After more than 30 years operating Bonneville Subway, Mike Manwill was already an exceptional leader and manager. He knew the business, cared about the people, and was deeply loyal to the company. His dedication showed up in the way he ran the stores and the responsibility he was willing to carry.
He also had a hard time taking a single day off.
Much of the leadership and management work still landed on Mike. His experience helped keep the business strong, but so much depended on him being there that a vacation was difficult to imagine. The business worked. Making room for the rest of his life was another matter.
What would it take to step away?
The decision to implement EOS® came from the business’s owners. They lived out of town and were not involved in day-to-day operations. They wanted greater transparency into how the business was running and less dependence on any one person.
Mike was a reluctant participant at first. Looking back at those early conversations, he remembered thinking, “this is a bunch of crap.” After decades running the business, he was being asked to adopt a system someone else had chosen.
Early in our work together, I asked Mike how many hours he actually wanted to work and how much vacation time he wanted each year. His answers mattered. We were building toward a business that could support the life he wanted.
The opportunity was to build on Mike’s strengths. EOS would give him tools to help others grow as leaders and managers, share more of the responsibility, and put his own experience to work where it could create even more value.
Giving other leaders room to lead
We started with the work already on his plate. I asked Mike to track everything he did for a week or two. Looking at where his time went would help him see what he could hand over and what others would need in order to take it on.
That last part mattered. Mike had spent years developing the judgment that made him good at his job. Handing someone a task could clear an item from his list. Helping that person understand the standard, make decisions, and follow through could change how much depended on him.
EOS gave Mike and his team a way to practice that. Clear responsibilities helped people know what they owned. Weekly leadership meetings gave them a place to work through problems together. Shared priorities and scorecards made it easier to see what needed attention and follow up.
Mike brought the same dedication to developing his managers that he had always brought to running the stores. Part of our coaching focused on giving them room to think: asking questions, letting them work through problems, and helping them build their own judgment. He was willing to grow alongside them.
It took patience and follow-through between sessions. Good ideas still had to become consistent action in the stores. Our conversations kept coming back to how Mike and his team could apply the tools in their daily work: clarify the standard, agree on who owned it, and follow through.
As managers took more responsibility, Mike began to have room to step away.
A vacation became possible
During the first year, Mike was delegating more and growing more comfortable with the idea of taking a vacation. Before long, he was getting away and seeing his managers take greater responsibility. At the following annual session, a California vacation was one of his personal highlights.
For a leader who had struggled to take even one day off, that was meaningful progress. There was still work to do, but time away had become something he could experience.
His focus for the year ahead was simple: empower the area managers.
That thinking continued to spread. Later, when administrative work was pulling managers away from coaching their people, Mike moved responsibility further into the stores. Store managers began maintaining their own scorecards, giving them a more active role in the work their managers had been carrying.
As more people learned to lead and manage, Mike had greater freedom to choose where to put his time and experience.
The stores continued to outperform their markets. During 2024 and 2025, Bonneville Subway grew revenue by 2% while revenue at other stores in its markets fell by 6–7%.
Sharing more of the day-to-day leadership also freed Mike to take on higher-value work, including acquiring an additional store for the portfolio. The business could benefit from his experience in new ways as his team took greater ownership of running the existing stores.
Mike could feel the difference. In a note to me, he expressed his appreciation for being “in a better place in business and in my life.”
The man who had dismissed EOS at the beginning now described it this way: “I am a changed person because of this. I talk in ways I never thought I'd talk before.”
He even caught himself watching other leaders and recognizing ideas he had learned to use in his own business. The tools were becoming part of how he thought about leadership.
A team that could carry it forward
After graduating from facilitated implementation, Mike ran his own quarterly session. He came away describing more collaboration and stronger engagement from his managers than in previous sessions. The team is even running a quarterly leadership book club as one of its priorities, taking responsibility for continuing to learn together.
They were ready to keep running EOS themselves. Mike and his team would keep developing leaders and strengthening processes. I would be available when he wanted help thinking something through.
“I'm just super happy that things have worked out this well.”
Recently, Mike’s son came home for a break from a great job back east. Mike was able to take most of the week off and simply enjoy time with him. He knew the business was in good hands.
The leader who once struggled to take a single day off now had room to spend quality time with his son. The responsibility his team had learned to carry gave Mike something valuable: time to invest in his family.
Helping leaders live the EOS Life® is at the heart of my work. For Mike, that meant developing other leaders, creating room to grow the business, and having time for his family. If you know how to run your business but find yourself carrying too much of it, start here:
What would your people need to own so you could take a week off?