What the heck is EOS?

Discover how this proven recipe helps non-profit leadership teams deliver real results

Having served as Development Director at a series of small non-profit organizations, I’d been treated to a front-row seat for the show that is team dysfunction. In each of these organizations, I had the good fortune to work alongside accomplished professionals, each of bringing our best strategic mindsets and a genuine concern for our the mission. And talk about hard workers! We all desperately wanted to make a difference. To a person, we all cared deeply.

And yet.

Despite the expertise and goodwill, growth came at a crawl if at all. And more often than not, went out with a whimper.

At the time, I felt frustrated and angry. Why can’t we get this going? Why can’t we move faster? Don’t they see how screwed up this is? Why can’t we make this work? We knew we were stuck. We felt the pressure. But in all honesty, as hard as we tried, we weren’t able to squeeze the organizational juice needed to get us unstuck. We simply didn’t know how to do it.

It was as if we wanted to bake a birthday cake. We’d gathered all the ingredients. We had the equipment. We were hanging out in the kitchen. The only thing missing was the recipe.

So about that elusive recipe…

Known to split my time evenly between the Business Management and the Self-Help sections at the Barnes & Noble, I’ve consumed more than my share of management theories, pet processes, and corporate yackity-yack.

I think I’ve bought and discarded Good to Great by Jim Collins no fewer than three times over the years. Great book. Love the concepts. But I never could figure out how to actually put the ideas into action.

As I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, I remember thinking to myself “Ah ha! This explains X.” Where X equals, well, everything. I thought about sharing the book with my boss but I didn’t fancy getting fired at that moment so I kept it to myself. I shared it with a colleague who agreed that it sounded interesting but he was busy putting out fires. And that’s where it ended.

The problem isn’t that these books don’t make sense.

Quite the opposite! They made great sense and I want nothing more than to use the theories to make real and lasting change. The problem was that I consistently found myself obsessing about management theories with no actionable on-ramp. No means by which to actually resolve the issues.

In other words, no recipe.

Enter EOS.

Having exhausted my already limited reserve of patience for organizational dysfunction — there’s a very real reason why Development Directors last, on average, about 18 months — I began to explore some options for the next installment of what has become affectionately known as Jeff’s Fascinating Career Adventure when I came across this thing called Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS).

Given my experience with Collins, Lencioni, et al, I was understandably skeptical.

EOS as it turns out is a suite of deceptively simple and entirely practical tools that, when deployed within an organization, gives leadership teams the recipe they need to deliver breakthrough results. In the case of the non-profit organizations I work with, this means creating even more impact for the people they serve.

Finally a recipe that I could follow!

The step-by-step recipe proposed by EOS centers on building three abilities called Vision, Traction, and Healthy.

• Vision means getting your leadership team 100% on the same page – think total organizational alignment on where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. This is like the butter and the sugar — beat until fluffy!

• Traction means helping that leadership team become more disciplined, accountable, and focused on executing your Vision. Add the dry ingredients — the flour, baking soda and a little salt provide the structure.

• Healthy means helping your team to work as a strong, functional, cohesive unit – because unfortunately, poor team health is at the root of most organizational problems. This is like the eggs, milk, and vanilla which hold it all together.

And there’s your leadership cake. Using the right ingredients and the right recipe, we get to the point where your entire organization is crystal clear on your Vision, uses Traction to stay disciplined, accountable, and focused on that Vision, and consistently operates as a Healthy, functional, cohesive unit.

Now that’s an organization that I’d like to work — and bake — with!

Sounds tasty?

If you’d like to talk more about how you can bring the power of the EOS recipe to your non-profit ingredients, I’d be happy to schedule a quick call to discuss.