The upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026™ got me thinking about the dynamics and transformations that happen when individuals come together to accomplish something extraordinary. Think right now about a time you’ve been on a team that’s done something great. You’re probably smiling at this moment. When I do this exercise in my workshops and ask people to describe that experience, the word that comes up most often is “magical.” So where does that magic come from? Perhaps the greatest college basketball coach ever was John Wooden. His unparalleled winning record came from the relationships he fostered with his players. Former player Bill Walton credits his time playing under Wooden as life-changing: “He was a masterful psychologist…. He knew how to get people to play better than they could actually play.” Successful leaders in business also achieve great things with their teams by re-framing their view of their role from just

Are your Rocks on track? There’s a common tendency in Rock reporting that can mask a serious problem, even among well-intended team members. It might be happening right under your nose. We’ll get to that in a minute, but let’s back up a bit first. What Are Rocks in EOS? Rocks are simply the most important things to be executed in the next 90 days, and we set them for the company as a whole, for departments, and for individuals. Rocks are an essential way to cut through endless to-do lists and focus on the most important, impactful elements of your business. One critical aspect of Rocks is that their status is reported on weekly at a Level 10 Meeting. Every Rock owner reports two words for each Rock they own: “on track” or “off track.” Simple, right? Are Your Rocks Really “On Track”? In truth, we’ve found that a report of

A Key Insight: Only One Person Should Lose Sleep Over a Problem We all know that if everyone is accountable, no one is accountable. Similarly, if more than one person on your team loses sleep over the same problem, you’ve got an accountability problem. I keep returning to that insight when I talk to clients about the Accountability Chart. It sounds counterintuitive at first. Shouldn’t we all care about big problems? Shouldn’t everyone take ownership? Yes, we should care, but no, we should not all take ownership. In a healthy organization running on EOS, caring is shared, but accountability is singular. That’s what creates freedom. A few years ago, I was conducting a Quarterly EOS Session with a client who owned and operated hotels in various parts of the country. One of their hotels was located right on the coast in Florida, and, as it happened, a hurricane was forecast to hit land less

It has almost certainly happened to each of us – you’re driving down the road on cruise control. You’re not doing anything reckless, but your mind is on a million things besides the stretch of road you’re on. You’re thinking about your destination, how long it will take to get there, whether you have enough gas, what’s for lunch, and why no one seems to know how to use a turn signal any more. The next thing you know, you’re literally shaken back into focus by the rumble strip just on the other side of the white line. You’ve drifted a bit, so you make a slight course correction to straighten things out, and continue on your way with more focused direction. No big deal, right? Right. But things could have gotten really dicey if it weren’t for that rumble strip. The rumble strip was there to serve a purpose: it let you

Most leadership teams use Scorecards to measure performance. The best leadership teams use them to discover constraints. A leadership team I recently worked with noticed something strange: Demand was strong The team was executing well But the business wasn’t growing like they had hoped Yet every conversation about accelerating growth kept running into the same wall… and the scorecard revealed why. No matter which growth strategy was being discussed, the same capacity number kept showing up and until that got fixed, nothing was going to change. “Growth is limited by your constraint, not your ambition.” That’s one of the central ideas in The Goal by Eli Goldratt. Every system has a bottleneck. And improving anything other than the bottleneck does little to increase overall throughput. Many growing companies miss this. When growth slows, the instinct is to try to improve everything at once: Sales, Marketing, Technology, Customer Service, Processes, People,

What if you could increase your employees’ productivity by 17% without spending a dime? Gallup has spent decades studying what drives employee performance. One finding stands out: engaged employees are 17% more productive. And the number one driver of engagement? Not bonuses. Not perks. Recognition. Praise. A thank you. A public shout-out. It costs nothing. And too many leaders don’t do it nearly enough. I’ve been asking people about their best boss and their worst boss. The stories are different. But the pattern is always the same. The best bosses make people feel seen, heard, and valued. They believe in them. They listen. Under their best boss, people don’t just show up. They go above and beyond. The worst bosses? They don’t take the time to listen. They give orders. They scream when something isn’t done right. They don’t take the time to understand why. Under their worst boss, people give