Our leadership team members consistently rate our Level 10 Meeting™ as an eight or nine out of ten, yet we leave major issues unresolved and fail to hit our weekly targets. How do we break this polite consensus and get our team to rate the meeting with brutal, constructive honesty?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team consistently rates your Level 10 Meeting™ as an eight or a nine out of ten despite missed targets and unresolved operational issues, you are suffering from artificial harmony. This polite consensus is dangerous because it hides dysfunction and prevents continuous operational improvement. To break this pattern, you must redefine what a ten out of ten actually means for your organization. A perfect ten means the meeting started and ended on time, all reporting blocks were fast and accurate, the To-Do completion rate was at or above ninety percent, and, most importantly, you solved your top issues at the root cause during the IDS® portion. If you left your top three issues unresolved, the meeting cannot be rated higher than a seven. As the leader, you must go first in breaking the harmony. If the meeting was sluggish, rate it a six and state exactly why. Say, 'I am rating this a six because we spent twenty minutes debating details instead of identifying the root problem.' This vulnerability gives the rest of the team permission to be honest. Force anyone who rates the meeting below an eight to provide one specific, actionable recommendation to improve the next session. Honest ratings are the only way to protect the efficiency of your weekly pulse.