Guest Blog Post by: Ben Berman 

Do you ever feel tired running your business? Like your business is controlling you rather than you controlling it? 

You’re not alone. In fact, many entrepreneurs feel similarly. Many have also discovered tools to change that equation. This is where the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) comes in.

EOS is a complete set of tools and disciplines to help you and your team get clear on your strategy, create accountability and discipline across your organization to make that strategy a reality, and cultivate a productive, healthy team along the way. 

So what is EOS? Why do nearly 100,000 companies worldwide use these tools? Read along to find out more, including some tools you can use in your business, today.  

The EOS Model 

The EOS Model is the overarching framework that ties together the full suite of EOS business tools. The model sorts all aspects- from opportunities to challenges- of a business into six key components, or categories.

Once sorted, the path to solving those issues for good and maximizing those opportunities can become clear.

Let’s dig into the six components of the EOS framework:

**1. Vision

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up someplace else - Yogi Berra” 

Vision is all about strategic alignment. Alignment is hard to come by when you’re using a 15 page document to communicate your vision. It’s too much for everyone to digest.

Like most things in EOS, simplest is often best. 

The Vision Component is all about simplifying and clarifying your strategy to get everyone in your organization aligning around it and sharing in it. 

Instead of long documents, EOS advocates the use of the following 8 Questions that break down hundreds of thousands of strategy books to the vital essence of strategy:

• Do you know the specific, unique characteristics that make someone fit in (or not fit in) at your specific organization? (Core Values)

• Is the “Why” and the “What” behind what you do clear and compelling? Do they galvanize you to do only things you’ll excel at as a business, or do you find yourself chasing shiny things only to find they’re a mirage (Core Focus)?

• Is everyone in your organization putting all their energy in one direction, towards a point in the future? (Core Target)

• Do you have a clear, specific, and compelling picture of what the company will look like 3 years into that future? (3 Year Picture)

• Are there 3-7 prioritized projects for the year that will get you well on the way towards your ultimate goal? (1 Year Plan, Quarterly Rocks)

• Are you clear on the actual human beings who you should be targeting as new opportunities? Is your messaging to them consistent and clear? Can you tell your story in a transformational way to never have to compete on price? Do you have supportive evidence that makes people have to buy? All of these questions are part of the economic engine needed for growth (Marketing Strategy)

• Are there 3-7 prioritized projects for the year that will get you well on the way towards your ultimate goal? (1 Year Plan)

• What 3-7 things will do that this quarter (Rocks)?

• Are you clear about which issues to tackle this Quarter, and which should be kept for later (Long Term Issues List)?

In eight simple questions you can diagnose and solve your alignment issues to be ironed out for good. 

**2.  People: 

“You can’t have a great company without great people.” 

Great people are defined by two key points: Culture fits (Right People) and excellence in a specific job role (Right Seats). Right People are the ones who share your Core Values. Wrong people don’t.

Using Core Values (Right People) to hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize your employees is how you keep a culture strong - regardless of a person’s skill in a given position.

Right Seats means everyone, in every single role they have, 100% has the natural ability, desire, and skills developed to do the job well.

You need Right People and Right Seats across the board.

Missing one means you likely have a Productive Jerk (Wrong Person, Right Seat) or a Beloved Bungler (Right Person, Wrong Seat).

Productive Jerks destroy morale and need to either change their ways or be shown the door.

Beloved Bunglers encourage mediocrity and need to be put in a seat that fits them or be helped to seek other opportunities.

Right People, Right Seats. 

If a people issue shows up, clarity on the root cause here helps you get those complicated people issues solved for good. 

3. Data:

“If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine.”

- Jim Barksdale

Feel like it’s hard to let go of things in your business? 

Stories in people’s heads starting to cause chaos and blame? 

Sounds like a data issue.

Data are the objective measures you use to cut through the noise to the true signal of what’s actually happening.

Get a hold of the macro numbers that drive your business and you’ll be able to take vacation knowing that the business is in order. 

Are you generating opportunities? Converting them? At the right margin? Delivering products and services effectively? Creating happy customers? Happy employees? Making Money?

The numbers that show you leading action that lead to those things are your scorecard.

Bring that discipline down to individuals everyone knows what’s expected of them - that’s giving people individual measurables. 

No more subjective feelings driving company decisions.

Get the data right and track it consistently.

That’s how you take stories and turn them into solvable issues.

4. Issues 

"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

The EOS Model's "Issues Component" is how you get clear on what issues to solve and how to solve them for good.

First, be clear what issues are relevant in the short term.

•  Does it need to be solved today? Great, get on it. 

• Can it wait until our weekly meeting? Good - that’s a short term issue, and you can address it within the week during that meeting.

• Everything else? Banish it all to a parking lot where you review Quarterly (the Long Term Issues list) so it doesn’t get lost. Stay focused on what counts.

Just this discipline of compartmentalizing issues alone has saved my clients from countless hours of wasted time.

Now your issues are compartmentalized - how do we deal with the issues and opportunities themselves?

Do that by “IDS-ing (Identify Discuss and Solve issues)” issues at their root so they go away forever. 

This makes for focused, effective conversations to solve issues for good.

Never swat a pesky mosquito, another will replace it in the morning.

Remove the nest. 

ID and solve your real issues.

**5. Process

“Systemize the predictable. Humanize the exceptional.”

Process makes things easy, lucrative, and fun.

Of the hundred-plus clients I’ve worked with in the last decade, 90%+ wanted to build a self-managing business. 

Every one of them is shocked at how easy the process for that is.

Document your basic Core Processes, train people on the details, and let them run.

Then measure compliance, shepherd people back if  they begin to stray, and update as your business evolves.

Only when you have the Core Processes built should you start diving into detailed SOPs. 

Simple process documentation = the minimum viable product. 

Start there. 

You will save yourself some rework time and a whole lot of headaches!

**6. Traction

“Vision Without Traction is Hallucination; Results Matter Most”

Traction is about execution. 

Get clear on communication, accountability, and timing to keep everything humming along.

Got the other 5 locked in but things aren’t working? 

That’s a Traction issue.

Make sure the communication cadence and goal setting are locked in.

Just enough check-ins to drive accountability, few enough that there is space to work.

Pick priorities the right way and execute accordingly. Make it happen with abundant traction.

Conclusion

You don’t have to use the EOS model. It is one of many tools to tackle the inevitable challenges that arise within an organization and in the normal course of business. Whatever tool(s) you do use, thinking of issues through this lens can help you get to impactful solutions faster. 

If you do want to begin using these tools, download the specific tools mentioned for free and get started regaining control over your profits, workforce, strategy, and business as a whole.