Our Level 10 Meeting™ ratings are consistently high, but we are not actually getting the hardest issues on the table. The team is rating the meeting an eight or nine out of habit or politeness. How do we challenge these artificial ratings?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a team consistently rates their Level 10 Meeting™ as an eight, nine, or ten, but critical operational issues remain unresolved and performance is lagging, you are experiencing artificial harmony. Your team is prioritizing politeness over progress, which is a dangerous trap for any leadership team.

To break through this, the Integrator must actively challenge the ratings. At the end of the meeting, when someone gives a nine, ask them why. Do not accept a simple: It was good. Force them to justify the score. Ask them if they felt we solved the most critical issues today, or if we merely tackled the easiest ones.

You can also introduce a new rule for your ratings. If a meeting ends and the most difficult, elephant-in-the-room issue was not discussed or solved, the meeting cannot be rated higher than a seven. A seven is a holding pattern. It means we met, we talked, but we did not actually move the needle on the things that matter most.

Encourage healthy conflict during the IDS® portion of the meeting. If your meetings are polite and quiet, they are probably boring and ineffective. Real problem-solving requires debate, disagreement, and vulnerability. If your team is not willing to enter into healthy conflict, they will continue to give fake high ratings to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Raise the bar for what constitutes a high-rated meeting, and demand that your leaders bring real, raw honesty to the table.