Our operations team is hitting their weekly target for completed quality checks, but we are seeing an uptick in post-delivery customer complaints because they are rushing through the checklists just to avoid red on the Scorecard. How do we stop this gaming of compliance numbers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When team members run through activity checklists purely to avoid a red mark on the weekly Scorecard, they are prioritizing compliance over customer outcomes. To stop this gaming behavior, you must couple your activity metric with a quality outcome metric. This creates healthy friction.

If your operations seat is measured on the quantity of completed quality checks, you must balance it with an outcome-based number. An example is the percentage of completed jobs with zero post-delivery complaints. If the activity metric is green but the quality outcome metric is red, it immediately flags that the process is being rushed rather than followed.

This mismatch must be solved in your weekly Level 10 Meeting™ using the IDS® process. Bring both metrics to the table and challenge the owner of the operations seat. If they have the GWC™ for their seat, they must understand that a checkmark is worthless if the customer is unhappy.

You should also review the process itself. If the checklist is too long or administrative, people will naturally find shortcuts. Use the three-step process document method to simplify the checklist to its absolute essentials. Make the core steps so simple that skipping them is harder than doing them.

When you balance activity with outcome, you protect your enterprise value and build a self-sustaining operation that buyers will value. A clean exit requires systems that actually work, not just employees who know how to check boxes to keep their managers happy.