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A leadership team can be excited about EOS®, the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, and still leave much of the company wondering what it’s supposed to mean.
The team has adopted the tools. Introduced the core values. Shared the vision. Started Quarterly Conversations™.
But introducing something is only the beginning. The leadership team is responsible for helping it take root.
I think about it like flood irrigation.
A farmer prepares a field with rows running away from a small irrigation ditch along one side. Water flows through the ditch. By damming it at certain points, the farmer directs water down the rows, where it soaks into the soil and waters the crops.
But opening the ditch doesn’t guarantee every plant gets water.
A poorly formed row can send water in the wrong direction. A blockage can stop it halfway down. The plants near the ditch might be doing fine while the ones at the far end are drying out.
The farmer has to check. Did the water get where it needed to go? Where did it stop? What needs to be cleared?
Leadership teams need to ask those same questions.
Preparing the field is just the start
When we adopt an operating system like EOS, we prepare the rows. We create a structure for communicating, setting priorities, solving problems and holding one another accountable.
When we introduce the tools to our people, we plant the seeds.
Then comes the work that makes those seeds grow: consistently living the system, teaching it, explaining it and following through until people can use it well themselves.
That takes more than a rollout meeting.
You can prepare beautiful rows and plant good seed. Without consistent water, you still won’t have much of a harvest.
Where the water stops
Consider these everyday examples of where a rollout can stall.
Someone hears the company’s core values and concludes they’re generic corporate language. Just words on a wall.
It’s tempting to decide that person has a bad attitude. But leaders should first examine what they’ve actually taught.
As Gino Wickman writes in Traction®:
“People won’t necessarily understand what you mean if you merely state each core value.”
Have we explained what each value means here? Have we told real stories about people living it? Have we used the values to explain difficult decisions? Do our own actions give those words credibility?
A core values speech needs fresh examples and consistent delivery. People need to see the connection between the words and the work.
If they can repeat the values but can’t explain what they look like, the water may have reached their ears without soaking in.
Or consider quarterly conversations.
An employee has a conversation with their manager. It goes reasonably well. They think about how to make the next one better, prepare for it and look forward to another opportunity to talk.
Then the manager never schedules it.
What might that employee learn about how dependable this new commitment is? Whatever the manager intended, the missing conversation can deliver a message.
The seed was planted. Someone was ready to grow. Then the water stopped.
Or consider a manager who hesitates to share their team’s availability because another department might need those people.
That concern deserves a conversation. There may be a real capacity problem or conflicting priorities to resolve.
But it also raises questions about how well leadership has communicated the larger picture.
Does this manager understand where the company is going? How their team contributes? How priorities get decided when two departments need the same person? Can they trust that helping another team won’t leave their own commitments ignored?
Telling people to work together won’t resolve those questions. Leaders have to make the company’s direction clear and work through the decisions that make cooperation possible.
When the measure replaces the purpose
Sometimes we become so focused on measuring something that we lose sight of why it matters.
Take employee engagement. We want to know whether people feel connected to their work, their team and the company. So we measure it.
But are we also stopping to have a positive human conversation with someone on a random Tuesday? Asking how they’re doing? Recognizing something they did well? Listening long enough to learn something?
In How to Be a Great Boss, Gino Wickman and René Boer make a related point about quarterly conversations:
“Too often bosses let the form get in the way of having a meaningful, open, and honest conversation.”
The same problem shows up when we measure engagement. A measure can help us notice where attention is needed. It can’t provide that attention for us.
Measuring engagement while neglecting our relationships is like checking soil moisture every day without sending water down the row.
When the field changes
Organizational changes create another place where the water can stop.
The leadership team works through a change and believes it’s in the company’s best interest. By the time the decision is announced, the leaders may have spent weeks discussing it.
The people affected are hearing it for the first time.
They need to understand why the change is happening, what it means for their work and how they fit. Leaders need to understand their perspective, too. People closer to the work may see something the leadership team missed. That information may call for adjusting the decision.
Then comes the work of helping people succeed in the new structure. Have we clearly defined the new seats? Do the people filling them get it, want it and have the capacity to do it? Where do we need to teach, support or make a different seat assignment?
Changing The Accountability Chart® is the beginning of that work. The change has to make sense in people’s daily experience.
When we reshape the field, we have to walk the rows again. We can’t assume the water will follow the new path just because we drew it.
Walk the rows
From the leadership team’s perspective, the rollout may look complete.
We presented it. We sent it. We covered it in the meeting.
Those statements tell us what left the ditch. They don’t tell us what reached the end of the row.
To find that out, we have to get closer to the work.
Ask someone what a core value means and when they’ve seen it demonstrated. Ask when their last quarterly conversation happened and whether the next one is scheduled. Ask how their work contributes to the company’s priorities.
Then listen.
Confusion, cynicism and inconsistent use of the tools are reasons to investigate. Sometimes we haven’t explained something clearly. Sometimes a manager hasn’t followed through. Sometimes our own behavior contradicts what we’ve asked everyone else to do.
Sometimes the same question keeps coming up because there’s a real problem we still haven’t solved.
We won’t discover the blockage by standing at the head of the field insisting we already turned on the water.
Consistency belongs to the leadership team
Every leader is responsible for carrying the system into their part of the company. The leadership team is responsible for making sure that happens across the whole business.
In Get a Grip, Gino Wickman and Mike Paton put it plainly:
“If you don’t exhibit the Core Values yourselves, you can’t expect your people to follow the rules.”
That responsibility extends to how leaders use the whole system.
One leader can’t treat quarterly conversations as essential while another quietly lets them disappear. One department can’t make decisions around the company’s vision while another operates as though its own priorities are all that matter.
People notice those differences. They learn which commitments are dependable and which ones depend on who their manager happens to be.
Consistency gives people a reason to trust the system long enough to learn it.
That means leaders keep their commitments. They explain the reasons behind the tools. They teach with real examples. They address the things that interrupt progress. And they keep checking whether people understand and can use what they’ve been taught.
Over time, people begin doing more of this themselves. They use the values to make decisions. They raise issues earlier. They connect their work to the vision. They have useful conversations and follow through.
That’s when the plants begin to bear fruit.
As a Certified EOS Implementer®, my goal is to help 100 teams graduate by 2035, equipped to keep running on EOS on their own. Building that ability takes leaders who keep teaching, practicing and following through until the disciplines take root throughout the company.
At your next leadership team meeting, ask:
Where have we introduced EOS but failed to keep watering it?
Pick one place. Find out where the flow stops. Agree on who will address it and when you’ll check back. Start there, rather than trying to fix the whole field at once.
The leadership team’s responsibility continues until the water reaches the end of the row.
Quotation sources: Gino Wickman, Traction, Chapter 3, library PDF page 55; Gino Wickman and René Boer, How to Be a Great Boss, Chapter 8, library PDF page 94; Gino Wickman and Mike Paton, Get a Grip, Chapter 4, library PDF page 135. PDF locations refer to the verified library copies and may differ from printed pagination.
*EOS tools and terminology are attributed to EOS Worldwide. The irrigation analogy and leadership commentary are Ben Johnson’s.*