Have you heard the phrase, “Well, you’re no spring chicken?” As you can imagine, the subtext is that chickens are typically born in spring.  For me, that means at least one of my chickens is going to be broody.  In case you are a chicken novice, a “broody” hen wants to gather a clutch of eggs, incubate them and ultimately hatch them. The first step in this “broodiness” is gathering eggs to sit on until she has an appropriate number in her clutch. In my experience, that “appropriate” number in a clutch can exceed 12 eggs. So we intervene. Considering the size of my coop and the number of potential broody hens, we have settled on six eggs being an ideal clutch size.  Once a hen goes broody, we mark the designated eggs and then, on a daily basis, lift the broody hen up and remove all unmarked eggs from

“Meetings are the black holes of business productivity,” writes Patrick Lencioni in his book, Death By Meeting. We’ve all heard the complaints (you’ve probably said at least one of these yourself): They’re a waste of time. Nothing gets done. We have too many. According to Forbes, at the top of the list of why people have such disdain for meetings are: 1) nothing gets done, 2) too long, 3) no purpose, 4) poor etiquette, and 5) no role. Companies running on EOS® have three types of meetings that create a pulse and rhythm for the entire organization. The weekly meeting is called the Level 10 Meeting TM . These meetings have an agenda that is followed every time (purpose). Attendees identify issues, put them on a list, and solve them (getting things done). They last no more than 90 minutes; they start on time and they end on time (not

Business founders, owners, and leaders: consider the following two sets of statements. Which set describes you best?  Set #1:  Set #2:  If the first set of statements is true for you, congratulations! You are in a much-envied position. But if, like a vast number of business founders, owners, and leaders, you felt like you were looking in the proverbial mirror when you read the second set of statements, then your business is controlling you rather than the other way around.  When your work is consuming your life, there are two places to look for the source of both problems and solutions:  Something in you needs to be addressed and/or something in your business operations needs to be addressed. In this blog, we will probe how to assess what might need to be addressed in you. In our next blog, we will turn to areas that may need to be addressed in your business.  Four Transformational Questions

One of your most crucial responsibilities for any business owner is ensuring you have the right team in place. This means not only having the correct number of employees but also making sure they’re the right fit for your company culture and their specific roles. There are a few simple steps in rightsizing your team: Evaluate Team Size Determining whether you have the rightsized team involves a multifaceted approach. Start by looking at industry benchmarks, such as the standard percentage of sales allocated to payroll in your sector. This provides a valuable baseline for comparison. Next, scrutinize your financial performance, particularly your profit and loss statement. If payroll costs are significantly impacting profitability, it may be time to reassess your team size. Operational efficiency is another key indicator. If tasks are consistently falling through the cracks or your team seems perpetually overwhelmed, you might be understaffed. Also, don’t underestimate the

I was with a client last week who shared that during an exit interview, the departing employee shared a generous list of things that were not working in the company. It begged the question from the owner, “Why didn’t you just tell me before?!” Moving past the dismay that the issues were not raised sooner, we added “Bring it forward faster” to the leadership team’s L10 Issues List. We celebrated this lesson because strengthening the Issues Component in the EOS Model does two things: In a series of interviews from Dare to Lead, Brene Brown asked leaders “What’s getting in the way of building more daring cultures?” Of the ten behaviors and cultural issues that leaders identified as barriers to courage, there was one issue that leaders ranked as the greatest concern: “Avoiding tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback.” Weekly meetings and a commitment to conscious leadership can help shift the avoidance of tough conversations