Linda Norman, owner of Unleashed Solutions, LLC, recently covered in a webinar how companies can implement the holistic business framework known as the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).
EOS provides businesses with a complete set of simple tools and a roadmap to improve your business processes. This system is what Rossen Landscape uses at their company and was mentioned On Tour. Norman says EOS strengthens the 6 key components of your business.
Those six components are vision, people, data, issues, process and traction. EOS takes a number of solid business practices you’re probably already aware of but creates a system for them that you can use on a day-to-day basis.
Vision
This is where you are headed. Using the vision/traction organizer, you can ask 8 questions to determine your company’s true goal. This includes determining your core values, core focus, 10-year target, marketing strategy, 3-year picture, 1-year plan, rocks and issues list. Answering these questions will determine who you are, your purpose and where you want to be in the next few years.
Rocks are things that need to be accomplished in a 90-day period that help you reach the 3 to 7 goals you have set for the year. These are always owned by a person on your leadership team. Once you have your vision determined, everyone on your team needs to know which direction you’re going and what is the most important thing the company is focused on.
People
You need great people in your organization to get to your vision. In order to achieve this, you need right people in the right seat. To know if you have the right people you need to ensure they match your core values. The people analyzer tool helps determine if they display your company values. Meanwhile, the accountability chart is used to ascertain employees are in the right position by listing out five tasks each employee is accountable for in that role.
At the end of the day you need a team of people who understand their responsibilities, who want to take on those responsibilities and who have the ability to accomplish their responsibilities.
Data
This is where you rely on the raw facts to inform you on the health of your business. Use a company scorecard that gives you 5 to 15 numbers you can look at on a weekly basis that tells you the health of the organization. These numbers should be attached to a goal and should be impacted immediately so you can easily tell when there is a problem.
The other aspect of the data component is the measurables. Everyone in the business has one to three numbers they own that drive the company to where you want to be.
Issues
All businesses have issues, and the success of a business is determined by how they solve these issues. Norman says it’s important to truly solve issues, so you don’t have to deal with that problem anymore. First you need to develop a list of the issues you are dealing with, both as a company and by departments.
When you have time to start solving these issues, follow the issue solving track tool, which is where you identify, discuss and solve the problem. You need to identify the true root of the issue, discuss the matter and then be decisive and decide what solution you are going forward with.
Process
This is the systemization of your business. Norman says to think of it as a way to franchise your business so that it is repeatable and scalable. Your processes need to be documented, used and evolve along with your company. Documenting your core processes refers to tasks like bringing revenue in and how you onboard employees. Once documented, these processes need to be followed by all.
Traction
Traction is the most important component of EOS, as Norman says vision without traction is simply a hallucination. Having traction is what propels you to your vision. Rocks, as mentioned before, put you in a 90-day mindset of priorities that move you toward your vision.
During these 90-day cycles, you need to have level 10 meetings, which start at the same time on the same day every week. These meetings start on time and end on time. The meeting starts with the sharing of good news, a review of the scorecard, a review of rocks, customer and employee headlines and the to do list reporting.
Any issues from these sections are covered in the issues list. These issues are prioritized by what is the most important that needs to be solved that day and goes through the issue solving track.
The meeting concludes with what takeaways need to be shared with the company as a whole and the meeting is rated one to 10 on how the leadership team did solving the right things for the greater good of the organization.
To access the EOS tools mentioned above, click here.
Don’t miss Norman’s session “Business Systems for Landscape Companies: Making the ‘How’ of Business Simple” during LANDSCAPES 2020 on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET
