Every business has its issues. Issues are obstacles that must be faced in order to achieve your vision.
Your company’s issues could be related to a customer who is not in your target market. It could also be an employee who is not in the right seat. Or your issue could be a result of not properly defining your business’s Core Values.
Whatever the causes of the issues at hand, the success of your business is directly proportionate to your ability to deal with them.
It’s human nature to want to work on the easy, fun, less time consuming projects first. The problem with this approach is that you will not solve the issues that impact the company’s vision. The Entrepreneurial Operating System™ (EOS) recommends clearly identifying your business’s issues.
Identifying Your Issues
Your company’s leadership team needs to identify the three most important issues on their list and properly determine the root cause of the issue. This is where most people get stuck. They see the issue as the root cause, when in fact, it is merely a symptom of what is really going on.
EOS has a remedy for this problem, and it is called IDS.
IDS stands for Identify, Discuss and Solve. When your leadership team works together to clearly identify what the issue is, discuss the reasons for it and solve the issue, you can effectively move your business to the next level.
Let me give you an example.
We had a customer at my last company that drove everyone crazy. You heard me right – this person would berate the receptionist because his account representative was not available to take his spontaneous phone call. He drove operations crazy because he only requested service when someone to whom he reported threatened action if he did not act. And then he expected us to respond immediately.
We spent hours trying to figure out how to help this customer. Then we implemented EOS and determined the root cause of this longstanding issue was that the customer was not in our target market.
So we fired him; yes, nicely but firmly. And we no longer spent hours assuaging hurt feelings, thinking about the customer and talking about him. What a liberating experience!
Once you IDS an issue, it goes away forever. Our customer did try to come back to us, but we elected not to accept his pleas.
Companies that achieve their vision are great at solving their issues. Do you need help identifying your business’s issues? If so, contact us. We can help.
About EOS
EOS™ is a holistic management system with simple tools that help you do three things we call vision, traction, healthy. Vision from the standpoint of first getting your leaders 100% on the same page with where your organization is going. Traction from the standpoint of helping your leaders to become more disciplined and accountable, executing really well to achieve every part of your vision. Healthy meaning helping your leaders to become a healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team.
