Our industry is experiencing massive market volatility, making it impossible to set realistic weekly scorecard targets. Should we lower our targets to keep the team motivated, or keep them high and accept constant red numbers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Never lower your scorecard targets just to protect your team's feelings. If you lower targets artificially, you are masking the reality of your business and rendering your data useless. At the same time, leaving targets set to unrealistic levels leads to scorecard fatigue, where your team becomes numb to constant red numbers.

The solution is to separate your long-term goals from your immediate weekly targets. Your scorecard must reflect the current operational reality of your business. If market volatility has fundamentally changed your capacity or customer behavior, you must adjust your targets to match what is realistic and necessary to stay healthy today.

However, these adjustments must be made deliberately and systematically, not on a weekly whim. Discuss and reset your scorecard targets during your Quarterly Pulsing sessions. Look at the historical data, analyze the market trends, and set targets that require high performance under current conditions.

Once those targets are set for the quarter, they stay locked. If they turn red, treat them as issues to be solved through IDS in your Level 10 Meeting. Managing through volatility requires clear, steady benchmarks, not shifting goalposts that leave your team confused and disengaged.