Our weekly Level 10 Meeting™ produces a long list of To-Dos, but we are consistently failing to achieve our target of ninety percent completion every week. How do we stop our team from agreeing to action items they cannot deliver within seven days?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A low To-Do completion rate is a sign of poor meeting discipline and a lack of true accountability. When team members consistently miss their seven-day commitments, it creates a culture where deadlines are treated as suggestions rather than firm agreements.

To turn this around, you must change how To-Dos are assigned during your Level 10 Meeting. First, stop letting people passively accept tasks. When an action item is generated during IDS, the meeting leader must ask the owner if they can realistically complete it within seven days. The owner must look at their calendar and give a firm yes or no. If they cannot commit to completing it, the task must either be broken down into a smaller step, assigned to someone else, or moved back to the Issues List.

Second, enforce the definition of a To-Do. A To-Do is a task that can be completely finished in seven days. If a task requires several weeks of work, it is either a Rock or it needs to be broken down into weekly milestones.

Third, run the To-Do review at the beginning of the meeting with absolute transparency. Read each task and ask the owner if it is done or not done. There is no middle ground, and there are no excuses allowed. If a task is not done, it stays on the list for one more week. If it is still not done the following week, drop it to the Issues List to identify why the owner is struggling to complete their commitments.