Want to know more about EOS and Traction?
Some excerpts from a conversation I had with Dallas Amsden of the Chesterfield ACA Business Club:
“About two and a half years ago, I got introduced to the Entrepreneurial Operating System. I called on an entrepreneur, a potential client in Minneapolis. He said, ‘Hey, have you read the book Traction by Gino Wickman?’ I said, ‘No.’ He suggested I read the book and call him back. Well, being a prospective client, I read the book in a week. As I read it, I just thought, ‘Oh My Goodness!’ Even with over 35 years of doing this, I could not design a better system for running a business then the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It might not be the right thing for everybody. But if you started a company and it's growing, and you get to that point where you've got a lot of employees and you feel like you can't get your arms around it and it's kind of running you instead of you running it, the Entrepreneurial Operating System is a great way to help you get it all organized. Set a clear vision, put in the methods and tools we use to help you get traction, get things done. And then also make sure you can work together more healthy. Patrick Lencioni feels that most teams are really smart. Most leadership teams have the brains. But you don't work together. We really work on that aspect as well.”
“When I got out of college, I was lucky enough to work for a utility in South Florida. I was doing engineering, designing electrical systems and supervising the guys and gals that built it. Our chairman went to Japan for a visit. He came back and said, ‘We're doing this quality stuff.’ That's when I jumped in and started figuring out that if you've got a really clear vision of where you want to go, you write it down, get people committed to it and you measure your progress. You are on your way to building a great company. In addition, you need to have a good methodology for solving problems. What we started with eventually became what people call Six Sigma and maybe today Lean Six Sigma. We had a clear vision, really good metrics that measured our progress and we put people in charge of projects to get rid of our barriers that were slowing us down and keeping us from making progress. So I just fell in love with it. And then every job I've had since then has been doing that. “
“There are six components to the Entrepreneurial Operating System Model. The first component is Vision. You're going to have a clear vision of where you want to go. And then everyone in your organization needs to understand it. The second component we go to is People. We do a lot of work to set up the structure of your organization, how you want it to look in the next six to 12 months. Then we also work with you to make sure people fit your culture and that they have the skill set to do the job. At the end of the day, you know, 12 months, 18 months in, you should have a structure that's ideal to run your business with the right people in the right seats, and that makes a world of difference. The next component is Data. We help you build a meaningful scorecard. With five to 15 weekly metrics, so you can tell, you know, when you're going down the highway, and if you're awfully tired go over those bumps and it wakes you up. Well, we want you to have five to 15 metrics that will wake you up, and you want to look at them every week. The next component is Issues. How do you solve your problems, we teach you a methodology for quickly getting to the root cause and solving your problems. The next is Process a lot of entrepreneurs kind of choke on this one. “You want me to document my processes?” they ask in disbelief. They have this vision of a 600 page manual with five binders on the shelf and nobody would look at that. So we again have a simplified method of getting your processes documented and making sure everybody's following those. And then the last component is Traction. I think traction is the most important piece because you want to get things done. And you want to get the most important things done. In the Traction component , you want to be setting priority and working on the most important things for your business. EOS constantly pushes you to identify what the top priorities are and work on them. Doing that really moves a company in the right direction quickly.”
Dallas Amsden “How do you start a conversation with folks and really kind of tell the health of their company?”
Bruce Sheridan “Well, there's a tool that we use, it's called the Organizational Checkup. It takes less than 10 minutes. The more open and honest you can be when you answer these questions, the better the result is going to be. And you get immediate feedback. You'll get a report, it'll score you on all six of those components we just walked through. And it also gives you recommendations for how to strengthen each of the six components. We have a very open philosophy at EOS Worldwide and among all the EOS Implementers. We have a set of five core values, and one of them is Help First, so you can get access to all kinds of material and we're here to help you. If you want to hire me to be your implementer and stand with you side by side, I would be thrilled. But know, before making that commitment I am here to help you. An Organizational Checkup is a good way to get a pulse on where you stand against the six components?”
(There is a link to take the Organizational Checkup for free in the “What is EOS” tab.)
Dallas Amsden “Bruce, what what have you found in your time with the EOS system that has been one of the biggest hiccup points for executive level folks, entrepreneurs, small business owners?”
Bruce Sheridan “I would think running an effective Level 10 Meeting. We ask you to spend 90 minutes a week on your business, not in it. So when most companies first start out, they look at it like a staff meeting. And they're still trying to do activity in the business in the 90 minutes. So the first thing we got to learn is to get away from that and give yourself permission. I tell them take a deep breath. Give yourself permission to work on your business. Only 90 minutes a week. Every client that really gets the level 10 down, they swear it saves them hours a week. The reason we call it a Level 10 Meeting is that we want you to get to the point where everybody around the table rates the meeting a 10. Usually, when they start implementing they rate it a 6 or 7. So it takes several months to get it to a 10. But even before they hit level 10 people tell me, ‘God, I love that meeting, we get so much done in that meeting.’ In the Level 10 Meeting, we actually do the issue solving. We call it IDS, Identify, Discuss and Solve. Initially, they always go to Solve, they don't even Identify or Discuss. When they first start using IDS, they throw out 30 solutions all over the place. And I tell them, you gotta identify and discuss one issue at a time. And they just go off on tangents that go off on 30 different tangents and throwing out 40 solutions. It's hard to get them to change to the mindset of let's focus on one issue. Identify the root cause and put one or two solutions against that root cause.
For example, one of my clients was concerned about having coverage over the break from Thanksgiving through the New Year. My client said the issue was we have to create a schedule for everyone's vacation (A SOLUTION!!) I asked them, ‘What are you trying to get to?’ They said, ‘Well, we want to make sure we have coverage. We need everyone's vacation schedule for the remainder of the year and everyone has to get vacation approved. We need someone to make the schedule and keep track of it.’ After some probing, I got them to the point where they agreed, the real issue was we don't want to be caught without somebody answering the phone or someone dealing with this issue or that issue. What was the root cause? Under their current system, they did not know if they would have coverage or not. The solution developed was to define the key time periods needing coverage and make sure someone covered those periods of time. The point is, you have to be careful and hold back from jumping to solution. It will derail you and prevent you from getting to the root cause.
If you're an entrepreneur who started a business, you didn't get to be big enough to hire me without having to solve problems all day long, right? We're just asking you to slow down, state the issue versus a solution or symptom and have a robust discussion to identify the root cause. And sometimes what you might discover when you're discussing an issue is someone needs to go off and do some research. In that case, make a To-Do and we'll bring it back to next week's Level 10 Meeting. “
Dallas Amsden “Bruce, you got any got any other knowledge bombs you want to throw on us?”
Bruce Sheridan “Some entrepreneurs will try to implement two or three different operating systems at a time. Whether you go with the Entrepreneurial Operating System or not, I mean, that's up to you, right? It's your company, you built it. But I really want to discourage entrepreneurs from trying to mix operating systems. If you find a good one, it should be able to operate your company completely. And, and it's hard enough to learn one system. If you have two or three, now you've got all kinds of nomenclature and tools and methods. My suggestion is just pick one and stick with that one.