Whenever a metric on our weekly Scorecard is red, the responsible leadership team member spends the entire Level 10 Meeting making excuses and blaming external factors instead of owning the issue. How do I break this culture of defensiveness and get them to take real ownership of their numbers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a leadership team member spends their time making excuses for red metrics, it signals a lack of trust and peer accountability. If your team members feel that a red number is a personal failure or a threat to their job security, they will instinctively become defensive.

To break this habit, you must shift the team's relationship with the weekly Scorecard. In an EOS®-run company, a red number is not a tool for punishment. It is an early warning system that points to an issue that needs to be solved.

Start by addressing this dynamic during your next Level 10 Meeting™. Explain that the goal of the Scorecard is absolute transparency. A red metric is simply a data point that says we need to pay attention to this area.

When a number is red, the owner of that metric should not explain why it happened during the reporting phase of the meeting. They should simply say drop it down. This means the metric is added to the Issues List to be solved later using the IDS® process.

During the IDS® portion of the meeting, the focus must be on solving the root cause of the issue, not blaming the individual. Ask the team how we can support each other to get this number back to green.

By separating the person from the metric, you remove the emotional defense mechanism. When your leaders see that the team is focused on collaborative problem-solving rather than finger-pointing, they will stop making excuses and start taking real ownership of their performance.