Charles Thayer, founder, owner, and visionary for All Around, never wanted to have systems holding down his creativity. So, naturally, he bucked at any kind of structure or rules. And that worked for his exterior construction company for a while. Until it didn’t. He had big dreams for his business but no clear plans to accomplish them.
During a conversation with a vendor, the Entrepreneurial Operating System® came up. You can imagine Charles’ initial response: A business system? No, thank you.
“I listened to them describe all the pain points they overcame in their business running on EOS,” Charles said. “And I knew we needed to do this because we were experiencing every single one of those pain points.”
At the same time, he thought maybe All Around was ready for something like EOS. So after hearing about his vendor’s success, he read the book Traction.
Vision
Initially, Charles thought All Around might not be big enough for EOS to be the right fit. He imagined things like measurables and structures applying only to larger companies. But he still saw value in getting organized to grow his business and achieve the vision he had for it.
Since EOS seemed simple, Charles started to self-implement, using parts of the system and adapting them to All Around. But trying to “eat the elephant” (aka do all the things) all at once got to be too much for him and his team.
“We would get overwhelmed by everything we wanted to do,” Charles said. “We had the best of intentions, but we’d get stuck in the weeds. People were stressed trying to do everything without enough resources, money, or time to get stuff done.”
Charles knew he needed help. So, in 2019, he reached out to his vendor’s Professional EOS Implementer® Pam Kosanke.
“Having someone like Pam was absolutely necessary for us to move forward,” Charles said. “I look at it like physical therapy. You wouldn’t try to do your own physical therapy. You’d never put the necessary pressure on yourself that someone else would. As soon as you felt pain, you’d hold off.”
With an expert pushing them, Charles and his leadership team finally had the positive pressure they needed to get rolling. His team no longer handpicked which parts of EOS to use. Instead, they learned how to use all the tools and disciplines and how to use them correctly. As a team, they created ambitious goals for All Around and then made plans to achieve them.
Traction
The leadership team took their big 10-Year Target™ and worked backward to break down the steps to achieve it. Then they knew what they needed to do in the next three years. Next up, they broke those action steps into what needed to happen in the next year, in the next quarter, and before the next weekly meeting. By simplifying their actions, suddenly the team didn’t feel so overwhelmed anymore.
“That’s why having Rocks is so important for people to see how something they do impacts the business,” Charles said. “As we rolled out EOS to the whole team, we got immediate buy-in.”
Before long, everyone was on the same page and working toward a shared goal. Charles saw how All Around could become the organization he’d always wanted it to be.
Healthy
Another thing Charles noticed was that meetings didn’t “suck” anymore. Before Running on EOS™, he said conversations in meetings would be all over the place with no real agenda.
“With a bunch of Type A personalities, we’d waste time in meetings talking about football games or parties,” he said. “By putting the Level 10 Meeting™ agenda in place, we have structure and purpose. Ultimately, people walk out knowing exactly what they have to do that week to make those big goals happen.”
Getting systems in place created a huge culture shift. EOS built the structure for everyone to have clear expectations and better communication. Charles said he could actually see the relief on people’s faces as they communicated more effectively.
“Now when we make a decision in leadership team meetings, we have a system to roll out communications throughout the business,” he said.
Charles admits these results changed his mind about using a business system.
Why We Run on EOS
“Since 2019, we’ve increased our revenue by 68% and profits by 41%, “Charles said. “We’ve also grown from 19 employees to 30 with an 86% retention rate! More importantly, we run happier on EOS.”
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