If you recall, I wrote an article titled “Right Seat, Wrong Chicken.” Oden’s behavior has continued to escalate after recovering from the Great Chicken Massacre. It got to the point that I was working my chicken duties around his schedule, i.e., only entering the run when he was in the coop, which resulted in late nights and early mornings. A few weeks ago, my chicken coach came to visit. She marched right into the run and headed toward Oden. He sensed her lack of fear and retreated. Then she caught him and put him upside-down. And once a chicken is upside-down, the balance of power shifts—at least for the person who put him upside down. I held Oden for a while, and we eventually let him resume his daily activities. But I soon learned that until I caught him, he would still be aggressive with me. So, the following week—I

Every Certified EOS Implementer is different. We each have different gifts, experience, and insights. It’s important to hire an EOS Implementer who is a good match to your particular company – otherwise, you’ll find yourself frustrated and your business will hit the ceiling. You need someone who “gets” your company’s needs, culture, and unique challenges. What should you look for when hiring an EOS Implementer? There’s no hard and fast rule, but here are some questions to ask as you talk with Implementers: What motivates you? How would you describe your style of facilitating and implementing? What does your ideal client look like? What Motivates Your Implementer? That first question is one of the most important ones. Each EOS Implementer has his or her own motivations for helping entrepreneurial leadership teams, and it’s important that you partner with someone who is driven by the motivations that fit your core values, culture,

As my husband and I started talking about getting chickens, we created our vision: free range chickens that laid lots of eggs. We currently have two issues with our chickens, first our dog JacX who believes her job is to catch the chickens and bring them to my husband (Mike is working on addressing this issue with the dog trainer). But, our other issue is Oden, the rooster. The reason we have a rooster is twofold: first, roosters will protect the hens, and second, having a rooster allows me to continue the bloodline without purchasing additional chicks. Oden is very good at protecting his hens. But about a month ago, my husband went to put them in for the night, and Oden wasn’t quite ready to turn in. My husband gave him a gentle nudge toward the coop, which Oden didn’t appreciate. His response was to flog my husband. While my

I’ve noticed a pattern this year across several good teams that have truly become great teams. Conversely, there are other teams that just remain mediocre. Why is that? It all comes down to having a great integrator in place who owns their role. In any entrepreneurial organization, the two most critical roles are the Visionary and the Integrator. A great Visionary is driven by creativity and passion, which fuels his or her vision for the company. A great Integrator takes that vision and makes it happen throughout the organization. Without these two roles working side-by-side, your company will never see the success it’s capable of achieving.   While there are many roles that the Integrator plays in the business, when he or she takes ownership over the following three areas, the entire company is elevated to a whole new level. Let’s explore these critical areas for Integrators. 80% Rock Completion An Integrator

Your leadership team has been using EOS® for months now, and you’ve gotten the hang of the Five Foundational Tools. Congratulations! Now it’s time to think about rolling out EOS to your entire company, at every level. It can be scary to roll out EOS throughout your company, because it’s an enormous task. How would you coordinate such a game-changing process? What happens to the company if you fail? Even if you succeed, how will the rollout impact productivity and daily operations? It sounds like a lot of risk. Why not just use EOS at the leadership team level, where the big-picture decisions are being made, and let the rest of the company continue doing the good work they’re doing on a daily basis? It can be daunting to roll out the EOS tools. As an extreme example, one of my clients waited over two years to roll out any

This is the time of year that many of my client leadership teams meet for annual planning. It’s two full days out of the office. As a big part of the first day, we focus on team health – leveraging Patrick Lencioni’s amazing work in The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. The objective is to improve the health of the team by strengthening the trust among team members.   Do You Really Trust Your Team? Initially most teams think they already have trust. They typically say something like, “I trust everyone on the team to do their jobs.” That’s not what we’re focused on when it comes to trust. It’s the difference between predictive trust versus vulnerability-based trust. Predictive trust is when you have experience working with someone for a long time and based on your experience you can predict how they’ll act in certain situations. This is how most