During our Level 10 Meeting™ To-Do list review, our leaders frequently report that their seven-day action items are in progress rather than done, expecting us to roll them over without consequences. How do we enforce a strict binary done or not done standard for our weekly To-Dos?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The standard for a healthy Level 10 Meeting is a ninety percent completion rate for weekly To-Dos. When leaders regularly report that their action items are in progress or almost done, they are slipping into a culture of excuses. In progress is not a valid status update. It is a slow leak that delays company execution and stalls your quarterly Rocks.

To break this habit, you must enforce a strict, binary done or not done standard. During the To-Do list review, the Integrator must ask, is it done? The only acceptable answers are yes or no.

If a leader says no, do not let them give a five minute explanation of why they failed or what they did instead. Simply mark it as not done and keep moving.

If a To-Do has rolled over for more than two weeks, it must automatically be dropped to the Issues List to be diagnosed during the IDS portion of the meeting. This is not about punishing the leader, but about identifying the root cause of the delay. Is the leader overloaded? Is there a cross departmental bottleneck?

By maintaining a zero tolerance policy for in progress updates, you restore the integrity of your seven day commitments and build true operational accountability.