10

W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

is important, and how EOS strengthens each com-

ponent. You’ll also discover how they impact you.

The 6 Key Components (Vision, People, Data,

Issues, Process, and Traction) are illustrated in the
following EOS Model.

By using EOS to strengthen these 6 Key Compo-

nents, your company will be a great, well-run orga-
nization. Your company’s goal is to be 100% strong in
each of these areas.

The EOS journey is not easy. You will have to

challenge yourself, your manager, your team, and
your company. That’s because open and honest
12 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

THE VISION COMPONENT

Have you ever been given direction from your man-

ager only to be told something different by a leader
from another department? If you answered yes,
you’re not alone. This is a common problem in many
organizations.

It is caused by a lack of alignment within an

organization. In other words, each manager or
department has different priorities and does things
differently. As a result, employees get pulled left,
then right, and then told to go backward.
 How Does EOS Work? 13

Imagine all the people in your company as

arrows. When people have different objectives, the
arrows all point in different directions, as shown in
the picture below. As a result, energy is wasted.

This was happening at a transportation com-

pany based in Houston. “Before EOS, I would get
told one thing by my manager and another thing
by the owner of the company,” said one of the
customer-service reps. “We were running around in
circles, making the same mistakes again and again.”

Now imagine the people in an organization that

are 100% aligned around just a few goals. Every-
one’s effort is focused toward accomplishing these
14 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

few goals. Each department and every employee

know the roles they are playing to help achieve
these goals. As a result, the arrows are aligned, as
depicted below.

“Now,” continued that same customer-service

rep, “we all have the same goals, and we’ve worked
together to solve some major issues. Our efforts are
aligned, and I know what I need to do to help achieve
our vision. Even better, we’ve stopped repeating the
same mistakes.”

That’s being 100% strong in the Vision Com-

ponent. When everyone in the company is work-
ing toward the same goals, there is less frustration
16 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

THE PEOPLE COMPONENT

Have you ever had someone on your team who just

didn’t fit? Maybe they caused problems between
other people by gossiping or backstabbing. Perhaps
they were really nice but just couldn’t do the job,
causing others more work.

If this sounds familiar, you probably found it

maddening. The People Component eliminates that
problem. It helps build great teams. It puts the Right
People in the Right Seats.

The Right People are the ones who just fit. You
know them when you see them; you feel it. They
18 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

For the People Component, companies use 2 EOS

tools: the Accountability Chart and the People Ana-
lyzer. We will explain these more in Chapters 4 and
8. Your role is to ask yourself, “Am I the Right Person
for this company? Do I fit?” and, “Am I in the Right
Seat? Can I do my job really well?”

T H E D ATA C O M P O N E N T

Would you ever get on a plane with no control panel,

no gauges, and no radar? Probably not. Yet that is
how many companies operate. They fly blind every
day. They can’t see where they are going because
they don’t have the right data—sometimes too much
and often too little.
 How Does EOS Work? 21

credit. Either way, don’t worry; by using Scorecards

and Measurables, you’ll know if you are on track to
achieve your goals.

THE ISSUES COMPONENT

By now you’ve probably thought of a few things that

need to be improved, fixed, or changed to make
your company better. These are called issues. They
include anything unresolved that needs to be dis-
cussed, such as problems, opportunities, or new
and better ways to do things.

Perhaps you see an issue or a way to make things

faster. Perhaps you see a way to do things more
 How Does EOS Work? 23

Track is a disciplined way to help you prioritize and

solve issues forever. More on these tools in Chapter 6.

Going forward, your role is to bring up the issues

you see—and to help solve them. If this sounds scary,
that’s normal. If this makes you nervous, you are not
alone. Rest assured: EOS will give you the tools to
safely and effectively do this. If you accept this role,
you will help make your company great.

THE PROCESS COMPONENT

Do you manage projects in different ways? Do sales

people enter orders in different ways? Do people
take equipment or materials and then fail to replace
26 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

THE TRACTION COMPONENT

Are people in your company accountable? Do

things get done on time, or are due dates con-
stantly missed? Does your company take on too
much? Has your company been trying to imple-
ment a software system for years and the project
just never seems to end?

This was the case for Velocity Productions, a

video production company in the Southeast. They
had been trying to implement new accounting soft-
ware for more than a year. “We just couldn’t finish
the project,” said one accountant. “It went on and
on—we didn’t have any traction.”
 Do You See What They Are Saying? 43

Your why is known as a Pur-

pose, Cause, or Passion. It is an
overriding belief that is bigger
than a goal, and it makes you
want to get out of bed every
day. Your what is known as a
Niche. It defines the space in which you do business;
it identifies what you do better than anyone else.
Once these 2 truths are clarified and put together,
you have your Core Focus.

Here are some examples to help you better

understand Core Focus:

M A R K E T T R A D E R S —teaches people how to

successfully trade foreign currency
Purpose: Changing lives through
empowerment
Niche: Trading and investment education

N E X U S H E A LT H —runs post-surgery
hospitals
Cause: Returning patients to lives of
productivity and meaning
Niche: Specialty health care
46 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

With a clear 10-Year Target that is shared by all,

you will have a guiding light by which everyone can
steer. This focus will direct your energy, resources,
and decisions to help you grow faster and reach your
10-Year Target more quickly.

As with the above examples, most 10-Year Targets

involve rapid and significant growth, which can’t
happen without the right Marketing Strategy—and
that leads us to the next question on the V/TO.
 Do You See What They Are Saying? 65

With this clarity, everyone will be rowing in the

same direction. You will be part of an incredibly
focused organization with a strong culture.

Sarah McNulty, account manager at Limbach,

stated, “We all have a clear idea of what the future
goals and Vision are for the company, which helps
us remember that our daily activities are focused on
a much bigger, future picture. It allows us to realign
our activities when necessary to keep us on track.”

Here’s a summary of each of the 8 questions on

the V/TO and what each answers for your company:
 Who’s Doing What? 71

your company. It crystallizes your company’s struc-

ture so that everyone knows who is doing what, who
is responsible for what, and who reports to whom.

“The Accountability Chart helped me understand

where I fit in the bigger picture and what everyone
else is doing,” said Doug Hebert, a graphic artist at
Savage Brands.

What makes an Accountability Chart different

from a traditional organizational chart is, first, there
are no dotted lines (dotted lines mean an employee
reports to multiple bosses, which causes confusion).
Second, for each seat in the company, 5 or so bullet
points clarify the major roles of that job (as shown
below):
76 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

open and honest culture. The Accountability Chart

should help people know who they need to go to or
work with to get the job done.

Kevin Polachowski, scheduler at Burkard Indus-

tries, described communication at his company
this way: “Before EOS, there was a lot of ‘go talk to
this person’ or confusion about who to talk to. After
EOS, everyone now knows who to talk to about
problems they may have instead of going to several
different people and wasting time. Communica-
tion flows openly between departments. There are
no more silos.”
80 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

to talk about your Rocks—the most important things

that you must get done in the next 90 days.

How will Rocks apply to you? How will they help

you do your job better? How will they help increase
accountability throughout your organization?

The term “Rocks” comes from a simple science

experiment made popular by Dr. Stephen R. Covey
in his book First Things First. It works like this—imagine
you have a small pile of rocks, some pebbles, and
some sand. Your objective is to get them all to fit in
a glass jar. If you put the sand in first and then the
pebbles, the rocks don’t fit (see the jar on the left
side of the picture).
 What Is Most Important Right Now? 85

Here are some examples of SMART Rocks and

those same Rocks not written in a SMART way:

The problem with the not SMART Rocks is that

they are open to interpretation and/or don’t have a
specific outcome. This will lead to very murky and
frustrating conversations when your Rock review is
held at the end of the 90 days, which leads to dimin-
ished accountability.

For example, take the not SMART Rock “Online

class.” This could mean you registered for a class,
you started taking a class, or even that you com-
pleted a specific course. However, your manager
might interpret this Rock as you having completed
an entire semester on marketing. As you can see,
making Rocks SMART is essential for creating
 Why Do We Have To Have Meetings? 93

E N D P R O C R A S T I N AT I O N

Most human beings by nature procrastinate; they

wait until the last minute to get things done. Here’s
what normally happens, illustrated by the following
procrastination model. You have a meeting (call that
point A), and during it, people are usually assigned
tasks. The line in the picture below represents the
activity to get that stuff done. People delay act-
ing until the last minute—until just before the next
meeting at point B—to do everything. You can see
the line spike just before the next meeting.

Now, if you only meet once a month, you will

only get that spike once a month. Therefore, to the
degree you increase the meeting frequency, you cre-
ate that spike of activity more often, as shown below.
94 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

That spike of activity you create looks like an

EKG—it is the heartbeat of your organization, or
pulse, thus the term “meeting pulse.”

W E E K LY M E E T I N G P U L S E

We recommend a weekly meeting pulse. That way you

get a spike of activity 52 times per year (as opposed
to 12 times with monthly meetings). By creating that
spike of activity more often, you reach a point where
there is no time to procrastinate; you come out of
the gate running. The activity looks like the picture
below.

Great organizations minimize the number and

length of meetings and maximize meeting pro-
ductivity. In these organizations, teams have what’s
called the “right meeting pulse”—the right heart-
beat, as mentioned above. Meeting pulse is simply
98 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

THE LEVEL 10
M E E T I N G AG E N DA
 What ’s My Number? 119

like revenue, sales, and profit. For example, you

might have a company goal to achieve $10 million
in revenue, and as a result you need to schedule
20 sales appointments per week to hit that goal.
The logic is, 20 sales appointments leads to 5 new
clients, which leads to $200,000 in sales per week,
which leads to $10 million in annual revenue. The 20
scheduled appointments is the activity-based lead-
ing indicator, and the $10 million in revenue is the
future result.

Below are 2 examples of department Scorecards

using activity-based numbers.

A Scorecard must have 4 key columns: Who, Mea-

surables, Goal, and Date.
130 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

This tool has a higher purpose. Great organiza-

tions are built by having the Right People in the Right
Seats—100% across the organization—and that’s what
the People Analyzer helps you do. In Chapter 2, we
defined the Right People as people who fit in your
company’s culture. These people act according to
your company’s Core Values.

In Chapter 4, we defined seats using the Account-

ability Chart. The Right Seat means placing every-
one in a role where they can best contribute to the
organization. This is the job where their innate tal-
ents and skills are put to the best use. Each seat is
defined by an average of 5 roles and responsibilities
as shown below:
 How Am I Doing? 131

The People Analyzer is a simple tool that pulls

Core Values and the Accountability Chart together
and helps your organization identify if they have the
Right People in the Right Seats. As Doug Hebert puts
it, “The People Analyzer was a real eye-opener for
me. It is really clear when people don’t align with our
Core Values or fit their role—it’s just not their [thing].”

So how does it work?

STEP 1

On the People Analyzer you list a person in the

left-hand column and then your company’s Core
Values across the top, as shown:
132 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

The person is rated on how they live or don’t live

your company’s Core Values with a plus, a plus/minus,
or a minus. Here are the definitions for each rating:

• A plus (+) means that they live the Core Value

most of the time. No one is perfect.
• A plus/minus (+/−) means that sometimes
they do and sometimes they don’t live the
Core Value. They’re hot and cold.
• A minus (−) means that most of the time they
do not live the Core Value.

When completed, the People Analyzer might look

like this example:
 How Am I Doing? 135

The minimum standard, or “The Bar,” for GWC is

3 yeses. The People Analyzer will now show a com-
plete picture of whether your company has the Right
Person in the Right Seat. The above example shows
that Sally is the Right Person in the Right Seat.

STEP 3

The next step is to apply it to yourself. That will give

you a very clear answer of whether you are the Right
Person in the Right Seat. Here’s how to do it:

1. On the following diagram, fill in your

company’s Core Values across the top
followed by Get It, Want It, Capacity to Do It.
2. Fill in your name in the far-left column.
136 W H AT T H E H E C K I S E O S ?

3. Give yourself a +, +/−, or − for each Core Value

based on your honest assessment of how well
you live that specific Core Value.
4. Give yourself a yes or no for Get It, Want It,
and Capacity to Do It.
5. Compare yourself to your company’s Bar.
6. Note: In order for this to be a useful tool, you
need to be completely open and honest with
yourself about how you live your company’s
Core Values and if you GWC your current seat.

W R O N G F I T— D O N ’ T PA N I C

Once you see the results, don’t worry. If you’re the

wrong person, it doesn’t mean you are a bad per-
son. It only means you might be a better fit in a
different company culture. If you’re in the wrong
seat, it just means you need to find a seat that better