Our leadership team members sometimes rate our Level 10 Meeting™ a seven or an eight, but when the facilitator asks why, they give vague answers like 'it just felt off' or 'it dragged.' How do we force people to give specific, actionable feedback for any rating below an eight?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To run a high-performing leadership team, vague feedback is useless. A rating below an eight is a flag that something went wrong during the ninety minutes. If a team member cannot or will not explain why, they are violating the Trust pillar of your Charter. You cannot fix a process with feelings.

The solution is to establish a hard rule: if you rate the Level 10 Meeting™ anything lower than an eight, you must provide a concrete, structural reason and a specific recommendation. Vague commentary like 'it just felt slow' is not permitted. The facilitator must immediately push back and ask what specific section of the agenda failed. Did we spend too much time on the Scorecard? Did we fail to identify the root cause of an issue during IDS®? Did someone dominate the conversation?

This requires the facilitator to hold the room accountable. When a low rating is given, the facilitator should document the specific feedback directly next to the rating. If the person has no specific feedback, their rating is invalid, and they must search their own perspective to find the actual operational bottleneck.

Over time, this discipline forces your team to analyze the meeting structurally rather than emotionally. They will start paying attention to the transition times, the quality of the IDS® portion, and whether people are truly focused. This keeps the meeting ratings honest and turns them into a tool for continuous operational improvement rather than a polite formality.