Managing millennials, is it worth it?
There is a lot of noise around at the moment about how to manage millennials.
But what exactly is a millennial? When I canvassed the team in the office, the one person we thought was a millennial – our office assistant – did not identify as one.
She described them as “following the latest trend”, “high maintenance”, “seeking approval through social media” and “shallow.”
She felt that they are afraid of showing who they really are, being themselves and it’s hard to have a genuine conversation about things that matter with them.
Although she is officially a millennial (Wikipedia defines them as having been born between 1981 to 1996 – 22 to 37 year olds), she believes it’s become more a description of a type of person than simply being defined by the dates you were born.
How to take control of your business
Today, you can take control of your business by engaging your leadership team in using Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to improve your business performance.
There are two major decisions you need to make:
- Is EOS is right for you and your team – are you willing to make changes and decisions?
- Who is the right implementer to help you – you need to look for the right experience and chemistry match
Before you make these decisions, let us look at EOS more carefully so you can understand how it works to improve your business.
Book review: Good to Great, by Jim Collins
When people discuss the most influential business books, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins, is one of the most frequently mentioned.
It’s sold over four million copies and remains one of the most instructive and important leadership resources, carrying wisdom that has remained pertinent since its publication in 2001.
The Entrepreneurial Operating System takes inspiration from Good to Great, and creates simple tools which help you put the characteristics of what makes a good company into practice.
The benefits of using Traction® Tools
Traction® Tools is a dashboard & workspace software for businesses implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).
It is your go-to place to store all the things you need to run your business efficiently.
At Bold Clarity, we use Traction Tools every day. We use it to update our to do lists, add issues that need to be addressed, keep track of client updates, monitor progress on our quarterly priorities, and track the most important numbers in the business.
We can see everyone’s to do lists, headlines and issues, in one place, and are able to automate our Level 10 meetings. This makes us more efficient, productive and helps us to develop good habits and discipline.
Hitting and breaking through the ceiling
Business growth is rarely smooth and easy.
It tends to occur in spurts, often as a business responds to the things going on around it – a changing the economic climate, winning and losing customers, launching new products and services, increased competition in the market and so on.
Having shifted to accommodate the new environment, a company will often plateau as it is set up and structured with people and processes to generate the revenue it is producing. It is not set up to generate two or three times that.
So change is needed. What got you here, won’t get you to the next level.
Setting Targets the EOS way
Most business owners recognise the importance of setting targets.
Leaders regularly set goals to achieve in the next quarter, next year, three and perhaps five years. But ten years? Really?
Introducing the BHAG
Some leaders find it difficult to set a ten year goal because they dealing with day-to-day pressures and continually firefighting.
One of my clients said; “I can’t think 10 years in advance. Why set a 10 year target?”
Implementing EOS – Self-implementation vs using a Professional EOS Implementer
Many businesses around the globe have discovered the discipline, focus and accountability that the Entrepreneurial Operating System brings.
One of the key decisions for companies at the start of the process is how to implement EOS.
An effective implementation can mean the difference between the system working and helping a business to grow and scale, or it remaining unstructured, inefficient, disorganised – and stuck.
Are you award-winning?
In this post, Ann Wright, who runs the media consultancy Rough House Media, and manages Bold Clarity’s PR and Marketing, discusses the value of businesses entering awards.
Have you ever entered your business for an award?
If not, it’s something which is well-worth considering.
Winning, or even being nominated, is an excellent opportunity for some positive PR both in the short and long-term.
Just this week, a Bold Clarity client, the security specialists Welcome Gate, has been nominated as Supply Chain Champion in the Small Awards – which would make you far more likely to trust them as a potential security supplier. (Good luck!)
After all, if you win, you will always be able to describe your business as “award-winning” which definitely gives you an edge over your competitors.
The 10 commandments of good decision making
The 10 Commandments of Good Decision-Making are taken from the e-book Decide which was written by EOS founder Gino Wickman.
Decide will teach you how to make better and faster decisions, solving issues that have been lingering for days, weeks, months, and even years.
As well as the 10 commandments, you’ll also learn the four discoveries that lead to world-class decisiveness and be shown a simple and effective decision-making track that can be used by every team in your company.
If you’d like to more help with good decision-making, you can download a free copy of Decide, here.
How the EOS process works
Most people are surprised to learn that the EOS tools are all free and open source. The system is described in Gino Wickman’s book Traction.
There are three different ways to introduce EOS into your business.
- Some people choose to self-implement EOS, using Traction as a guide and the free downloaded tools.
- Secondly, you can choose supported self-implementation, where for a small fee you can join Basecamp, which includes videos, explanations and access to the tools.
- And then thirdly, my clients have chosen to engage a Certified EOS Implementer™, to lead them through the EOS process.
Book review: The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey
The other day, I was talking with a tech entrepreneur and asked him “What are the biggest challenges you face in your business?
He replied “Me, I’m the bottleneck. I tend to see something isn’t working, and I jump in and get involved.”
Most dedicated business owners can relate to this.
Letting go of the reins and handing them over your employees can be a real struggle, and if you want to grow your business, you’ve got to do it.
Business owners must carefully define the roles and responsibilities of the company, hand these jobs to the right person and have the confidence not to jump in or micromanage every task.
If you struggle with “bottleneck syndrome”, we recommend Ken Blanchard’s The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey.
How to interview so you hire the right talent
One of the questions my clients ask me is how can they attract and hire the right talent – ie people.
I believe finding the right talent starts with having a defined process and system, both in your hiring process, and to help you be great at the interview stage.
How to interview potential staff
One of the books I use and recommend is Who, a Method of Hiring, by Geoff Smart and Randy Street.
How to identify, discuss & solve your issues
In a recent EOS session, I had a revealing conversation with the business founder which highlights an issue many businesses face.
He said, “I’m used to making all the decisions myself, and it’s been an adjustment for me to include others in the decision-making process.”
Some founders find it hard to let go.
London Kolbe Certification Seminar
As a big fan of Kolbe, and a Certified Consultant, I was delighted to hear that they are bringing their signature three-day certification seminar to the UK for the first time this April.
The Kolbe A Index is a brilliant way to identify people’s natural talents and help individuals and organisations utilise those talents productively.
It assesses people on four different types of behaviour: Fact Finder, Follow Thru, Quick Start and Implementor. Each trait is regarded as equally positive and is rated on an inverted scale of 1-10 on what Kolbe terms a Continuum.
The secret to good decision making
Imagine, for a moment, you’re standing on a path. In front of you, there’s a large, round boulder. What do you do?
Looking at it, you can tell it would take a lot of strength and willpower to get the rock moving – and besides, where would you even take it?
How the EOS toolbox can help your business
Running your own business can be fun, stressful and rewarding, and for some is the culmination of a lifelong dream.
Like a lot of businesses, you can benefit from the EOS system. It strengthens your business by implementing tools to help it grow, and to focus the team.
Common obstacles when implementing EOS
The big appeal of EOS is that it offers your organisation a model to manage the people, processes, resources and issues in your business that’s simple and proven to work.
Thousands of businesses around the world are making the switch to EOS, adding accountability in order to be more efficient. However, there are a number of stumbling blocks when implementing EOS that could hold you back from maximising your results.
How do you know if your meetings are working?
If you’re running your business on the Entrepreneurial Operating System, you’ll know that the key element is regular, efficient meetings, which help to determine how well employees are performing, if they’re working as a team and if your business on track.
This is known as a Level 10 meeting, because each one is rated by all the attendees and the aim is for everyone to score every meeting a 10. At the end of the meeting, each person gives their individual score – out loud.
Six benefits of running your business on EOS
EOS can make rapid, tangible differences to the way your business operates – from better communication and greater transparency to stronger structures and improved accountability.
Here some of our clients describe their top six benefits of running your business on EOS.
“Following each meeting we had a list of actions and assistance to ensure our tasks were completed before the next session. The best thing was that the team can see the results immediately. They see things changing, whereas in the past we would promise but never execute.” Jason Choy, Welcome Gate MD
“We’ve found that we can embed effective business tools into our day to day habits – it turns out we all like to track, measure and create useful magic spreadsheets more than we thought!” Keren Lerner, Top Left Design CEO
What is your VTO?
The Vision/Traction Organiser (VTO) is probably the most important document you’ll complete, if you’re running your business on the Entrepreneurial Operating System.
It is a unique two-page template for organising plans and forecasts the future of a company. Once completed it acts as a time-management tool, helping you decide when to action each element of your strategy.
We have all seen simple one-page solutions for creating and organising your company strategy, but the VTO is different.