Power tip: "How to find the feedback loop that kills your rocks," Dianne Cubinar
“Success is never accidental. It's always rooted in a clear conversation or a simple system that guided someone forward.”
Transcript
Ryan Castle: You're listening to the Level Ten Leaders Power Tips, and I'm your host, Ryan Castle. Today's tip comes from Dianne Cubinar, cofounder of ROI Ops and Beyond. Dianne's power tip is on how to find the feedback loop that kills your rocks. Let's dive in.
Dianne Cubinar: Imagine you're driving down a road that looks perfectly smooth, like everything is moving fast. You feel great about your speed, and then — bam! — you hit a pothole you never saw. Your alignment is off, the ride is rough, and you have to slow down to a crawl. So in business, that pothhole is not always a major crisis. For founders and integrators running on EOS, it's often something more insidious.
And I call it the invisible pothole of uncertainty. This is what happens when silence creeps into your team. The reason this pothole is so dangerous is that it feels like a people problem when it's actually a system problem. You see, when a team member does not get clear, consistent feedback, they don't stop working — they actually start guessing.
And that guesswork leads to the two most crucial points that you need to remember today.
Number one: speed kills. When your people are guessing, they are forced to slow down. They hesitate to take ownership because they don't know the goal line, and it slows down your rocks, your steps, your to-dos, and multiplies your meetings. Uncertainty is the fastest way to kill the traction that you've actually worked so hard to build.
Number two: assumptions erode trust. Guessing means people are filling in the blanks. They're actually creating their own version of what the boss wants. And when they guess wrong, they feel bad, you feel frustrated, and slowly the trust that makes your team high-performing begins to wear away. The lack of a clear, kind word is the biggest operational risk most companies face.
So as leaders, our job is to install a warning light that detects these invisible potholes before they wreck our momentum. I challenge every listener today to take this one actionable step in your very next Level Ten meeting. When you get to the scorecard section, pick one metric that's currently on track — just a number that you feel good about.
And instead of moving on, pause for just two minutes — just two minutes — and then turn to the person accountable and ask this very, very simple question: “Tell me specifically what system or conversation gave you the clearest feedback this week to keep this number green?” That's the challenge. Don’t look at the bad number. Look at the good one.
Find a feedback process that works and make a to-do to replicate it across other teams. You're literally turning success into a system, and you will quickly find that success is never accidental. It’s always rooted in a clear conversation or a simple system that guided someone forward. So stop allowing that invisible pothole of uncertainty to steal your momentum. Build that roadmap so clear that your team can drive at full speed, confident that every rock and to-do is aligned with the destination.
Ryan Castle: Thanks for your tip, Dianne. To connect with Dianne, go to level10.us/08. While you're there, be sure to check out more power tips. And thanks for listening.
