Each year I attend a local live streaming of Leadercast, a daylong conference in Atlanta, Georgia helping leaders realize their potential. This year’s theme was about building healthy teams—a topic that is perfect for an EOS Implementer™! Every year the speakers are amazing, and I want them to just keep talking! Truth be told, I would love to sit down with any one of them over a cup of coffee and soak up as much wisdom as possible.

One of my favorite Leadercast speakers is Andy Stanley, an Atlanta-based pastor of North Point Ministries. He presents annually, and his message is always thought provoking. Andy started this year’s presentation stating, “Healthy teams are comprised of people with extraordinary clarity around what, why and how with a predisposition to execution.”

This is exactly the central theme of EOS^®. Every EOS Implementer™ in the world is focused on helping the Leadership Teams with whom they work become a team with extraordinary clarity about who they are, where they are going, and executing on that awareness every single day.

Building healthy teams takes work, and that work begins with the company leaders. One of the questions I often ask a Leadership Team is, “Are you the leadership team your company deserves?” Let’s put some context around that question.

How many people do you think your company impacts every day? There is the obvious answer — the number of employees in your company. Did you count their families? How about your business partners’, vendors’ and customers’ employees and their teams? And let us not overlook the community members you impact through your product or service, as well as any philanthropic or volunteer efforts. One of my colleagues determined that for every 100 employees in a company, their reach extends to 10,000 people. 

Here is a 7-point checklist to use with your leadership team to help you assess the strength of your Leadership Team:

1. We are 100% on the same page with the company vision and plan.
2. We are very healthy, cohesive, and completely open and honest with each other.
3. We solve issues quickly.
4. We live the company core values.
5. We are highly accountable.
6. We fully embrace our operating system (EOS^®).
7. We are great leaders and managers.

So, are you the Leadership Team your company deserves? If the answer is yes, great! Congratulations on doing the hard work, and I encourage you to continue growing stronger every day. If your Leadership Team isn’t strong, who will lead the company?

EOS^®provides many tools to build strong leaders. These tools give teams the foundation and structure they need to develop their skills and improve their leadership abilities. As an EOS Implementer™, I help businesses with these tasks every day, and I’d love to talk with you about it. If you’d like to schedule a call with me, please use the consult form below to set it up. I look forward to helping you strengthen your leadership skills, and become the healthy team your company deserves. 

When I work with Leadership Teams, there comes a point where we meet every 90 days to evaluate the previous quarter, ensure the team is 100 percent on the same page with where they are going and how they will get there, and prepare for the next 90 days.

I have worked with a couple of Leadership Teams who question the value of evaluating the previous quarter and reviewing each section of their V/TO™ every 90 days.

The evaluation of the previous quarter starts with a review of the Leadership Team’s Rocks—we are asking if each Company Rock and each Individual Rock was “done” or “not done”. We then calculate the completion rate, with a goal of completing 80 percent of each quarter’s Rocks.

I then open up the discussion by asking the Leadership Team four questions:

1. What did you do WELL?
2. What could you have done BETTER?
3. What did you LEARN?
4. What grade would you give the quarter?

This is where the magic happens. Leadership Teams have rich discussions around the first three questions, which prepares them to answer the fourth question. And by this point, each member of the Leadership Team usually grades the quarter within a plus or minus of each other. The end result is that the team appreciates the previous 90 days, strengthens their ability to make predictions, and creates stronger Rocks for the next 90 days. 

One of the reasons EOS Implementers™ teach Leadership Teams to create a 90-Day World™ is that, as humans, we can stay focused for about 90 days, and then we lose focus. Reviewing the V/TO™ reminds the Leadership Team, and ultimately the entire company, why we are a company running on EOS^®.

I read the Core Values™, Core Focus™, 10-Year Target™, Marketing Strategy, 3-Year Picture™, and the 1-Year Plan to ensure the Leadership Team is 100 percent on the same page with each section. I also ask questions to determine if they are using their V/TO as intended or is it just a piece of paper they bring to their Quarterly Pulsing Sessions. If it is the latter, then we need to have a bigger discussion.

Ultimately, I want Leadership Teams to learn from the exercises, let the previous quarter go, and move on as smarter, better, faster planners of their future. 

Becoming a better planner means you sometimes have to look back in order to move forward. And moving forward is as simple as exploring EOS^® for your own business, or further refining the Six Key Components™ if you have already implemented it. Would you like to share where you are with your business and the progress you make (or wish to make) each quarter? If so, I’d love to talk with you about it. Please use the consult form below to set up a phone call with me. No obligation, no pressure and no worries. I look forward to helping you set yourself up for future success.

I remember learning about goal setting in both college and graduate school, which routinely led to an assignment to write goals for the year. And as I learned about creating, scaling, and managing businesses, the assignments became even bigger—create a five-year strategic plan for your company. Those were always painful assignments for me. Not because I didn’t believe in the power of goals, but because my professors expected to see 50 page plans with at least 20 goals.

So like all good business owners, I worked with department heads, and sometimes consultants, to create detailed strategic plans with pages of goals, charts, graphs, and statistics. Those plans were a thing of beauty with one small problem—by the end of the year we had only accomplished three or four of the goals. And the charts, graphs, and statistics made little, if any, difference in the outcomes.

When my leadership team and I implemented EOS^®at my last company, our implementer introduced us to a simpler approach to strategic planning. We learned to write a handful of goals to achieve our annual plan. We focused on the three to seven priorities that would position us to look back on the year and know it was a great year. Not 20 goals—just three to seven. And of course, they had to be S.M.A.R.T., which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Take a look at the example below of two versions of the same goal:

Version 1:      Improve our sales pipeline.

Version 2:      Add $2M in qualified target market opportunities with an estimated close date before December 31st.

See the difference? Of course you do. 

As an EOS Implementer™ I introduce additional considerations for great goal setting.

1. Does each member of the leadership team know “what done looks like”?
2. What could interfere with the company’s ability to complete these goals?
3. How will the leadership team avoid that?

The value of this simplified approach is that we are prepared to actually achieve our annual goals—three to seven absolute priorities for the year. Now that’s a thing of beauty!

Simplifying goals can be difficult for business owners because they are so close to their own business. Sometimes an outside perspective can make a world of difference. Let’s talk one-on-one about streamlining your approach and setting realistic and impactful business goals. Simply use the consult form below to pick my goal-setting brain and request a free, 15-minute phone call. We can discuss goals, EOS^®, or any other business topic that’s got you spinning your wheels. As we head into the second half of the year, now is the perfect time to launch a new effort to simplify, get S.M.A.R.T., and start making progress.

The job of a CEO is a tough job. Pure and simple. If you are the CEO of a start-up, sleepless nights are commonplace; workdays meld into weekends, and acquiring a round of financing does not bring relief—it brings more people looking for you to turn their investment into 20 times more than they gave you.

As the company grows, it reaches a state of chaos and the CEO starts building teams and clarifying the vision, yet is still spread too thin. The long workdays continue; weekends and weekdays generally remain indistinguishable.

Continued company growth leads to stronger management teams that help create solutions, brainstorm ideas, and identify opportunities. Now there is a team of people who are becoming committed to the vision. And the CEO can start taking some of the hats off and delegating them to other team members.

The CEOs of the entrepreneurial companies with whom I work often struggle with that last statement . . . “And the CEO can start taking some of the hats off and delegating them to other team members.” You got to where you are today by doing everything yourself. What was once your greatest strength is now your greatest weakness.

“Wait, I need to delegate? How can I do that — it takes time to set expectations, teach others to do what comes naturally to me — it’s so much easier to do it myself.” Those last, eight simple words will steal your productivity and undermine your success.

It does take time to teach your team members how to manage the company — tasks such as customer scheduling, order fulfillment, customer service, etc. Create the Core Processes that document your company’s way of doing business, and then teach everyone how to follow the Core Process. It may be helpful to create checklists for each process to reinforce learning and provide support.

If you don’t think about the big picture and work with your leadership team to create a compelling vision for the company because you are too busy wearing all the hats, who will? If everyone in the company reports to you and you’re too busy playing “the boss”, who will stay out in front of the company’s strategic needs?

It is all about managing you and producing results through increased clarity and purpose. And the only way to get there is to focus on doing only the things you can do.

As an entrepreneur, one of the hardest jobs you’ll have is to trust others with your business. I know how hard it is to delegate responsibilities to others, because I’ve done it myself. Let’s talk one-on-one about all of the tasks you should no longer be doing. Simply fill out the consult form below to schedule a time to talk personally with me about the challenges of delegation or any other business topic that’s on your mind. Whatever it is, EOS^®has a process to handle it. You don’t have to do everything yourself. And talking with me is the first step to lightening your load.

How much thought have you given to setting expectations for your meetings? When I work with Leadership Teams, I set the meeting expectations at the start of Focus Day™, and at every session thereafter during the entire length of our work together. 

The purpose for setting meeting expectations is to help every person in attendance stay focused, have an opportunity to participate, and get value from the meeting. So here are my expectations for each meeting I facilitate:

1. No sidebars. A private conversation between two people when someone has the floor is the greatest insult to that person. A private conversation suggests that topic is more important, interrupts your ability to listen to the speaker, and is distracting to others around the table.
2. Tangent alert. This is a verbal prompt I use and encourage others to use when the discussion veers off course. When we stray from a discussion, we lose sight of why we were having the discussion in the first place. So, if we are talking about our company’s exhibit for the upcoming trade show, and someone asks if the new logo has been finalized, we need someone to quietly say “tangent alert.” That reminds us to finish the discussion about the trade show, after which we can talk about the new logo.
3. Comfortable with the uncomfortable.There are times when a discussion is uncomfortable. We may need to solve an issue related to someone’s performance, or their attitude, or an unsuccessful project. Take a deep breath, take ownership of the issue, and focus on the facts. The toughest part is the 10 seconds it takes to state the topic.
4. No electronics. Teams are best served in meetings when everyone disconnects. Yes, that means no laptops and put your cell phone in silence mode. Using laptops and cell phones in meetings encourages us to do something other than listen and participate. The one exception is using a tablet with a stylus for taking notes – no typing.
5. No politics.We want to hear everything everyone has to say, and we only need to hear it once. If you say it twice, you are politicking. When we politic we are campaigning for our team, our seat, our project. We serve the company best when we focus on the greater good.
6. Participate. It’s a privilege to be here, and preparation and energy are linked. Show up as though it matters to you; it’s the only way to ensure you receive value.

Does this list sound like insignificant ideas? Perhaps. Yet I encourage you to give these meeting expectations a try. What could be better than having people come to a meeting prepared, energized, focused, and participating?

EOS^®offers many processes, tools, and words of advice that help you run your business more efficiently and effectively. I’d love to talk with you more about EOS^®and the impact it can make on your company. Please fill out the contact form below to request a free, 15-minute phone consultation with me. As an EOS^®Implementer and business owner, I understand the challenges you face and know first hand how much of a difference EOS^®can make.

Let’s talk today about improving the quality of your meetings and the efficiency of your business.