Our department heads are constantly asking to lower their weekly scorecard targets whenever they experience a slow week or a minor setback, which makes it impossible to establish a reliable baseline. How do we handle target adjustments without letting our team slip into mediocrity?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Allowing department heads to lower scorecard targets whenever they hit a rough patch is a direct path to mediocrity. If you change your targets every time you miss them, you no longer have a scorecard; you have a history log of your team's excuses. To maintain high performance, scorecard targets must remain fixed for at least a full ninety-day quarter. A target is a commitment based on your quarterly goals and your V/TO®. If a weekly number is red, it is not an invitation to lower the bar. It is a signal that your processes, capacity, or efforts are failing to meet the standard. Instead of changing the target, drop the red metric to the Issues List during your Level 10 Meeting™ and run it through IDS®. Diagnose the root cause of the miss. Is it a temporary market shift, a training gap, or a broken process? Solve the operational problem rather than moving the goalposts. The only time you should adjust a target mid-quarter is if there is a massive structural change in the business, such as a major shift in headcount or a discontinued product line. Otherwise, keep the target exactly where it is. Let the red numbers stay red. This visibility is what drives the necessary discomfort to force operational improvement and keep your team accountable.