Rocks are just priorities — the three to seven most important things you must accomplish in the next 90 days. Company Rocks are priorities for the company, departmental Rocks are priorities for your department, and individual Rocks are priorities for you or another individual. As simple as that sounds, it’s easy to overcomplicate Rocks. There is no magic formula for what constitutes a Rock — it’s simply a priority that will take longer than seven days (those action items are to-dos) and up to ninety days to complete. Here are a few questions I get asked often in sessions, with corresponding answers. Is that really a Rock? It’ll get done either way. If it’s one of the three to seven most important things for the company, department, team, or yourself this quarter, it’s a Rock. ”It’s gonna get done anyway” means you are going to devote time to it as a priority

If you’re familiar at all with EOS, you’ve heard or read the phrase, “Clarify, Simplify and Achieve Your Vision.” I’ve been thinking a lot about that phrase lately, and let me say explicitly that it’s a lot more than a tagline.   Take just the first word – “Clarity.” A skeptic might find it easy to dismiss a word like that as a bit cliché, or as “easier said than done.” So how does clarity create real, enduring value? Let me count the ways: More than 30 of my clients have made major “People Moves” after using the Accountability Chart, Core Values, and People Analyzer to clearly identify the root causes of at least one frustrating and costly People Issue By answering the eight questions on the V/TO, another 30+ clients have aligned themselves around a common Vision. With everyone rowing in a single direction, the team spends less time

The Core Focus clearly defines your company’s sweet spot – work you love to do and are best at. Used properly, it helps you stay laser-focused on the stuff you do that most consistently delights your customers, makes you money, and allows you to have the most fun. To get it right, you’ve got to resist the temptation to try being all things to all people, and to ignore “shiny stuff.” This sounds easy, but is often very hard, and surprisingly costly. One of my clients admitted this last week – and the story was so good I asked him to write a guest blog on the subject. Enjoy… In this week’s quarterly meeting, our EOS Implementer faithfully did his duty by walking through our V/TO with us. He read our niche aloud, “Manufacture transportation-related metal poles” (the poles used to hang lights and traffic signals on roads and highways).

In the first three sessions with a new client, an EOS Implementer (like me) spends as much as half the time helping the leadership team strengthen their organization’s “People Component.” Both in and between those sessions, the leadership team is working hard to get the Right Structure for the organization, and to make sure the company is filled with the Right People in the Right Seats. The EOS Tools we rely on to strengthen the People Component in this way are Core Values, the Accountability Chart, the People Analyzer, and GWC. To be clear, this process is intense, grueling, and often emotional. It’s hard work, and often not fun. When a team finally emerges from this process confident that it’s settled on the right structure and has identified and begun prioritizing and resolving all of it’s people issues, those in the room often breathe an audible sigh of relief. “We’re finally done,” some of them think. “If only that were true,”

Entrepreneurs often say, “People Issues are complicated.” Are they? It’s true that dealing with People Issues is hard, but the Issues themselves are simple. If you’re lying awake at night wondering whether Bill in Accounting should stay or go, you need only ask two questions: Is he a Right Person? In other words, does he fit our Culture? Does he share our Core Values? Is he in the Right Seat? Does he GWC (Get it, Want it, have the Capacity to do it) his seat on the Accountability Chart? If the answer to both questions is “yes,” go back to sleep. If not, put a plan in place to resolve the People Issue. Bill needs to know he’s “below the bar,” and he needs to be given a chance to elevate himself above the bar in short order. If he can’t, Bill needs to exit. “Yeah but,” I can hear some of

Does your company have a “complaint department?” Most do. Someone with a door that’s always open, a sympathetic ear, and the promise of keeping things “between us.” In many organizations, these people seem to serve a valuable purpose—or at least do no real harm.   After all, doesn’t every team need an outlet for the inevitable stresses of working in a small business? Or a safe haven where people go to commiserate and vent? I’ve come to understand the answer is “no.” These people and this behavior can have a devastating effect on productivity, solving issues, and team health. The complaint department simply can’t resolve business conflicts or company issues. The Myth of the Comforting Complaint Department You see, nearly all of us hate pain and fear conflict. So when there’s pain in our organization—the company, a team or a person is suffering in some way—we want it to go