watch my video for the biggest mistake people make in using visual (colour-coded) scorecards…
Some people have systems to tell them how they’re doing; one popular one is a scorecard with colour-coded scores.Red means stop what you’re doing – like the traffic light – and rethink it right away. Yellow means you’re okay but it’s not sustainable so need to change it at some point. Green is good, keep going. Easy visual management is a great way to keep score! I recommend it for many situations within industry and beyond. So far so good.
It can go wrong when people refuse to record anything but green, because they are afraid of looking like they are slacking, or attracting negative attention. So they post all green to keep the card perfect, and they are essentially hiding problems. This is exactly the opposite of how these systems are supposed to work!
They are supposed to help you find and pay attention to the things that need work, to encourage improvement. You can’t solve a problem without finding it first.
So embrace the red, and encourage your team to do the same. As a leader you can create a healthy culture wherein it’s ok to surface things that aren’t working well. It’s actually the first step to making things work better. What do you think? How could you embrace this idea?