Put your traction into action
Posted on 17th July 2019 at 08:33
Article 6 of 6 about The EOS Model™
How do you make sure your excellent planning leads to excellent outcomes? It’s time to find out about traction.
In my previous articles on the Six Key Components of a healthy business, we've talked about your vision, people and data. We've also discussed how to 'smoke out your issues' and polishing up your process. Today, it's time to talk about the sixth and final element of The EOS Model; we call it 'traction'.
What is traction?
The traction component is all about taking what we have learned so far and putting it into practice. For business leaders, it’s all about execution. It's about spreading discipline and accountability into your team and throughout your business. Traction is where the talking stops and the 'doing' begins. It's about seeing your vision come to life at ground level, where everyone is playing their part.
It's also important because it’s a stage where many entrepreneurs and their businesses slip up. When it comes to meeting your responsibilities and being accountable for what's important, they fall short. It means their vision remains just that, rather than reality.
How to strengthen your traction component
At EOS, we have two tools to help you boost your traction and execute with precision.
1. Rocks
If you’ve been following my series of articles on EOS, you'll remember Rocks from my article on Vision.
Rocks are your most important priorities for the next 90 days, which is why they are sometimes referred to as Quarterly Rocks. It’s about narrowing your scope to the shortest possible time, while remaining in alignment with your Core Values and Focus.
We recommend you set between 3 and 7 Company Rocks, pinpointing the most important concerns for your business over the next 90 days. Examples could include:
Reducing cost-of-sales by 5%
Selling 10,000 units of a new product
Growing your Facebook followers to 200,000
After your company Rocks, we encourage you to set between 3 and 7 individual rocks for everyone on your leadership team. Eventually, Rocks will cascade down into the entire business, where everyone has something specific to be accountable for. We recommend you set SMART goals for your Rocks - specific, measurable, achievable, realists, timely.
Your Rocks lead to what we at EOS call your 90-Day World. Rather than trying to achieve many goals and achieving nothing, you focus on what is really important. You put everything you have into accomplishing your Rocks, with discipline and accountability. Then, at the end of your 90 days, you look back and evaluate, checking you’re still on the same page. Then, you set new Rocks for the next quarter.
2. Meeting Pulse
Even your 90-Day World needs to be split into more manageable chunks, so you can monitor and iterate if necessary. At EOS, we talk about the Weekly Meeting Pulse, where you ensure that everything is functioning well for the week. If you get it right week-by-week, you will get it right for the quarter.
To run a successful Meeting Pulse, we use a tool called the Level 10 Meeting Agenda. This tool is designed to help keep your meeting in focus. It’s there to avoid those endless meetings where everyone talks but nothing gets done. I’m sure you’ve been in a few of those!
Here are the items on the Agenda:
The first part is checking to see if you are hitting your goals:
Are you hitting your numbers on your scorecard?
Are you on track to reach your Rocks?
Are your employees on the same page and your customers happy?
Next, it’s all about adding some accountability at all levels of the business:
What can you add/take away from your To-do list?
Finally, we look at solving any problems that have arisen. Apply the IDS principles that we talked about in the Issues article. Identify. Discuss. Solve. Work as a team, encourage everyone to have their say; it helps make sure everyone is at their best.
Time is precious, so meetings need to be valuable, efficient and productive. An agenda such as this makes for a meeting where everyone feels like they are achieving something. It’s where you truly generate traction for your business.
With Rocks and Meeting Pulse, you become super-strong in the traction component. Your execution matches your vision.
Over to you
If any of this resonates with you, let’s get together.
To find out if you have the right people in the right seats, or more about EOS, please contact me to schedule a free 90-Minute Meeting with your leadership team and an EOS Implementer. If this seems premature – we get it. We’re entrepreneurs, too.
Please know, this is NOT a high-pressure sales pitch. It’s just the simplest, best way for you and your team to connect with an EOS Implementer for a detailed overview of the system, the tools and the process.
There’s no charge for this meeting, and no obligation. It’s a valuable learning event that will answer all your questions and fully equip you and your team to decide how best to move forward with EOS (or not).
Share this post:
