EOS for your Departments or Branches

After the EOS rollout, the next question I usually get from members of the Senior Leadership Team (“SLT”) is, “So, how am I supposed to do EOS in my department?”

This post was written by my coach, Ken DeWitt, Certified EOS Implementer, and originally appeared in his client newsletter, Traction Tribune. There’s not a better way to explain this :-). Thanks Ken!

Step 1

The first step for any Department Leader is to read How To Be A Great Boss. This book is designed to help you master the art of LMA – Leading, Managing, and holding people Accountable. It will show you how to dramatically improve your team’s performance and their excitement about their work, and will help you effectively implement EOS in your department.

Step 2

The next step is to continue the EOS education you and your peers on the SLT began at your company-wide EOS kickoff meeting. The best way to start is by reading What The Heck is EOS? with your team and having a book discussion about it. (See the article below this one for the best way to buy multiple copies of any EOS book.)

Step 3

Once that’s understood, you must try to over-communicate and continually reinforce the Company Vision by sharing the V/TO, Core Values Speech, Accountability Chart, and Company Rocks. Your Integrator should be taking the lead with preaching these things company-wide, and you must follow his/her lead and talk about these every day in your department with your people. If you don’t, you’ll wind up with a department that doesn’t live your Core Values or Vision, and doesn’t deliver the measurables you are personally accountable for on the Company Scorecard.

Step 4

With the Vision “shared by all,” the next step is to make sure each of your direct reports understands his or her role in achieving the Vision by developing your Departmental Scorecard with individual measurables for every employee.

Step 5 – The Big One

Institute The Meeting Pulse in your department. This is the discipline of holding specific types of meetings at specific times to keep your team on track and focused on hitting their targets.

DEPARTMENTAL LEVEL 10s

Start with weekly departmental Level 10 Meetings using the Level 10 Agenda and adjusting the amount of time allotted for each item. These need not be as long as the SLT’s 90-minute Level 10s; they should be less than an hour. In fact, many departments do everything they need to do in as little as 20 minutes.

Quarterlies and Annuals are a different matter.

First, decide if having them makes sense for you or not. If you have sufficient time and see the benefits of taking people into an “ON the business meeting” for a half-day or a full day, then do it! If not, at least take time in a Level 10 to spend the entire IDS time dedicated to the things listed in Steps 3 and 4 above. I’d suggest that if you have a larger company, at least all managers who have LMA responsibilities as part of their roles participate in a Quarterly/Annual. For those fully on the “front line,” perhaps it’s not necessary.

DEPARTMENTAL QUARTERLIES

Most companies that do Department Quarterlies have a 4- to 5-hour Quarterly, starting in the morning and perhaps concluding with a working lunch. Follow the same agenda that’s in the “Quarterly Pulsing” section of your Leadership Team Manual, and use the same six workbook pages out of that section as you used with the Senior Leadership Team. If it takes you 6 or 8 hours to conduct an effective Quarterly, then so be it. You should see the results throughout the quarter!

DEPARTMENTAL ANNUALS

Annuals can be held in one day. For this one, you’ll make a few adjustments to the agenda. Explain the “Five Dysfunctions” and do the “Personal Histories” in a group. Do not do the “One Thing” exercise. This is reserved for the Quarterly 5-5-5 conversation you will have with each of your direct reports. These changes will make for a shorter Team Health exercise. You should do the Organizational Checkup, perhaps share the SWOT Analysis that the Senior Leadership team developed, and go over the V/TO, fully understanding the Vision the SLT crafted at its Annual. After that, it is a matter of setting Departmental 1-Year Plans, Departmental Rocks, and saving some time for solving Issues.

Next Steps:

• To learn more, you can download a free chapter of Traction here: EOS Traction Chapter 1
• For a free overview of EOS and the tools that can transform your business, schedule me here: 90 Minute Workshop