By Phil Harwood

The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) was developed by Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS Worldwide. My previous company worked directly with Gino at his Livonia, Michigan office many years ago and before Gino wrote his first book, Traction. Since this time, I’ve witnessed an explosion of EOS in all industries. I couldn’t be happier for Gino and his team. But what’s the deal with EOS? Why is it taking over? 

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At its core, EOS is basically an approach to business leadership. The beauty of it is that it’s easy to adopt but powerful in its impact. Briefly, I would like to discuss two aspects of EOS in this blog post. However, if you would like to know more, feel free to email me at phil@growthebench.com, as I’m happy to chat with you about my experience with EOS. 

The first aspect is Six Key Components. In the EOS model, every business is made up of six areas (components):

• Vision
• Data
• Process
• Traction 
• Issues
• People

In each of these areas, there are EOS tools that are used to improve each particular area. This brings us to the second aspect I’d like to discuss: a tool called Meeting Pulse, one of the tools in the Traction area.

Meeting Pulse is a methodology for leadership team meetings. In the EOS system, leadership teams meet every week for 90 minutes. There is a set agenda for these meetings (this is another EOS tool called Level 10 Meeting), where the team is reviewing data and information at a high level to identify issues and then solve those issues using a structured decision-making process (called I-D-S).

In addition to the weekly leadership team meetings, the team meets off-site once every quarter (every 90 days). These quarterly meetings are more focused on the company’s strategic plan to identify what needs to happen in the next quarter to stay on track or get back on track. One of these quarterly meetings is designated as a two-day “annual retreat” where long- and short-term strategic plans are created and committed to by the team. 

While the weekly leadership team meetings are rarely facilitated by an outsider, the quarterly meetings (and especially the annual retreats) are almost always facilitated by an outsider because it shifts the heavy burden of chairing these important meetings to someone other than a member of the leadership team. 

I often say that I am completely exhausted after a full day of facilitating a quarterly meeting for one of my consulting clients. And I have no skin in the game; I’m just hired help. But the demands of constantly making sure the meeting is on track, that everyone’s voices are heard, formulating good questions to ask the team, and everything else that goes into facilitating a meeting like this is a job in and of itself. If a member of the leadership team is attempting to fill this role, there is no way they are also fully engaged in the meeting as a participant.  

If you’re a business leader in the snow and ice management industry and are interested in professional development and networking with other leading business leaders from our industry, I invite you to check out our upcoming Snowfighters Institute event, Inner Circle, being held April 24-25. In fact, if I were you, I would register right now to secure your spot and get in on the discounted hotel room block. Click here for more information. 

Now go forth.