The EOS Life®: With People You Love

In my first post about The EOS Life®, Doing What You Love, I talked about doing what you love to the point where you get up every morning excited about what the day will bring.

In this post, I want to talk about the second point of The EOS Life: With people you love.

To put it simply, you want to surround yourself with people you love. Life is too short to spend with people who are hard, annoying, and frustrating. You want to work with people who are like hitting an “EASY” button.

It Starts With Core Values

There is nothing like working with a team of people who fit your culture and who are on a common mission. Working with these people feels effortless when you have a great culture because they share your core values. So the first step in creating that culture is to define your core values.

Once those are defined, you’ll want to get your vision shared by everyone in your organization. What I’ve found is that people may share your core values, but if they don’t share your vision, you’re going to have way more conflict in your organization, with energy pointed in all different directions.

The next step is to use the People Analyzer™. It’s a simple discipline, but it takes energy and focus to use. So, looking at your core values and thinking about your vision — whatever you have written down in your Vision/Traction Organizer™ (V/TO™) — I want you to quickly write down the name of someone in your organization that you’ve let hang around way too long — someone who doesn’t share your vision and core values. I want you to make a commitment to yourself to have that hard conversation and make that great “people move” this quarter.

To Help You Love What You Do, Find People You Love to Do It With

I had one client who, when we went to Focus Day™, was on the verge of quitting. He hated his team. They had no fun together, everything was hard, everything was a fight. He was contemplating selling the company and just getting out. The company was at about $5 million in revenue at the time.

Over the course of the next few years, the entire team — except for the Visionary and Integrator™ — turned over. They sought out people who were team players, who worked hard and played hard, who were open and honest, and great communicators. After three years of working together, they went from $5 million to $19 million and he was getting very large offers to sell his company, which he turned down because he was having too much fun to stop.

Be Your Authentic Self

Peter Drucker taught us that culture eats strategy for breakfast. My client didn’t implement some sophisticated strategies in their market; they just created a culture they wanted. That was all the strategy they needed.

The last thing in working with people that you love is getting really crystal clear on your target market — The List — in your marketing strategy, focusing in on the psychographic. You want to stop bending yourself out of shape to work with people you don’t like, just because they write you a check. I understand that you might have to do that at times, but you’re going to find out that you will do your best work when you can be your authentic self and work with people you truly love working with.

Customers who don’t share your core values can suck the life force from you and your people. Write down the names of customers or clients on your Issues List — think about the ones that don’t fit or who live in contrast to your core values. You’re going to find that your issues are probably around not having a core values fit.

Remember, you only have one life to live. Don’t spend it with people you don’t like.