You spend at least 40 hours per week working “in” your business. And hopefully, you spend at least 90 minutes each week with your Leadership Team working “on” your business. 

Have you ever thought about where you do that work, what type of environment you create for your work? Let’s think about that today.

Some number of years ago I read a blog that recommended referring to your workplace as a studio. The author made the case that “studio” replaces the drudgery we often associate with the word “work” and captures the creativity that occurs in our businesses. 

Every business creates something — a product, a service, actual artwork, design work, customer engagement — you get the picture. 

So we started referring to our company as a studio, as in, “I’ll be back at the studio about 2:00 p.m.” or “Our new customer will tour our studio on Thursday at 10:00 a.m.” That word completely changed how we viewed our company, our workplace, and our colleagues. A simple change with significant impact.

If EOS^®is your company’s management system, where do you have your Level-10 Meetings™?

Are you meeting in a closed office or conference room? Does staff know those 90 minutes are sacred and, unless the office is struck by a lightning bolt, they are not to interrupt you? Does everyone on the Leadership Team disconnect from all technology for the 90 minutes? 

Yes? Great! This is important because those 90 minutes every week are your Leadership Team’s opportunity to work “on” the business. Protect that time by sequestering yourselves and staying focused on your business. Doing so will make for a better week.

How about your Quarterly Pulsing™ and 2-day Annual Planning sessions each year? 

Not only are you well served by disconnecting from technology; you are also well served by meeting off-site. Yes, get out of the office! Scheduling these sessions out of the office changes how you behave, how you act, how you think. 

These are five critical days for your company each year. You are evaluating the previous quarter and year, reflecting on what you did well, what you could have done better, and what you learned. And you are prioritizing for the next quarter or planning your next year; you are solving key issues; and you are working to strengthen team health. 

You need to show up ready to participate, because it is a privilege to be here. You cannot do that fully if you are in the conference room listening to the discussion going on in the hall. 

I encourage you to try on referring to your workplace as a studio —humor me and see how it feels. Think about where you hold meetings. It is important to get your mind in the right place. 

And please let me know if referring to your office as a studio changed your mindset about work. I’d also like to hear about your ideas for upcoming off-site meetings. Please reach out to me using the contact form below if you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts with me. The consult is free, with no obligation. I welcome the opportunity to talk about EOS^®and how its systems and processes can get your mind in the right place. 

Leadership teams often ask me where to start when developing their Core Processes, those sequences of events that enable people in a business to do what they do. 

Every business is made up of several Core Processes that represent the organization’s “way of doing business”. Organizations create consistency within their business when they identify, document, and expect everyone in the organization to follow their Core Processes.

Please note I said “several Core Processes” in the preceding paragraph — not 40 or more. And documenting doesn’t require a 500-page standard operating procedure manual. 

Documenting your Core Processes means identifying the major steps to each Core Process followed by a bulleted list that defines each major step. Most Core Processes are defined on two to five pages.

Here are some questions to ask to ensure each Core Process is simple, achieves the desired outcome, and integrates between departments, if applicable.

1. Secret Sauce. Have you included the unique actions and steps that make you special? Are you delivering on your uniques / differentiators?
2. Issues . Have you identified any overlaps or gaps among processes? Have you made assumptions that another process is handling specific steps and is this correct? Are there any challenges in implementing these steps?
3. Outcomes. Does each process deliver the outcome(s) you want to see? Is this the best way to achieve the end result?
4. Accountability. Have you identified who is accountable for the steps and actions within each process? (Do you know who has the ball when your play is in action?)
5. Customers. Have you remembered your customer interactions and communications within each process? Sometimes processes and procedures can have too much of an inward focus and forget about the customer. While it may work for you, it may not always for work for your customers.

Keeping these questions in mind as you document your Core Processes will make the work less painful — and you know us entrepreneurs. Documenting is never a fun endeavor!

Interested in simplifying this part of your business? I’m here to help. Let’s set up a time to talk about why less is more when it comes to identifying your Core Processes. Please fill out the consult form below so we can talk one-on-one about your unique differentiators. Knowing how to identify and describe your Core Processes answers the “How Do I?” question and helps you focus on moving your business forward. 

Leading, managing, and holding people accountable are major roles of anyone who has people reporting to them on the Accountability Chart™. These roles create numerous opportunities to engage with your direct reports. One of my favorite opportunities is the Quarterly Conversation™. I think of it as an employee feedback program.

Here is a sample process to have that conversation:

First is Preparation

• Schedule your conversation well in advance
• Pick a place off-site, informal and away from the office
• Complete the People Analyzer™ on your direct report
• Ask your direct report to complete the People Analyzer™ as a self-assessment
• Prepare for and keep notes during the conversation
• Begin the conversation with context . . .
• This is NOT a performance review
• Keeping expectations clear – Two-Way Street
• Communicating well – 80/20 rule
• Improving our relationship
• Helping us BOTH get better

 There are four parts to the Conversation

1. What’s Working – Ask them how they feel they’re doing. Then, give them some positive feedback. (TSP: Truthful, Specific, Positive)
2. What’s Not Working – Ask them what they feel isn’t going well or could be improved. Then, give some helpful improving suggestions.
3. Next steps – Ask them what they will do to improve, and how they feel you can help. Be careful not to take their “monkey”.
4. Feedback – Ask them how they feel YOU ARE doing as their boss – areas where you could improve. Then, share with them how you feel you’re doing and how they could help you.

There are three common issues that will surface from Quarterly Conversations™:

1. Ones that CANNOT BE solved. Your direct report just wants to be heard and acknowledged.
2. Ones YOU must solve. You are the only one with the authority to address it.
3. Ones THEY must solve. Push their issues back to them. Especially when the “monkey” belongs to them.

Quarterly Conversations™ is one of the many tools used in EOS^® to help business leaders become great bosses. For many, this is an entirely new and foreign discipline. But once it is mastered, it keeps direct reports engaged in their role and on the same page with their manager. They feel like they are part of a team, and they know how to help the company succeed.

Holding Quarterly Conversations™ is a great way to ensure that you and each of your direct reports have clear expectations, understand what is on each other’s minds, and are not operating on assumptions.

I would be happy to talk with you further about EOS^® and the benefits of Quarterly Conversations™. Please fill out the consult form below to request a free, 15-minute phone consultation with me. I look forward to helping you implement this important quarterly practice that will improve both your employee relationships and your company’s performance.

EOS^® is a management system for entrepreneurial organizations, and implementing EOS^® is a process. It generally takes two years to implement the EOSModel™ through all levels of an organization, starting of course with the Leadership Team. Implementing EOS^® is not equivalent to attending a workshop where you learn excellent content, which you may or may not use when you return to your company.

The organizations that receive the intended value from EOS^® are those that internalize every aspect of EOS^® and come to understand the nuances. How do organizations make that happen? They appreciate that they are changing organizational behavior, thinking about their organizations in new ways, learning new skills — and all of that takes time.

How much time? I can’t tell you how much time. There is no specific date to which a Leadership Team can point and say “Aha, we have operationalized EOS^®.” It doesn’t work that way.

Implementing EOS^® isn’t an event. It is an accumulation of lots and lots of little things that alone seems innocuous and perhaps even useless. It’s practicing these little things over and over and over again. And some days, leaders will lose their focus and forget to practice something. And other days they may not use a tool as intended. That’s okay — their EOS Implementer™ will get them back on track.

EOS^® isn’t something a Leadership Team “does” five days each year during their Quarterly Pulsing™ Sessions and their Two-Day Annual Planning Session. It’s  adopting EOS^® as a way of life — it is how leaders manage their companies every single day.

It is how Leadership Teams become aligned to one voice, one vision, and one team.

As an EOS^® Implementer, my job is to help you  incorporate EOS^® into your organization so its processes become second nature to you and your Leadership Team. I would be happy to talk you through this process and answer any questions you have about EOS^®. Please use the consult form below to request a free 15-minute phone conversation with me. As an EOS^® Implementer, I’ll be by your side through the process until EOS^® becomes your company’s way of life.

Oh, and don’t forget To-Do’s. Just about every Leadership Team with whom I work gets flustered managing their goals, rocks, issues and to-do’s.

It is not uncommon for me to receive an email asking what the team should do with the seven new ideas they had, or the three new opportunities on the horizon. Or perhaps the question is about a to-do that took two weeks to complete, rather than one.

The question here is usually, “Should we make that to-do a Rock?” Sometimes a Leadership Team will feel overwhelmed by the number of issues they identify and do not have adequate time to IDS all of them within the quarter.

The first answer to all the questions is to Simplify, one of the leadership abilities we teach during Focus Day™. The second answer is Compartmentalize™.

Compartmentalizing means having a place for every idea, issue, opportunity, project, goal, priority, etc. that arises in an organization.

Everything that takes longer than 90 days belongs on your V/TO™:

• Any idea, opportunity, project, etc. that must be accomplished this year becomes a goal.
• Items that must get done this quarter and will take several weeks to accomplish become a Rock.
• Issues the team does not need to address during the current quarter (90 days) are recorded on the Issues list portion of the V/TO™.

Everything that takes less than 90 days belongs on your Level 10 Meeting™ Agenda:

• Add any Issues that come up during the quarter and must be solved now to the IDS section of the agenda.
• Delegate Issues that are best solved by a department to the respective departmental Level 10 Meeting™ Agenda.
• Add anything that can be accomplished in one or two weeks to the To-Do List section of the agenda.

The bottom line here is that you can keep track of your issues, ideas, opportunities, and projects on two EOS^®tools – the V/TO™ and the Level 10 Meeting™ Agenda. What could be simpler than that?

EOS^®works because it brings simplicity and organization to all of the moving parts of your business. The systems, tools, and foundation offered through a management system like EOS^®saves you time, aggravation and money.

I would love the opportunity to talk with you about EOS^®’ ability to simplify some very complicated processes. As a business owner who used EOS^®in my former company, I’m a testimony to the difference EOS^®can make in a business.

Please fill out the contact form below to request a no-obligation phone consultation with me.  I’m confident that using EOS^®’ many tools and processes will bring some direction to your journey and take all the scary surprises out of your road to success.