Our leadership team’s weekly to do completion rate has consistently dropped below the target of ninety percent, with leaders blaming urgent client fire drills or daily operational demands for their unfinished tasks. How do we drive real accountability and hit our target without accepting excuses?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A consistent failure to meet the ninety percent to do completion rate is a major red flag. It means your leadership team is prioritizing daily firefighting over their commitments to the business, which stalls your progress and delays your strategic goals. To solve this, you must stop accepting excuses and address the root cause.

During the to do review, if a task is not complete, it must remain on the list for the next week. However, you cannot just let it slide. The owner of that unfinished to do must explain to the team why it was not completed. If the same to do is missed two weeks in a row, it must immediately be pushed to the Issues List to be IDSed.

During IDS®, the team needs to diagnose why the task was missed.

- Was the scope of the to do too large for a seven day window?
- Does the owner lack the capacity or resources to execute?
- Is there a lack of personal discipline and commitment?

By making unfinished to dos a subject of public problem solving, you eliminate the comfort of excuses. A to do is a promise to your team. If your leaders cannot hit their ninety percent target, they are either taking on too much or failing to manage their time effectively.