Prep happens before the meeting, so you’re not chasing scorecard numbers on Monday night.
• The agenda keeps moving, and the Scorecard doesn’t turn into a discussion section.
• Issues get captured cleanly during the week, then IDS moves to Solve in the room.
• To-Dos get tracked and closed between meetings, so the same issues don’t keep looping back.

You feel it immediately in the week. Your L10 starts on time, the room stays focused, and decisions leave with clear owners and dates that hold. The meeting stops stealing time and starts giving it back.

Independent Executives are owners of the Integrator Academy(r) which is built to fill the integrator talent gap across the globe. The Integrator Academy is a world‑leading online learning platform designed to help Integrators build tactical mastery, including L10 meetings, sharpen execution, and lead high‑performing teams inside EOS‑run businesses.

Independent Executives also support EOS leadership teams across Australia with hand-picked, trained Integrators who bring that consistency, keep traction moving, and protect your time week after week. 

What’s Next

EOS implementation is a journey. If you want a quick snapshot of what’s already working and what might need a little more attention or support, take the Fast50 Assessment at Independent Executives. Answer 10 quick questions and you’ll get a score out of 50.