Implementer Posts
When Activity Replaces Traction
Some businesses are incredibly busy. Calendars are full. Teams are working hard. Meetings are happening. Projects are underway. Emails are flying around. Everyone finishes the week exhausted. And yet, somehow, the important things are not moving. The same priorities remain unfinished. The same issues keep resurfacing. The same strategic projects are still “in progress” three months later. There is plenty of activity. But very little Traction®. That distinction matters because being busy can create the illusion of progress. When everyone is working flat out, it feels as though the business must be moving forward. Sometimes it is. Sometimes everyone is simply getting very good at maintaining the current state. Activity Is Easy to See One reason we confuse activity with progress is that activity is visible. We can count meetings, emails, calls, reports, proposals & projects. We can see people staying late, jumping between tasks & responding quickly when something
A Great Business Should Help You Build a Great Life
A business can look successful and still consume the person who built it. Drawing on my own experience with 100-hour weeks, operating pressure, and using EOS to grow companies, I share why the real win is building a strong business that creates more room for the people and pursuits that matter. Read the full article on Clarity2Freedom: https://www.clarity2freedom.com/insights/great-business-great-life-eos
Can EOS Work Virtually? What Distributed Teams Should Expect
For nearly two decades, I have led distributed teams across the United States and internationally, and most of my EOS clients have remote team members or operate entirely remotely. In this article, I share what makes virtual EOS implementation work—and why remote teams still need real, deliberate leadership. Read the full article on Clarity2Freedom: https://www.clarity2freedom.com/insights/virtual-eos-implementation-distributed-teams
What EOS Implementation Looks Like for Idaho Business Owners
Raised on an Idaho potato farm, I understand the work and ingenuity behind a growing business. In this article, I share what EOS implementation looks like for Idaho leadership teams and why a shared operating system becomes so valuable as a company grows. Read the full article on Clarity2Freedom: https://www.clarity2freedom.com/insights/eos-implementation-idaho-business-owners
We Needed Priorities. We Uncovered Three Black Swans
We needed priorities. We uncovered three Black Swans. Black Swans are what the other side is holding that changes everything. You get them once you have trust-based influence. Advisory board, spring 2025. Cold room, early morning, six of us. Call him Rupert. Lawyer. White shoe firm, then years at a global CPG. He has sat through depositions. He came in to represent the leadership team with a laptop he never opened. Someone asked a question. Someone asked a second before he finished the first. Then a third with an edge on it. Three questions in two minutes. A boulder starting downhill. Still slow. Already too heavy to put a hand on. Rupert went Analyst. Flat and measured. “The roadmap changed in March because” and then nothing. He looked at the table. “There were reasons that I’m not.” Then the color left his face. We were four sentences from a fracture
The Most Honest Score of the Year
They rated my day a 6.9. It was the most honest number I got all year. Two men on this team have not told each other the truth in eleven months. In a real room, they would sit as far apart as the table allows. One speaks, the other looks at his laptop. Neither one ever says the other’s name. I knew that going in. I knew this needed to be a room in the physical world. They wanted virtual. The usual cost-cutting math. I let them talk me into it against my better judgment. Virtual works when you are moving pieces on the chessboard. Goals, rocks, IDS, to-dos, next. Virtual does not work when the real issue is trust. Map it to Patrick Lencioni and this team is all bottom of the pyramid. A webcam hides everything I need. The arms crossing. The jaw setting. Who leans in when