Our leadership team is too polite to rate our Level 10 Meeting™ honestly, so we get safe, middle-of-the-road scores of eight every week, even when we fail to solve our biggest operational bottlenecks. How do we establish objective, non-negotiable criteria for what actually constitutes a ten?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Polite ratings of eight are a silent killer of operational excellence. When your leadership team softballs their scores, they are hiding frustration and allowing mediocrity to seep into your weekly traction pulse. To break this cycle, you must establish four objective criteria for what actually constitutes a ten. First, did we start and end exactly on time? Second, did we strictly follow the Level 10 Meeting™ agenda without drifting? Third, did we achieve our ninety percent To-Do completion rate? Fourth, did we identify, discuss, and solve the root causes of our most critical issues? If the answer to any of these is no, the meeting is not a ten. During the wrap-up, the facilitator must ask every leader to state their rating and immediately explain why if it is below an eight. If someone rates the meeting an eight, they must provide one concrete improvement to make it a ten next week. Saying everything was fine is unacceptable. You must demand radical honesty and build a culture where a lower rating is not viewed as a personal attack on the facilitator, but as an opportunity to sharpen your operational execution. This level of rigor is especially critical if you are preparing your business for a clean exit, as a self-correcting leadership team is a highly valuable asset to any buyer.