In Dr. John Izzo's book, Stepping Up, Izzo recounts a story that illustrates how being intentional and consistent can help a team make real changes. As the lowest performing sales region in his state, a new manager at Frito-Lay knew something had to change, so the manager created a way to kick start the process. He set up weekly scorecards that tracked key metrics, such as sales and amount of breakage. He then gave every driver an equal "seat at the table" and each week they reviewed the scorecard. With no shaming or blaming, the team shared ideas on how to improve the numbers. In one year, they went from being the worst-performing to the best-performing team.

There are a few key takeaways from this story. First, if you want to improve on something, creating a scorecard to measure your progress helps - a lot! Second, we need to schedule time to consistently review said scorecard. Third, we need to give the people around us an equal seat at our table and create a safe space for them to share ideas for improvement without any judgement.

So, the morale of the story I think is this: When the chips are down and it's crunch time, don't frito a lay an opportunity to improve things tater on.