EOS® Can Go Off Track When...

Every once in a while I will have an Implementer and/or Visionary share something with me that has a lot of value.  This week, we have a guest post from a good friend of mine who I consider one of the best in the business, Eric Albertson, with Predictable Traction.  Eric is a Certified EOS Implementer™ from Portland, Oregon. Eric has been a part owner of an Inc. 500 (#89) company, and has decades of leadership experience in companies large and small. His mission in life is to help entrepreneurs get more of what they want from their business.   Over time some companies running on EOS® can let their focus drift off track despite the best of intentions. The following "EOS® Goes Off Track When..." is a simple sanity check to help get everyone back on track and continue to enjoy the benefits of running on EOS®. You can also learn more about how to keep Level-10 meetings on track from our partner Traction Tools.

EOS® Goes Off Track When...Vision:

  • Vision does not excite the leadership team.

  • Leadership team is not fully aligned on the Vision.

  • Employees don’t see a win in it for them that they care about.

  • Leadership doesn’t walk the walk on Core Values.

  • The guard rails established by the Core Focus are not respected by the leadership team.

  • 10 year target, 3 year picture and 1 year goal plan do not seem realistic to the employees.

  • Real Issues are not on the long-term issues list.

  • Vision/Traction Organizer™ (V/TO™) is not shared by all with energy every quarter.

  • The V/TO™ is not reviewed in earnest at every quarterly meeting pulse.

People:

  • The Accountability Chart (AC) does not reflect the ideal to run the business 6-12 months in the future.

  • Elevate and Delegate is not a regular input in the evolution of the AC.

  • 80% or more of the employees are not RPRS.

  • The 5-5-5™ is not used with every employee every 90 days.

  • Three Strikes are not used or used correctly.

  • People Analyzer is used at least quarterly.

  • The Accountability Chart is not visible to every employee.

  • Everyone in the company is not in a Level 10 Meeting.

  • LMA is not in full deployment and is not maintained.

  • The design of the Accountability Chart is not driving business growth.

  • Owner / Visionary is not open to ideas from leadership team. Meaning they want yes men and or L-10 is not a true leadership team.

  • Trust in having open and honest conversations erodes.

  • Visionary that operates truly as an owner and uses the owner card.

Data:

  • Scorecard is not evolving.

  • Managers don’t check on ‘measurables’ performance or include in 5-5-5 conversation.

  • Processes don’t tie to Scorecard numbers to aid in FBA.

  • Leadership Scorecard does not tie to sub-group scorecards.

  • Owners don’t get full picture of organization status from the Scorecard.

  • Scorecard numbers are not sufficiently based on leading indicators.

  • Scorecard evolves too frequently.

  • Scorecard has too many lagging indicators.

Issues:

  • Fewer and fewer team members contribute to the Issues List.

  • Issues are weaker.

  • Issues do not include Scorecard, process, goal, ‘measurables’ and 5-5-5™ related misses.

  • IDS does not get to root cause more often than not.

  • Problem diagnosis skills are not improving.

  • Issues List has substantially the same issues quarter after quarter.

  • Resolution of Issues List items do not improve Scorecard results.

  • Issue compartmentalization is not occurring.

  • Issues that require more than a 7-day to-do to resolve are not maintained on the Issues List and systematically resolved over many weeks of to-do’s.

  • Focus on hammering out every issue during an L-10 meeting not prioritizing.

Processes:

  • Full set of 20/80 “how we run our business” processes do not exist.

  • Processes are not at a 20/80 level.

  • Processes are not maintained in cooperation with people actually doing or managing the work the process covers.

  • The processes are not supported by training where appropriate.

  • The processes gather dust and are not followed by all (FBA).

  • Some of the processes do not drive Scorecard numbers

  • The business is not as profitable as industry standards would indicate.

  • There is chaos in the business.

  • Processes are not evolving with the business.

  • Every process does not have an owner.

  • Organization does not believe in processes enough to enforce them.

  • Leaders do not follow or respect processes.

  • Leaders do not understand the tie between process discipline and growth/results/customer satisfaction.

  • Process not housed, backed and supported by technology as much as possible to eliminate human error.

Traction:  

  • There is a low percentage of Rock achievement.

  • Rocks are achieved but the One Year Plan goals are not met.

  • Rocks are poorly constructed and do not have bright lines to discern accomplishment.

  • Rocks do not materially enhance the achievement of the Vision.

  • Level 10 Meetings do not occur weekly.

  • Level 10 Meetings are not scored.

  • No timeline discipline on Level 10 Meetings.

  • Depart from standard Level 10 Meeting.

  • Level 10 meetings are not held at every level of the organization.

  • Team members do not prioritize attending the Level 10 Meeting.

  • ‘Story’ creeps into Level 10 Meeting reporting (Scorecard, Rocks, Headlines and To-Dos’).

  • Team members co-enable each other by not holding each other accountable or fail to be open and honest in their IDS.

  • No true Integrator that not only understands business but LMA™. Too many companies settle on an Integrator. Since the Integrator owns the operating system and a lot of the things above EOS® falls apart at this point.

When I asked Eric the question “When do you use this?”  The answer was “Upon graduation so that the customer has long-term success!”  If you have graduated or are about to I recommend printing this out and looking at it periodically to help sharpen the sword and improve success.  Or if you are looking for a solid Implementer please reach out to Eric at Predictable Traction.  Any additional questions, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email. If you have anything valuable that you would like me to share with the community (and give you the credit), send it my way.

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Leadership Teams Make and Break a Business