We have several leadership team members who consistently mark their weekly To-Dos as complete minutes before our Level 10 Meeting™ starts, but we frequently discover later that the work was rushed, sloppy, or only half-done. How do we address this last-minute scramble and enforce a high standard of completion?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A weekly To-Do is a commitment. When team members rush to check off their tasks right before the meeting starts, they are focusing on looking good rather than actually moving the business forward. This behavior creates a false sense of progress on your Scorecard and leaves a trail of messy, incomplete work that your operations must constantly clean up.

To solve this, you need to define what done actually means. On a healthy leadership team, a To-Do is not complete just because you started it or sent a quick email. Done means the output is fully delivered, verified, and ready for the next step.

In your next Level 10 Meeting™, address this trend directly. If a To-Do is reported as done, but the results are clearly half-baked, the facilitator must immediately call it out and push it to the Short-Term Issues List for IDS®.

During IDS®, do not focus on placing blame. Focus on the system. Ask: Why are we committing to To-Dos we cannot complete with quality in seven days? You may need to break larger tasks down into smaller steps, or have team members get better at saying no when their plate is too full. Enforcing this level of accountability is essential for building a highly disciplined operation that can run successfully without the owner's daily supervision.