World-Class or Bust? Hire a Business Coach!
September 9, 2020Leadership, business coaching, professional development
Surgeon Atul Gawande once asked the question, “How do professionals get better at what they do?” He observes two views. The first one is the traditional pedagogical view. You go to school, study, practice, learn, and graduate. A prof...
How to Become a Can-do Leadership Team That Really Can Do More
August 5, 2020Leadership, Learned Optimism
As the coronavirus has shut down businesses and the economy, a lot more fear and uncertainty pervade our environment. It can be easy to fall into a pessimistic habit of thinking, but pessimism doesn’t help leadership teams to navigate ...
6 Reasons to Meet Virtually Even When You Don’t Have To
July 7, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, meetings, coronavirus, covid-19, EOS Meeting Pulse, remote work, virtual meetings
As Michigan businesses are starting to reopen following the coronavirus shutdown, leadership teams are anxious to start meeting in person again. Many Certified EOS Implementers™ will return to in-person sessions with clients (as will...
How EOS® Keeps Companies Strong During Challenging Times
June 10, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, coronavirus, covid-19
The coronavirus crisis has sent many organizations — large and small — into a state of panic, fear, and historic losses. Without a simple system to clarify, simplify, and achieve their vision, many of these companies will never...
Your Business Can Thrive in the Days of Coronavirus
March 23, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, coronavirus, covid-19
Companies that run on the Entrepreneurial Operating System® are facing a historic challenge right now: to IDS the business impact of the coronavirus. In many ways, this is an unprecedented time. Futurecasting the effects of the outbreak...
Look Back Every 90 Days to See Where Your Business Is Heading
March 18, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business
Several years ago, an HVAC company in Southeast Michigan was growing rapidly — faster than they ever had before. They were anticipating future changes throughout the company and adjustments in the Accountability Chart to help grow and ...
How EOS® Helped One Company Raise Investment Funds — Fast
February 12, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, investment funding
It’s not easy to get funding from investors. Pitching can be a brutal experience, and each round of funding can be incredibly stressful. When the future health and stability of your business is on the line, every detail counts. Investo...
Do Your Leaders Really Agree on Your Core Values?
January 8, 2020EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Core Values, EOS People Analyzer
If you’re running on the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, you’re running your business decisions through the filter of your Core Values. Your Core Values guide your hiring, promoting, and firing. They guide your employee reviews. ...
Email Is Hurting Communication in Your Company
December 4, 2019Small Business, Team Health, company culture, corporate communication, email
If you read the Wall Street Journal, perhaps you caught the story about an awkward email exchange between a consultant named Jill Campen and her boss, Marty Finkle. Campen sent Finkle a detailed email that outlined a strategy she wanted ...
Gratitude is one of those attitudes that everybody likes, but few understand. It’s often seen as a sentimental “warm fuzzy,” but in fact gratitude is a powerful and necessary mindset that every team must have, in order to get to the...
Why Every Business Leader Should Quit Using Email
September 25, 2019Leadership, email, EOS Assistance Track, Leadership
Business leaders shortcircuit their effectiveness by spending time and energy on low-value tasks like email. Delegating email duties to an assistant can free you up to take your company to the next level of success....
You Will Hit the Ceiling Again (and Again). Here’s What to Do About It.
September 4, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, People Issues, [People Issues, GWC, Leadership, Right Person Right Seat
In the last two quarters, I’ve had four clients with the same issue. In each case, the leadership team was puzzled and felt stymied. The companies had been running on EOS® for about a year and a half, and during that time they had exp...
Too much silence in a meeting means that your people aren’t speaking up. But if you’re the only one speaking, you essentially have the same problem. Many leaders naturally take risks when making decisions quickly. They think aloud and...
Your People Issue May Be Bigger Than You Realize
July 17, 2019People Issues, [People Issues, EOS People Analyzer
Some time ago I had a conversation with a client’s Integrator. This was one of those lessons-learned conversations that are painful to talk about, but are fertile soil for learning and growing. They had just fired an employee and it...
5 Ways EOS® Transforms Non-profit Organizations
June 5, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS for non-profits, nonprofit organizations
Tens of thousands of entrepreneurial companies have achieved greater Traction™ and success using the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®). But what about non-profit organizations, churches and private schools? Can EOS help these ...
The EOS® Session Room Designed to Make You Feel Like You Matter
May 9, 2019meetings, Small Business, Team Health, annual planning sessions, EOS Session Room, Quarterly sessions
I’ve facilitated quarterly and annual sessions in just about every hotel room, casino and conference center in the Detroit area. They all have some exciting features that leadership teams enjoy, but every one of them leaves something t...
Yes, You Can Self-Implement EOS®—But SHOULD You?
April 18, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Uncategorized, Self-implementing EOS
Certified EOS Implementers® help you navigate the uncharted waters of the Entrepreneurial Operating System®. But you don’t need to hire an Implementer in order to run on EOS®. Many entrepreneurial leadership teams get excited about ...
Can You Afford NOT to Hire an EOS Implementer®?
April 3, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, EOS Implementers, Self-implementing EOS
As the Entrepreneurial Operating System® gains momentum throughout the business world, more and more companies are implementing EOS® themselves instead of hiring a Professional or Certified EOS Implementer®. Often, leadership teams de...
When Self-implementing Leadership Teams Hit the Ceiling (Again)
March 20, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, EOS Implementers, implementing EOS
If your company is self-implementing EOS and you’re finding yourselves hitting the ceiling again, your leadership team members could be playing it close to the vest. This may be a good time to request a 90-Minute Meeting™ with a...
Should Your Rocks Measure Activity or Results?
March 6, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS Rocks
Rocks are one of the most valuable tools in the EOS Process™, and every Rock needs to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. But it’s not always clear what it is you need to measure when reporting on your Ro...
Don’t Know If Your Rocks Are On-track?
February 20, 2019EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS Rocks, Get What You Want Tool
Does your leadership team is having a hard time knowing if your Rocks are on-track or off-track? Use the EOS Getting What You Want Tool to define the Rock’s steps and their due dates so you can own your Rock with confidence....
Break Out of “Business as Usual” in 2019!
February 6, 2019meetings, business goals, EOS Meeting Pulse, Level 10 Meetings
The year is off to a great start for your company, but is your leadership team back to your old ways again? With the beginning of a new year comes new business goals. Whether it’s course-correcting from missing last year’s goals, or ...
Few Teams Have the #1 Thing to Be Truly Great—Do You?
January 24, 2019Leadership, Team Health, Patrick Lencioni, vulnerability-based trust
What is the single most critical thing your leadership team needs to be more successful? A two-year study by Google revealed that the greatest predictor of a successful team is the trust among the team’s members. Teams that trust each ...
Take 3 Steps to Strengthen the People Component of Your Business
January 10, 2019People Issues, [People Issues, EOS Accountability Chart
This article originally appeared on the EOS Worldwide blog on November 5, 2018. In a survey of business owners, 82% of the respondents cited people issues as their number one frustration. Employees, partners, customers, vendors – they ...
Working During the Holidays? How to Leave Work at Work.
December 26, 2018Small Business, vacations, work-life balance
Congratulations! You made it to the end of 2018. Whether your business broke all-time sales records or nearly bottomed out, you’re here. And that’s cause for celebration. It’s fitting that the year ends with promises of peace and j...
Speaking Up About People Issues When You Don’t Know How
December 12, 2018People Issues, [People Issues, Right Person Right Seat
One of the toughest types of issues to resolve in any business are people issues. People issues are incredibly difficult to acknowledge and address, because they are always emotional. Even if you know the issue is there, you may not have...
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s a great opportunity to be grateful for all the blessings in your life and business. Are you grateful for the people on your team? People issues make up the Number One frustration across business owner...
Quarterly Check-in November 2018 – Take Family and Business from Good to Great!
November 19, 2018Quarterly Check In, family, quarterly check-in, work-life balanceHappy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful to share my quarterly update with you today. I’m also grateful for my family and the opportunity to help leadership teams transform their organizations to a whole new level. A healthy business and a s...
5 Common Questions About Departmental Quarterlies
November 15, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Team Health, Uncategorized
This article originally appeared on the EOS Worldwide blog on October 25, 2018. As leadership teams begin to roll out the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) to the rest of the company, they’re usually excited about getting the ...
What Does It Mean to Graduate in EOS?
October 31, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
The ultimate goal of every Professional or Certified EOS Implementer™ is to see their clients graduate. In the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, graduation simply means that you have become capable of running on EOS® self-sufficient...
Why Self-Implementing EOS May Be Holding You Back
October 17, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Uncategorized
You’ve been self-implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System® at your company for some time now. Preliminary results were encouraging as you began to solve Issues for good and got people on the same page. Accountability is up, you...
This article originally appeared on the EOS Worldwide blog on August 13, 2018. Congratulations! You’ve documented your company’s core processes. It’s a big undertaking for teams to simplify and document their processes. The next step...
Assumptions are one of the most dangerous things on a business leadership team. Why? Because no one knows what you’re thinking. At the beginning of the session, I tell teams that my expectations of them for the day are to be open and...
How EOS Can Make Your Succession Planning a Success
September 5, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business, Uncategorized, Vision
This article was originally published on the EOS Worldwide blog on August 6, 2018. How does a company successfully transition from one generation to the next? For many teams, just the term “succession planning” can be overwhelming. A...
I’ve seen a number of boss/buddy relationships over the years, but the one relationship that stands out the most is my own. When I first took over the helm of running my family business, we had my father and two uncles in the company, an...
Why Do Vacations Throw Off Your EOS Process?
August 8, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Uncategorized
One of the easiest ways to throw off the EOS® Process™ for your entire company is by going on vacation. And summer is infamous for derailing businesses. Here’s what can happen. Joe goes on a two-week vacation. Monday morning, the re...
We’re just over the halfway point of the year. Are your revenue and profit numbers on track? If not, your Sales team is certainly under a lot of pressure to fix the issue and make up for the deficit, quick. That kind of stress can quic...
What If You Get Stuck While Running on EOS?
July 11, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Uncategorized
Most people think once you implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, your biggest problems are behind you for good. Ironically, that’s exactly when your greatest challenges can strike. I have a client in Saginaw, Michigan—a 20+...
Here’s What Happened at the 2018 EOS Client Conference
June 20, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Uncategorized
I recently attended the 2nd Annual EOS Client Conference in Minneapolis. More than 600 people gathered from all over North America – representatives from companies as well as EOS Implementers. While many people were meeting each other fo...
What Happens If You Roll Out EOS Too Early?
June 6, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Uncategorized
Your leadership team is excited about the Entrepreneurial Operating System® and starting to see real improvements. You’re getting more done, communicating better, and starting to gain traction like never before. Time to start...
Many companies have tried other systems and processes before implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System®. Almost without exception, they’ve tried multiple systems, and they’ve all fizzled out. Most leadership teams have some anxi...
The Entrepreneurial Operating System® has helped more than 4,525 companies to achieve better results with less effort. That’s a compelling track record, and it makes the decision to implement EOS® simple (but not easy). Even so, you...
If You Don’t Fire That Employee, You Could Be Making Them Miserable
April 25, 2018People Issues, Small Business, Uncategorized
On your journey to becoming your best in business, you’ll need to make some tough people decisions. Usually those decisions revolve around Right People/Right Seat issues. In the EOS Process we use the People Analyzer™ with GWC™ (Get...
When leadership teams decide what their 10-Year Target™ is, they don’t always know how they’re going to get there. They’ve set a big goal that inspires them to move forward to a whole new place. It’s exciting to aim for the target, but...
What Does It Take to Succeed with EOS?
March 28, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business
Every good endeavor has a cost. Whether it’s finances, time or resources, success takes significant investment. Usually, business leaders know the cost and they’re willing to do what’s needed to take their businesses to the next...
Which EOS® Implementer Is Right for You?
March 14, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
Every Certified EOS Implementer is different. We each have different gifts, experience, and insights. It’s important to hire an EOS Implementer who is a good match to your particular company – otherwise, you’ll find...
I’ve noticed a pattern this year across several good teams that have truly become great teams. Conversely, there are other teams that just remain mediocre. Why is that? It all comes down to having a great integrator in place who owns...
Your leadership team has been using EOS® for months now, and you’ve gotten the hang of the Five Foundational Tools. Congratulations! Now it’s time to think about rolling out EOS to your entire company, at every level. It can be scary to...
The 1 Thing to Get Your Company to the Next Level in 2018
January 31, 2018Small Business, Team Health
This is the time of year that many of my client leadership teams meet for annual planning. It’s two full days out of the office. As a big part of the first day, we focus on team health – leveraging Patrick Lencioni’s amazing work...
Get Energized About Your Company’s Annual Planning Session
January 17, 2018EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business, Vision
Did you know that the most important part of your annual planning session isn’t planning? If you’re like many companies, your leadership team skips the most critical component of your annual planning. And it negatively...
2 Tactics to Identify Root Causes in Record Time
December 13, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
On the journey to becoming great, every team struggles with root cause analysis. I’ve found that my clients fall into one of two camps: 1) They don’t dig deep enough to uncover the real issues or 2) they overanalyze everything...
Ever find your team struggling to get your rocks done each quarter? What’s worse is when everything seems to be on track 80 precent of the way – then suddenly, the rock is off track. The end of the quarter comes, and it’s not done. The n...
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard business leaders groan about the millennials in their companies. Millennials are difficult to manage because they’re so vocal, they don’t work the same way “we always did,” ...
EOS® Case Study: Family Business Builds Profits and Cuts Conflict
November 1, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, People Issues, Small Business
The danger of a family business is that relationships between relatives can easily get confused. The familial relationship is too familiar, and it’s too easy to make assumptions, take things for granted, or make excuses for behavior. As ...
One of my clients was chomping at the bit to document their Core Processes – especially their HR process. They were a family-owned business and their turnover was holding back their profitability. They believed a robust HR process wo...
As we turn the final corner of 2017, many family-owned businesses are preparing to become more profitable in 2018. When I took the helm of our third-generation family business several years ago, I was eager to boost our profitability. Bu...
Family-owned businesses have unique challenges that impact their profitability – both positively and negatively. And often, the advantages that come with a family business are also the things that are most challenging. But by addressin...
Why It’s Never the “Right Time” to Start Using EOS®
September 6, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Uncategorized
One of my clients who has been in business for over 20 years was hitting the ceiling when I first met them. They had been very successful over the years, but now they’d hit a plateau on revenue and profit. The team all felt stretched thi...
You may have missed this article when it was published in August 2016. I’m resharing it now because I often talk with companies that could benefit from the timeless content in this post. Hope you enjoy it! –Mike Kotsis. Are you willin...
Implementing EOS® in Your Company? Watch Out for These Mistakes!
August 23, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
The power of EOS is that it gives your company a single way of doing business that’s simple and proven. Over 50,000 organizations around the world are running on EOS and getting their business under control. By addressing the Six Key Com...
The Proven Method to Getting Your Business Under Control
August 16, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
Imagine you arrive at the office one Monday morning. You flip on your laptop, go get a cup of coffee, and come back to your desk – only to discover the blue screen of death. Your laptop is completely unresponsive and you can’t do a thi...
I’ve noticed a pattern recently. In meeting with several leadership teams for the first time, I always ask the questions, “What do you want from your business? What’s your big goal?” And lately I’ve heard the same answer from b...
[Case Study] How EOS® Transformed a Struggling Company
August 2, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
I met with an engineering firm in southeast Michigan, that was in danger of imploding. Before they started using the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, they were a $4.5 million company with 40 employees. On the surface, they seemed like...
Why Aren’t You Getting What You Want from Your Business?
July 26, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
Many entrepreneurs are frustrated because they aren’t getting what they want from their business. Most of them don’t understand why they’ve hit the ceiling, and they’re left spinning their wheels without gaining...
How to Live the Entrepreneurial Lifestyle You’re Dreaming Of
July 19, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you started your business with the goal of living the ideal entrepreneurial lifestyle. You wanted the freedom that comes from a business that runs itself so that you could enjoy the good life—whatever...
Some time ago, a client of mine had a ridiculously long Issues List that was getting out of control. They never seemed to be making progress on resolving their issues – in fact, their issues seemed to be exploding! EOS® promises to help...
How Will EOS Impact Me Personally and Professionally?
July 5, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System
Implementing EOS® in your company has its challenges and its benefits. It isn’t for everyone. Most people aren’t open to the idea of having an objective truth-teller working with the leadership team, leading them down a path to dig ...
Are You Avoiding Your People Issues?
June 28, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, People Issues, Small Business
You may have missed this article when it was published in March 2014. I’m resharing it now because I often talk with companies that could benefit from the timeless content in this post. Hope you enjoy it! -Mike Kotsis. For many entrepre...
What if You’re Not the Right Person to Run Your Company?
June 21, 2017Leadership, Small Business, Vision
“I’m not sure I’m the right person to run this company.” As I started the EOS process with a marketing agency, the CEO told his leadership team that he wasn’t sure that he was the right person to run the business. He gave everyone full p...
This article originally appeared on the Ambs Call Center blog on April 20, 2017. One of my clients nearly buried his semi-truck dealership because he thought that as the owner, he was responsible for his business. For years, he always ma...
In the EOS Process™, we often use the Kolbe A™ Index with leadership teams to identify each leader’s natural instinctual strengths. When these strengths differ from one another, we can identify sources of natural conflict among the t...
You may have missed this article when it was published in September 2015. I’m resharing it now because I often come across companies that could benefit from the timeless content in this post. Hope you enjoy it! -Mike Kotsis. As your com...
I have a client with two brothers on the leadership team, who disagreed about how to handle employee-challenge situations. The company has three locations with multiple shifts. Frustrations among midlevel managers were brewing when one...
The Simple Secret to Becoming Your Best
May 10, 2017EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business, Team Health
When I begin the journey of implementing EOS with an entreprenurial company, I ask the leadership team if they’re willing to become their best. Without even thinking about it, they instinctively want to answer...
If you’re struggling to get more results from your employees, you’re not alone. Many small business leaders feel stymied by under-performing teams. Here are a few of the top articles from the last month that address...
There’s been a lot of attention on employee engagement, lately. You can find a new article about engagement in any of the leading business magazines nearly every week, and the major survey research houses have conducted several studies o...
I was recently in a planning session with the leadership team of an HVAC and sheet metal construction company. At one point, the owner paused to reflect on the impact EOS® has had on his company. He remarked how tremendously accountab...
Hold Your Employees Accountable without Damaging Company Culture
March 29, 2017Small Business, Team Health
Many business leaders have worked hard to build their company’s culture, only to realize that they’ve created a culture without accountability. There’s a healthy work/life balance and employees enjoy being together, but productivity is...
How to Balance Employee Autonomy and Accountability
March 22, 2017Leadership, People Issues, Small Business, Team Health
Disengaged employees cost companies as much as $550 billion every year in lost productivity. As a result, frustrated companies are looking for better ways to increase employee accountability. But increased accountability on its...
Recently, I’ve had several new clients take the first step on the journey of becoming their best by implementing the simple, proven tools of the EOS® Proven Process. A common theme from all of them is that they don’t have enough time ca...
Business owners face a lot of pressure to keep performing and pushing their companies forward. If it goes unchecked, extended stress can produce business owner burnout. These are a few of the top articles from the last month or so that...
When I begin working with a new client, I often hear the business owner describing their company in ways that give a peek into what’s going on underneath the exterior they’re presenting. They use phrases like “I’m up to my eyeballs,” “it...
The Biggest Reason You Don’t Accomplish More (And How to Fix It)
February 22, 2017meetings, Small Business
Running a business isn’t easy. If you’re like most business leaders, you’ve got a lot you want to accomplish. In a recent client session, the team had an a-ha moment while we were setting priorities for the next 90 days. They were frus...
Are you frustrated that everything isn’t getting done from one meeting to the next? You’re not alone! Many of my client leadership teams have expressed similar frustrations over the last year. Frustrations were cropping up in two mai...
Guarded, careful tiptoeing, avoiding the pain. If this sounds like your company’s leadership team, you’re normal. I’ve lost count of the number of teams that act this way – there are so many. I’ve also seen teams like this who experi...
Could All Your Business Problems Have Just One Root Cause?
January 11, 2017Small Business, Team Health
A five-person leadership team at a successful 50-year-old company recently got stuck and hit the ceiling. Two years ago they started to implement the EOS Tools on their own, but they were still dealing with several frustrations....
Do you want any of these for your business in the coming year? Peace of mind. Consistency. Efficiency. Scalability. More Fun. And of course, more profit. Every leadership team that I’ve worked with seems to have an instant eagerness to...
Annual planning season is upon us. This is the time of year that many of my clients have their two-day offsite annual planning sessions. It’s their opportunity to reflect on last year’s successes and misses, as well as getting clear ...
7 Small Business Tips to Transform Your Company
November 30, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
Recently I was catching up with one of my clients at a cocktail reception. In our conversation, he said, “Do you know what you’ve helped us to do in our business? When we first started working with you, we only had two weeks’ worth...
For a company to be successful, they’ve got to have great people on their team. Great people are people who fit seamlessly into your culture, they share your core values, and they’re very talented for their role in the business. Once...
5 Simple Tools that End Business Frustrations
November 2, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business
Thousands of entrepreneurial business leaders have read the Entrepreneurial Operating SystemⓇ books, downloaded the EOSⓇ tools, and are implementing the tools without help from a Certified EOS Implementer. But many of them continue t...
A Simple Habit to Crank Up Accountability at Your Company
October 19, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, People Issues
The stats on employees and their workplaces are staggering: 87% of employees are not engaged at work 39% of employees have no idea what their company’s goals and objectives are 47% don’t know the state of their company’s performanc...
People are at the foundation of every great business. In order for a team to achieve the company’s vision, the team must be surrounded with truly great people, top to bottom throughout the company. Many leadership teams know this, but ...
11 Techniques Successful Leaders Use to Run Effective Meetings
September 21, 2016Leadership, meetings
A part of the journey for leadership teams to become their best is learning to run highly effective weekly meetings using the Level 10 Meeting Agenda. During these meetings, I’m often a “fly on the wall,” just observing. Recently, ...
One of my clients, a small software company in Detroit, had this a-ha moment in our recent quarterly session. “With great power comes great responsibility. We have great power (talent on our team), and we’re not being responsible bec...
Quarterly Check In: September 2016 – When EOS isn’t easy to implement, some helpful resources
September 6, 2016Quarterly Check InHi , EOS implementers often say that EOS principles are simple, but they’re not easy. Growing a healthy business is hard work, but I’ve got some thoughts and resources that are sure to encourage you and give you some extra help as y...
When I first meet with a small business leadership team, I always ask them to rate the how accountable their team is on a scale of 1 to 10. The average among teams is a 4. And inevitably there is a comment or statement made that “I wis...
Quarterly Check In: August 2016 – Exclusive Invitation: Business Traction Forum (plus resource links)
August 6, 2016Quarterly Check InHi , This month I’m going to shake it up a little and check in with you in four areas, instead of two: 1) one thing personal 2) one thing professional 3) one thing on the horizon 4) one thing worth sharing Watch this short video messa...
Small business leaders have a lot on their plate. It’s normal to be juggling at least 136 issues at any given moment. Time is a scarce resource. Unfortunately, most small business leaders have their time taken up by reacting in firefig...
Freedom. Control of our own destiny. Making your mark on this planet. Financial wealth. Growth. More fun. These are a few of the many reasons why entrepreneurs and key leaders desire the positions that they’re in. Unfortunately for mos...
July 2016: Quarterly Check In – Why some teams keep falling short of their goals while other teams succeed
July 1, 2016Quarterly Check InHi , In recent client sessions, I’ve noticed that some teams are consistently hitting their goals, making huge progress quarter after quarter. On the other hand, some teams have been consistently falling short of their quarterly prior...
A client of mine in the manufacturing industry recently experienced an a-ha moment about how often their team should meet. They had tried everything under the sun to find the right meeting cadence—daily meetings, weekly one-on-ones, we...
15 Ways to Guarantee You Have Painful Company Meetings
June 15, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Small Business
Every company has internal meetings. Very few organizations have good company meetings. When I first meet with the leadership team of a client, one of the first questions I ask them to do is rate the effectiveness of their meetings on a ...
Recently a client who has been in the service industry for over 69 years reported that they’re having a record year in both revenue and profit. It wasn’t always this good. Just a short time ago, their team was frustrated with too m...
A few weeks ago we co-hosted an event with Gino Wickman called the Integrator Mastery Forum. It’s a full-day interactive workshop for entrepreneurial business leaders of 50 Michigan companies. A common thread throughout the room was th...
Imagine you’ve founded a service business with about 100 employees. When asked, you explain your role as being involved with everything, especially Sales and Marketing, and Operations. One day, as you arrive at your weekly meeting, you...
Business leaders have a lot to do. The number of tasks that need to get done keeps expanding, and as a result the To Do list grows and grows. Some people manage tasks through sticky notes, some use technology tools such as Asana or Trell...
It’s no secret that most people cringe when they hear the words, “let’s have a meeting.” Most meetings are awful. When I first took the helm of our third-generation family business, I ran some pretty awful meetings. I knew I had to...
Ever have meetings where your team is stuck on a topic? Worse yet, you can feel when it’s about to happen because it’s happened so many times before. Every entrepreneurial team experiences this during the course of growing their...
5 Critical Leadership Skills When Your Business Hits the Ceiling
March 9, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership
When you’re stuck, it can leave you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. It happens when you, your department, or your company isn’t growing anymore. It also happens when you’re growing too fast and everyone is struggling to keep up....
Clarity breaks are essential for business leaders to practice on a consistent interval. A clarity break is a scheduled time to get out of the office with just pen and paper to think. Henry Ford said, “Thinking is the hardest work there...
Many of my client leadership teams pick a 10-year timeframe to set their big business goals—hence, we call it a “10-Year Target.” But in recent client sessions, there’s been quite a bit of debate around how to set their 10-Year T...
3 keys to becoming a healthy, cohesive team
January 27, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, People Issues, Small Business
One of my clients is a tech company that has been in business for 15 years. The two cofounders are still very active in the business, but over this past year their working relationship took a rough turn for the worse....
5 Amazing Outcomes of Running a Great Business
January 13, 2016EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Leadership, Small Business
A new year. A new beginning. Time to start afresh and anew. For many leaders of entrepreneurial companies, the beginning of a new calendar year marks the resetting of goals and the creation of a new plan for the upcoming year. I’ve bee...
Do you KNOW for sure if everyone in your company is doing what they should be doing? In my last post, I focused on the importance of building a company scorecard. Today, I’d like to share a couple of terrific tools for rolling out the...
Ever feel like you were caught by surprise with a sudden increase or decrease in business? Maybe you knew at a high level that it was coming, but you were surprised by the magnitude of impact the change had on different areas of your bus...
Did you have trouble disconnecting from the grind on your last vacation? Did you find it hard to enjoy the long holiday weekend? Could you relax? I mean truly relax, where you fully disconnected from work....
When you prune a tree, you remove the dead or diseased parts so the whole tree will grow and thrive. If you don’t prune the tree, the whole tree is at risk of dying. The same is true with businesses....
This post was originally authored by Ken DeWitt and appeared on the Dewitt LLC blog. I have a wonderful client who says, “Thank you! You’ve given me my life back!” practically every time I see him. He’s so happy, he referred one of his...
While working with leadership teams of entrepreneurial companies, a vital step is getting the team to agree upon the company’s sweet spot—the Core Focus. The Core Focus answers two questions: Why does the company exist? What is the c...
Do you have enough time? Most business owners and leadership team members answer “no” to this question. Their response is typically something like, “There’s never enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do.” If y...
The Elephant in the Room. The Sacred Cow. The skeleton in the closet. Every company has certain issues that they avoid bringing up at all costs. Sometimes the issues are too uncomfortable to confront. Or the same issue has been discussed...
Check-Ins May Be the Cure to Your Lousy Meetings
September 17, 2015EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System, Vision
Last week in a client session, two team members rushed in frantically just as we were about to start the meeting. They dropped into their seats with disheveled hair and scowls on their faces. One of them said they didn’t get any sleep ...
I was on a phone call earlier this week with a client who has 40 employees. He told me about the sudden resignation of one his long-time managers. Here’s the story he shared with me. “Last week at our quarterly management meeting, on...
How to Learn What’s Really Going on in Your Company
July 2, 2015EOS - Entrepreneurial Operating System
Want to resolve problems fast? Then hold consistent weekly meetings. Regular weekly meetings with your leadership team—and with all departments—exposes problems and opportunities and gives you the chance to solve them quickly. (In EOS,...
When we first met, one of my clients was struggling with significant turnover. They had been operating with the mentality of hiring fast and firing fast. Whenever they had an opening, they hired as fast as they could to fill the void. Af...
There are many different ways to grow your business. But some are better than others. In a recent annual session, one of my clients arrived with lists of ideas for growing their business over the coming year. The ideas spanned a wide...
Imagine you’re on a road trip. Your kids have been whining and yelling in the backseat forabout an hour. Out of desperation you put a DVD into your laptop, letting out a sigh of relief as you wait for the kids’ movie to load. Only th...
In May 2013, Mark Dantonio, head coach of the Michigan State Spartan football team visited the Rose Bowl in California. His daughter took a video of her father predicting the Spartan’s Rose Bowl victory this season. You can find the vi...
In a recent talk I gave on The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), I asked everyone to rate their company in terms of how ‘great’ their people are, on a scale of 0% to 100%, where 100% is perfect. I heard one person laughing, one of ...
Michigan’s 2013 trip to the final four began in 2010, just after Michigan completed a disappointing 15-17 season. John Beilein met with his new coaching staff and answered some fundamental questions that defined his leadership as Michi...
If so, maybe you can relate to the following situation in your company. Your meeting runs longer than planned. You are rushing out the door as the meeting finally comes to an end and are scrambling just to make it to your next appointmen...