Integration - Key to running a small business

Most small businesses start out, well, small. When there are two employees you have two lines of communication. When you add a third employee, you grow 50%. Now you have six lines of communication, an increase in complexity of 200%. Add a fourth employee, you have grown 100%, from 2 employee to 4. Complexity has increased 500%, from 2 lines of communication to 12. Imagine the complexity when you have 10, 20, or 30 employees, it explodes! As a child, did you ever play the game of repeating a sentence or two and whispering it to each other in a large circle. It’s funny. It’s not funny when you are trying to build a great company.

Don Tinney, Co-Founder of EOS and Kelly Knight, President and Integrator of EOS Worldwide recently presented on the Four Essentials of Being an Effective Integrator. Here is a summary of the four essentials:

1) Visionaries and Integrators must read and apply the principles taught in Rocket Fuel, by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters.

2) Visionaries, Integrators and teams must adjust with the business cycles.

3) Visionaries, Integrators, and leadership teams must have the right intentions.

4) Integrators must lead, manage and hold their people accountable.

The Integrator is the glue that holds everything together. The Integrator and Visionary need to remain on the same page. A good Integrator and Visionary team is usually made up of two very different people, embrace the differences, because you balance each other out. The Visionary dreams and the Integrator filters the 20 new ideas down to 1 and executes.

There is a link to order Rocket Fuel and all five books in the EOS library on the Organizational Compass website.