One of our department heads regularly goes back and changes historical scorecard numbers from previous weeks to make their past performance look better. How do we prevent this retroactive data manipulation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Retroactive data tampering is a major threat to your company's accountability culture and operational health. When a department head changes historical scorecard numbers after the Level 10 Meeting™, they are hiding issues and corrupting the single source of truth you need to run your business. This behavior often stems from a fear of failure or a misunderstanding of what the scorecard is for. To stop this immediately, you must enforce a strict data-lock policy. Once a week's scorecard is reviewed in the Level 10 Meeting™, those numbers are permanent and cannot be altered. If a reporting mistake was made, the correction must be logged as a separate issue or noted in the current week's metrics, never written over historical data. Your Integrator must make it clear that a red scorecard number is not a black mark; it is simply an invitation to solve a problem. It is far better to have an honest red number that we can IDS® than a fake green number that masks a dying process. If a leader continues to retroactively edit historical numbers after this boundary is set, you no longer have a data issue; you have a GWC™ issue on your Accountability Chart that needs to be addressed immediately.