When I walk up to the chicken coop, my rooster, Sven, makes a certain sound. It is his way of notifying the flock to “pay attention.” This isn’t a special “Sven” sound as my other roosters would do the same thing. He also makes a sound I call “Happy Chicken.” When I go into the run and leave treats for the flock, Sven will make this excited clucking that sounds like he is really pleased with what I brought them. That sound always makes me smile.
But I noticed something funny a few weeks ago. I had just dropped some treats in the run, and Sven seemed happy about it, but then he waddled over to the corner of the run and started making his ”happy chicken” sound – and he was nowhere near the treats I had just dropped. He then picked up a worm and proceeded to drop it in front of the nearest hen for her to eat. In case you don’t know, chickens love to eat worms. Sometimes, I’ll grab worms from the garden and take them to the chickens. Anyway, as I watched this exchange, I realized, Sven isn’t excited about my treats, he just makes that sound to get the attention of the hens so he can give them a treat.
Since the worm exchange, I’ve noticed him make the sound, wait until a hen comes to him, then drop some food for her. In fact, I’ve watched him strut his stuff all over that run sharing the treats with all the hens.
And that is when I realized how much of regular chicken life I missed observing because of the aggressiveness of my former rooster, Oden. When Oden was alive, he was so aggressive that I never had an opportunity to pause and watch the chickens and how they interact. I was forced to keep my eyes on him, lest he find me not paying attention and try to flog me.
As I reflect on the current state of my chickens, I’m pleased with the traction that I’ve been able to make toward becoming the chicken mama I always hoped I could become.
I’m sure many business owners have similar realizations. When you focus on the right things, you find that all the hard work, all the hard decisions, all the time you put in begins to pay off. And that is what the Traction component of EOS is all about. It means making progress toward the company that you know you are capable of becoming. This progress can seem so minuscule and, at times, daunting, but focusing on the right things day in and day out will allow you to achieve what you want to achieve.
In EOS, the tools that strengthen the Traction component are rocks and a good meeting pulse. Rocks are just 90-day business priorities. And by setting the right rocks and staying focused on completing those rocks, you will make progress toward your goals. Choosing the right priorities can be difficult as we sometimes think we have to get everything done in one quarter. With that mindset, not much will be completed. But having the discipline to focus on only the top priorities and make time to get them done will propel the business further and faster than making a little progress on too many priorities.
The other key to the Traction component is a good meeting pulse. That means that as a leadership team, you are coming together on a weekly basis to solve the most important issues facing the business. And by solve, I mean addressing them at the root so they go away forever.
One of my clients is a small but growing professional services company. They were self-implementing but wanted to really master the EOS tools and asked me for help. In their most recent planning session, the team was laser-focused on setting rocks to address issues that were preventing the company from growing. During our mid-session check-in, the visionary shared, “We are having a weird experience. Rocks 100% on track and two meetings where we solved all of the issues on the issues list …. It’s awesome. And the best part is that I really thought some of those rocks weren’t quite attainable.”
If you feel like you aren’t gaining traction in your business, I’d challenge you to get crystal clear on the 3-7 most important priorities for the upcoming quarter. Then use your weekly meetings to resolve issues that are keeping you from completing them. If everyone on your leadership team, or even better everyone in your company, can do that, imagine the traction you could achieve.
Not confident you are gaining the traction you want or need? Send me an email and I can help you and your team get moving in the right direction.
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