Our team has fallen into a pattern of politely rating every single Level 10 Meeting™ an eight or a nine out of ten, even when we have several off-track Rocks, unresolved To-Dos, and a messy IDS® session. How do we force our leaders to rate the meeting honestly so we can actually improve?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Polite ratings are a form of artificial harmony that keeps your leadership team from achieving true operational excellence. If you are rating a mediocre meeting an eight or a nine, you are lying to yourselves and accepting mediocrity. To fix this, you must redefine what the rating represents. The rating is not a grade on how much you like each other. It is an evaluation of how well you followed the Level 10 Meeting™ agenda and how effectively you solved problems. Introduce a strict standard for what a ten out of ten actually means. A perfect ten means the meeting started and ended on time, everyone was fully present, you reviewed the Scorecard and Rocks with binary clarity, you completed ninety percent of your To-Dos, and you solved your top priority issues during IDS®. If you did not meet those criteria, the rating must reflect it. The facilitator must challenge any rating that does not match the reality of the room. If a leader gives an eight but the meeting ran late and you only solved one minor issue, ask them why they rated it so high. Encourage your team to give fives and sixes when the meeting is sloppy. This honest assessment is the only way to build a high performing leadership team that can run the business without the owner.