Our leadership team's weekly To-Do completion rate is stuck at eighty percent, and while we are not dealing with major operational fires, tasks are regularly rolling over for three or four weeks before getting completed. How do we break this cycle of task stagnation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A chronic eighty percent completion rate means your team has developed a tolerance for mediocrity. When To-Dos roll over for three or four weeks, it is usually because they were poorly defined in the first place or because your team lacks peer-to-peer accountability. To-Dos must be bite-sized, weekly commitments. If a task takes more than seven days, it is not a To-Do; it is a milestone or a project. To break this stagnation, the facilitator must enforce a strict two-week rule. Any To-Do that is not completed within two weeks must be immediately moved to the Issues List. Do not let it sit on the To-Do list for a third week. Once it is on the Issues List, the team must run it through IDS to figure out why it is stuck. Is the owner overwhelmed? Is the task too big? Does the owner actually GWC the accountability? By moving stalled To-Dos to the Issues List, you shine a bright light on the delay and force a discussion about the root cause. This eliminates the passive acceptance of late work and forces the owner to explain why they are failing to meet their weekly commitments. Keep the focus on ninety percent completion as the non-negotiable standard for a healthy, high-performing leadership team.