We just completed our first ninety days of EOS® and our scorecards are set up, but our leadership team is still reverting to managing by firefighting. How do we make the transition to data-driven leadership stick?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Reverting to firefighting after your first ninety days is a common survival mechanism for teams used to operating in chaos. To make the transition to data-driven leadership stick, you must strictly enforce the weekly discipline of the Level 10 Meeting™ and the Scorecard. Your Scorecard must contain leading indicators, not lagging financial metrics. If your team is only looking at monthly revenue, they are driving by looking in the rearview mirror. They will naturally resort to firefighting because they only see problems after they occur. Work with your team to identify weekly, measurable activities that predict success. If a number is off track, it must go straight to the issues list for IDS®. Do not accept excuses or long stories during the Scorecard review. The number is either on track or off track. By forcing the team to solve issues based on weekly data rather than gut feelings, you build a new habit. It takes ninety days of consistent, weekly discipline to wire this into your company culture. Stay the course and do not let busy weeks shorten your meetings.