CASE STUDY:
Hebert Grain Ventures (HGV)
About the Business
HGV
Industry
Agriculture
Services/Niche
Agriculture, ag consulting and financial coaching
Location
Moosomin, Saskatchewan, Canada
Company Size
Before EOS -> After EOS 14,000 acres -> 40,000+ acres
Doors Opened
2009 (as HGV)
Began Running on EOS
2019
EOS Implementer
Meet their Founder
Kristjan Hebert
Founder and Visionary, Hebert Grain Ventures (HGV)
Kristjan Hebert, the Visionary and President for HGV, is a recovering CPA. He said his time at a firm helped him learn fiscal responsibility through the lessons of his 50+ small business clients. That exposure helped him better prepare for when he decided to return home to the farm full-time in 2008.
Meet their Implementer
Chris Jones
Certified EOS Implementer
Chris Jones successfully grew three businesses and loves helping others do the same through powerful transformation. He founded the largest of his companies in 1995 after inventing a football receiver’s glove. Chris grew the sporting goods company’s revenue by 700% before selling it to pursue his passion for full-time coaching.
Business Frustrations
Lack of Effective
Communications
Kristjan found himself working harder and longer hours and getting frustrated. He felt that he wasn’t getting 100% out of his people, but he also didn’t know how to give his people enough information to really help him.
Lack of Clarity
Mission and Purpose
Every time the team encountered a new agricultural problem without a solution, they created a new business to fix that particular area. HGV quickly became an organization filled with many different solution-based businesses. What they lacked, however, was a sense of cohesiveness.
Exponential Growth
Exponential Team
After watching his father struggle to find and keep good people, Kristjan took a different philosophy. Since he knew he wanted exponential growth, when he found a good person, he hired them. However, many times the organization didn’t need them.
EOS Solutions
The People Component®
The People Analyzer®
Kristjan identified the business areas that frustrated him and hired people to do those tasks. The People Analyzer helped him determine they were a good match for their Core Values and their seats.
Kolbe A Index™
Kristjan also used the Kolbe to ensure someone was a good match for his high Quick Start personality before inviting them to join the team.
GWC™
Kristjan knew he needed a leadership team of people who Get, Want, and have the Capacity (GWC) to do their jobs. To ensure the leaders are fully bought into HGV’s success, Kristjan made a business profit-sharing arrangement with senior partners and junior managers so they treated it like their own.
The Process Component®️
Followed By All
Kristjan named his Integrator and vice president of grain operations, Jeff Warkentin, to serve as their EOS lead, Evan Shout the President of Maverick Ag ensures all things EOS get done. HGV treated all of the businesses under one Integrator so as not to create silos with multiple integrators. This way, they continue to implement EOS as purely as possible since HGV graduated from working with their EOS Implementer.
The Traction Component®️
The Level 10 Meeting™
The weekly meeting and agenda helped the team hold one another accountable for completing to-dos and ensuring any decisions in the meeting were communicated to everyone impacted.
The Meeting Pulse®
HGV chose to adapt the Quarterly Meeting Pulse into trimesters to better align with growing seasons. By holding sessions in March, July, and November, they could work on the business without interrupting farm operations.
Gaining Traction®
Unlike many business owners, Kristjan never faced Hitting the Ceiling from a lack of people. Rather he lacked the communications skills and structure to fully utilize the good people already on his team. He’s found that establishing Rocks keeps his team from getting too busy to do the important tasks that don’t necessarily affect day-to-day operations but that impact where the organization will be in three years. What surprised Kristjan was how his team wanted to take over the Rocks he set for himself because they were ready for the responsibility. So he continues to Delegate and Elevate™ tasks that previously belonged to him.
HGV on the We Run on EOS Podcast
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RSS Feed
Why We Run on EOS®
“Nobody paid us to get up on Saturday morning to go play hockey when we were 10 years old. Our team feels that way about the business: we make it a game to keep growing. EOS helped us to be aligned on our goal.” ~ Visionary Kristjan Hebert
Resources Mentioned
Find these resources and more in the free downloadable EOS Toolbox™
