Traction

The five recurring entrepreneurial frustrations

EOS is designed to address five common experiences that recur across entrepreneurial companies regardless of industry:

1. Lack of control: the owner feels the business, market, employees, or schedule is controlling them.
2. People frustration: employees do not seem to listen, understand, or consistently deliver.
3. Insufficient profit: considerable work and revenue fail to produce satisfying financial results.
4. Hitting the ceiling: growth reaches a plateau the organization cannot seem to cross.
5. Nothing works: new programs and ideas create temporary activity but no permanent transformation.

Wickman treats these not as isolated problems but as symptoms of a company whose basic operating components are weak.

A business must be managed as one complete system

Organizations often collect unrelated management practices: one planning method, another meeting style, a separate evaluation system, yet another process framework. EOS argues a business operates effectively only when its disciplines reinforce one another — everyone using the same language, planning horizons, priorities, numbers, issue-solving method, and accountability structure.

The individual tools matter less than their integration. A company cannot choose only the comfortable parts and expect the full result.

Build a real leadership team

A leadership team is not merely a group of senior employees — it is the small group collectively accountable for the entire organization. Its members must represent all major functions, put the company's greater good above departmental interests, engage in constructive conflict, admit mistakes and weaknesses, make difficult decisions, present a united front afterward, and hold one another accountable.

The health of the organization cannot exceed the health of its leadership team. If leaders hide problems, defend territory, or avoid difficult conversations, those habits spread throughout the company.

Hitting the ceiling is inevitable

Every person, department, and organization eventually reaches the limit of its current abilities and structure. A ceiling is not evidence of failure — it means the methods that created the current stage cannot carry the business indefinitely.

The organization must repeatedly strengthen five leadership abilities:

Breaking one ceiling does not eliminate future ceilings — these abilities must become permanent disciplines.

Simplify relentlessly

Entrepreneurs naturally generate ideas, additions, and exceptions, which over time produce too many goals, products, procedures, measures, and messages. EOS repeatedly applies "less is more" and "when everything is important, nothing is important." Simplicity appears throughout the system: three to seven core values, one core focus, one long-term target, three differentiators, three to seven annual goals, three to seven quarterly Rocks, five to fifteen Scorecard numbers, a few core processes, and one accountable owner for each major outcome. Simplicity makes alignment, communication, and accountability possible.

Delegate and elevate

A founder initially performs many or all of the company's functions. As the organization grows, continuing to do everything becomes the constraint. Delegate and elevate means transferring work that others can own so each person moves toward the work that best uses their abilities.

The test is capacity: if a role requires 120 percent of someone's available time, the excess must be delegated, eliminated, simplified, automated, or reassigned through a structural change. Leaders must also refuse to take back their employees' problems — Wickman's image of "monkeys": a leader may coach, clarify, or remove an obstacle, but the accountable employee must leave still owning the problem.

Predict in both the long and short term

Long-term prediction is created through the 10-year target, three-year picture, one-year plan, and quarterly Rocks. Short-term prediction comes through weekly activity numbers, customer and employee feedback, pattern recognition, regular meetings, and rapid issue solving. The point is not certainty — it is to make the future visible enough that leadership can act before consequences become irreversible.

Take clarity breaks

Leaders buried in daily activity lose perspective. Wickman recommends leaving the office regularly for uninterrupted thinking time — to review the V/TO, assess the EOS model, read and think strategically, work through a difficult problem, complete the Organizational Checkup, or write freely until important questions emerge. It is not a period for catching up on routine work; its purpose is to rise above the system and examine the business as a whole.

Vision must be written, shared, and repeatedly communicated

Entrepreneurs often assume others can see what they see. Usually they cannot. A vision existing only in the founder's mind produces conflicting interpretations throughout the company — each leader makes decisions according to a slightly different future.

EOS requires the leadership team to reach absolute agreement on eight questions and record the answers in a two-page V/TO. The brevity is deliberate: a vision that cannot be clearly communicated cannot effectively guide behavior. The eight questions are: core values, core focus, 10-year target, marketing strategy, three-year picture, one-year plan, quarterly Rocks, and issues.

Question One: What are our core values?

Core values are the few timeless principles that define the company's culture and identity. They are not aspirational slogans selected for public relations — Wickman argues they already exist in the organization and must be discovered.

The core-value discovery method:

1. Each leadership-team member names three people in the organization they would clone if doing so could lead to market domination.
2. The team lists the characteristics these people embody.
3. Similar characteristics are combined and less-essential ones removed.
4. Leadership debates the remaining qualities until only three to seven truly essential values remain.
5. The values are allowed to settle before being finalized.
6. Each value is explained with stories and observable examples.

Core values become practical only when used to hire, evaluate, reward, recognize, promote, and, when necessary, remove people. A value with no consequence for people decisions is not operating as a core value.

Question Two: What is our core focus?

Core focus prevents a company from scattering its energy across attractive but unrelated opportunities. It contains two elements: purpose, cause, or passion (why the organization exists) and niche (the specific work it is especially equipped to perform). Purpose should be broad enough to remain meaningful over time; the niche should be narrow enough to guide real decisions.

Once core focus is clear, leadership may discover certain products, divisions, customers, or opportunities do not belong. Letting them go can feel like contraction, but EOS presents it as the concentration required for growth. Decide what business you are truly in, and remain disciplined about being in that business.

Resist "shiny stuff"

Visionaries are naturally attracted to new ideas — a gift that can create growth but can also divert resources from the core business. When restless, the visionary should first search for a stimulating challenge inside the core focus: strengthen culture, visit important customers, improve an existing product, explore a complementary service, repair a strategic weakness, or investigate employee or customer feedback.

If a genuinely attractive idea lies outside the core focus, it must not drain the existing company's people, cash, or time — it may require an independent business with separate resources and accountability. Two promising businesses forced into one structure can weaken both.

Question Three: What is our 10-year target?

The 10-year target is one specific, measurable, energizing long-range objective. Ten years is a guideline; a company may use another long horizon. The point is a distant focal point that helps people coordinate important choices.

A strong target is singular rather than a collection of ambitions, is measurable, motivates the leadership team, and creates energy when repeated. When the company comes within approximately three years of achieving it, the target moves into the three-year picture and a new long-range target is chosen.

Question Four: What is our marketing strategy?

EOS reduces marketing strategy to four elements:

• Target market: the ideal customer defined geographically, demographically, and psychographically — a filter that replaces the unfocused "shotgun" approach with a precise "rifle" approach.
• Three Uniques: three qualities that, in combination, differentiate the company from competitors — each need not be unique alone, but the combination must matter to the target customer.
• Proven Process: a one-page, memorably named visual of roughly three to seven major steps showing customers how the company produces its result, from initial interaction through delivery and follow-up.
• Guarantee: addresses an important fear or frustration customers feel when buying — solving a genuine industry problem, reducing perceived risk, and including a meaningful consequence if the company fails to deliver. Not every organization needs one, and a weak guarantee added for appearances has little value.

Question Five: What is our three-year picture?

The three-year picture translates a distant vision into something leadership can see. It contains a specific date, revenue, profit, one or more key measurables, and roughly ten to twenty descriptive statements covering people and leadership, customer mix, products and services, facilities, systems and technology, operating efficiency, geographic reach, and market reputation.

Leadership must debate the picture until everyone imagines essentially the same organization — Wickman even recommends one person reading it aloud while the others close their eyes and visualize it. The picture should describe the destination, not every obstacle between the present and that destination.

Question Six: What is our one-year plan?

The one-year plan specifies what must be achieved during the current year to remain on course for the three-year picture: a date, revenue, profit, relevant measurables, three to seven major goals, and a supporting budget. Every goal must be specific, measurable, and attainable — "improve customer satisfaction" is too vague, while "raise the average customer rating to nine" can be evaluated.

EOS rejects the idea that every goal must be a speculative stretch. Goals are commitments meant to be achieved; if they are so unrealistic that no one expects completion, accountability becomes meaningless.

Question Seven: What are our quarterly Rocks?

Rocks are the few priorities that must be completed during the next 90 days, connecting the annual plan to current execution. The metaphor comes from placing large rocks into a container before gravel, sand, and water: if minor work and interruptions enter first, the important work will not fit; if the most important work is protected first, lesser demands arrange themselves around it.

Question Eight: What are our issues?

Once the future is clear, leadership lists every obstacle, concern, opportunity, unresolved decision, and uncomfortable reality that might impede it. Issues belong in the vision because a plan that ignores obstacles is incomplete. Recording an issue provides psychological and organizational relief — it no longer needs to be repeatedly remembered or discussed out of sequence, and it has a recognized place from which it can later be prioritized and solved.

A vision is effective only when shared by all

After completing the V/TO, leadership must communicate it throughout the company. Wickman recommends three recurring forums: a kickoff meeting introducing the vision and core values; a quarterly state-of-the-company meeting of no more than about 45 minutes, following the structure "where we've been, where we are now, where we're going"; and a quarterly V/TO review within each department when departmental Rocks are set.

People may need to hear the same message repeatedly before believing it represents a lasting commitment — consistency matters more than novelty. Not every employee will share the vision; clear communication helps people decide whether they want to participate, and makes misalignment visible.

The people formula is "right people, right seats"

These are two separate questions:

A person must pass both tests. A talented person may be wrong for the culture; a culturally aligned person may be incapable of performing a particular role.

Use the People Analyzer to evaluate cultural fit

List the company's core values across the top of a page and employees down the side. Rate each person on each value: + demonstrates the value most of the time, +/− demonstrates it inconsistently, − generally does not demonstrate it.

The leadership team establishes a minimum acceptable standard, called "the bar." Wickman's suggested bar for five core values is three pluses, two plus/minuses, and no minuses, though each company must set its own standard. The tool replaces vague statements like "something about this person isn't working" with a structured conversation about observable cultural fit.

Apply the three-strike rule when someone falls below the bar

Wickman recommends giving the person a clear opportunity to improve:

1. Strike one: explain the issue and expectations; allow 30 days for correction.
2. Strike two: if improvement is insufficient, address it again and allow another 30 days.
3. Strike three: if the necessary change still has not occurred, the person must leave.

The goal is not to surprise or punish — it is to clarify the standard, allow correction, and then act decisively if alignment does not develop.

Design the Accountability Chart before assigning people

The organization should not preserve an unsuitable structure merely because it matches current employees. Leadership should instead ask: what structure will best move this company forward during the next six to twelve months? The chart is built from functions and accountabilities, not personalities — each seat normally contains about five major responsibilities, and only after the seats are clear does leadership decide who belongs in each.

Three functions exist in nearly every business — sales and marketing, operations, and finance and administration — and all must be strong; weakness in any one constrains the whole organization. Only one person can be ultimately accountable for a seat; when two people share final accountability, neither truly owns the result.

Understand the visionary and integrator roles

Many entrepreneurial organizations contain two distinct leadership capacities:

The visionary often founded the business but may not be best suited to manage its daily integration. Neither role is superior — their differences create productive tension when roles are clear, and destructive conflict when they are not.

Apply the GWC test

For every seat, ask whether the person:

1. Gets it: naturally understands the role, its responsibilities, the culture, systems, pace, and how the work fits together.
2. Wants it: genuinely desires the role, responsibility, and conditions of the work.
3. Has the capacity: possesses the necessary time, knowledge, skill, intellect, physical ability, and emotional capacity.

Each answer must be an unqualified yes. A missing skill can sometimes be developed, but leaders should not indefinitely rationalize a "no," especially when the company needs the role performed now.

One person may occupy two seats; two people may not occupy one seat

In a small company, the founder may initially occupy many seats — acceptable if the person can perform all of them well. As the company grows, the Accountability Chart evolves: seats split, specialists are added, and leaders delegate responsibilities.

The governing rules: one person can hold more than one seat while capacity permits; every seat needs one ultimately accountable owner; no person should remain in multiple seats after the workload exceeds capacity; and structure must continue evolving with growth.

Make people changes methodically but decisively

Once roles and values become clear, misalignment becomes visible. EOS does not advise removing everyone simultaneously — it advises a deliberate sequence that protects operations while resolving the problem. Wickman describes the fear surrounding termination as "36 hours of pain": the period before and immediately after the decision is difficult, but prolonged avoidance creates months or years of tension for the leader, team, and employee. Keeping someone solely because they are liked, loyal, or historically important can harm the company and prevent that person from finding a more suitable role elsewhere.

Three final questions test the People Component: Is this the right structure for the next level? Are the right people in the right seats? Does everyone have enough time to perform the work well?

Replace subjective management with a weekly Scorecard

The Scorecard usually contains five to fifteen measures — preferably closer to five — that give leadership an immediate pulse on the business. Possible measures include leads generated, sales appointments, proposals issued, new orders, units produced, delivery time, cash balance, accounts-receivable days, customer satisfaction, and unresolved service problems.

The correct numbers differ by company. The goal is not a universal dashboard but the smallest collection that reveals whether the business is on track.

Build the Scorecard through six steps

1. Imagine the leadership team is isolated and can receive only a sheet of numbers. Identify which numbers would reveal the company's condition.
2. Assign one accountable owner to every number.
3. Set the weekly goal for each measure.
4. Add weekly dates.
5. Assign responsibility for gathering and entering the data.
6. Review the Scorecard every week.

Maintain a rolling 13-week view so patterns become visible. When a number misses its target, flag it and place the underlying concern on the Issues List. The first version need not be perfect — consistent use reveals which numbers truly matter.

Prefer leading activities to trailing results

Revenue and profit are essential but often appear too late to guide immediate correction. A leading measure reaches backward into the process — instead of watching sales alone, measure leads, contacts, appointments, proposals, and closes. If conversion ratios are understood, current activity can predict future revenue.

The same logic applies to customer satisfaction: lost customers are a late indicator, while routine numerical feedback after service delivery can reveal deteriorating quality before customers leave. EOS does not discard financial statements or budgets — it supplements them with faster indicators that allow intervention.

Give everyone a number

Full mastery of the Data Component means each employee owns at least one meaningful weekly measurable — one that relates to the person's seat, reflects something they can influence, has a clear target, can be reviewed regularly, and contributes to an important organizational outcome.

Individual numbers create clear expectations, objective manager–employee conversations, accountability, commitment, healthy pressure, teamwork, faster problem detection, and improved results. Right people in the right seats generally appreciate this clarity; resistance to all measurement can reveal a deeper people or seat issue.

Create an environment in which problems can be named

Problems multiply when hidden. EOS seeks an organization in which people can raise issues without fear, provided they are willing to help solve them. This culture must begin with leadership, which establishes safety by admitting errors, inviting disagreement, and confronting reality without punishing the messenger. Openness does not mean endless complaint — an issue is raised so it can be understood and resolved.

Maintain three Issues Lists

This prevents every issue from rising to the top — problems should be solved at the lowest appropriate level — and keeps good ideas from disrupting current priorities. A valuable thought arising mid-quarter can be recorded for future consideration without becoming a new Rock.

Solve issues through IDS

Step 1 — Identify: find the real problem. The first description is often a symptom; ask what lies underneath it until the team reaches a cause that, if corrected, would eliminate the recurring symptoms. An issue may be a true problem requiring resolution, information requiring communication and agreement, or an idea or opportunity requiring feedback or approval.

Step 2 — Discuss: once the real issue is clear, everyone says what needs to be said — open disagreement, relevant facts, no protected topics, no departmental politics, no repeated speeches, no tangents, focus on the company's greater good. Each person should make a point once; repetition becomes politicking.

Step 3 — Solve: the team reaches a conclusion — a seven-day to-do, a decision everyone agrees to follow, an assignment to gather missing information, a personnel decision, a process change, or a new Rock. One person must own any resulting action. The goal is to make the issue disappear permanently.

Prioritize issues rather than processing the list in order

At the beginning of IDS, choose the three most important issues and address the first one until it is solved. This matters because the most important issue may be near the bottom of the list, solving a root problem often eliminates several apparent problems, quality of resolution matters more than quantity, and the organization will never eliminate all issues permanently. Success does not mean having no Issues List — it means consistently solving the most important issues.

Follow the ten disciplines of issue solving

1. Do not rule by consensus — hear everyone, but let the appropriate leader decide when agreement does not emerge.
2. Do not be timid — the solution may be simple while still requiring courage.
3. Be decisive — indecision often causes more damage than an imperfect decision.
4. Do not rely on secondhand information — bring the people directly involved into the conversation.
5. Fight for the greater good — set aside ego, title, emotion, and departmental territory.
6. Do not try to solve everything — address issues one at a time in priority order.
7. Live with it, end it, or change it — if unwilling to change or end something, consciously accept it and stop repeatedly complaining.
8. Choose short-term pain — resolve a difficult problem now rather than accepting greater long-term damage.
9. Enter the danger — the issue people most fear discussing is often the one most in need of resolution.
10. Take a shot — offer a possible solution instead of waiting passively for someone else.

Use a personal issue-solving session when two people block team health

When interpersonal conflict prevents a team from functioning, the two people should meet with a neutral facilitator. Each person prepares the other's three greatest strengths and weaknesses, shares this assessment directly, lists and solves the issues between them, records the resulting actions, and meets again in 30 days to confirm completion. They need not become close friends — they must create a productive working relationship that allows open communication.

Identify the handful of core processes

A company usually operates through approximately seven core processes — commonly human resources, marketing, sales, operations or service delivery, accounting, and customer retention, though exact categories vary. Together they must cover all important recurring activity. The leadership team identifies and names them together, and everyone then uses the same names, creating a shared language.

Document the essential 20 percent

The leader accountable for each process documents its major steps, applying the 20/80 rule: capture the essential 20 percent of the process that produces 80 percent of the result. A practical process document contains major steps, a small number of essential procedures beneath each step, checklists where they reduce errors, and only the detail that adds operational value. Most documented core processes should occupy roughly two to ten pages — the company should not create enormous manuals detailing every possible event.

Simplify while documenting

Documentation reveals unnecessary complexity. Leadership should ask: why does this step exist? Is it still necessary? Can two steps be combined? Can an approval be eliminated? Would a checklist reduce errors? Can appropriate technology improve the process? Are people doing something only because it has always been done? Technology should support a clear process — installing elaborate software before understanding the work may automate complexity rather than remove it.

Package the processes into the company's "Way"

Once the core processes are documented, compile them into one accessible package — physical or digital — bearing the company's name followed by "Way" (for example, "The ABC Company Way"). The core-process names form the table of contents. The package becomes the foundation for training, management, troubleshooting, and improvement, and reduces the business's dependence on knowledge stored only in the minds of particular employees.

Make the processes "followed by all"

Documentation alone changes nothing. Wickman recommends visually illustrating how the core processes connect, introducing the company Way in an organization-wide meeting, retraining everyone, managing people to follow the processes, and correcting deviations and improving the process when evidence justifies change.

A process is not sacred merely because it has been written — it can be improved — but people should not independently invent different methods without changing the agreed system. Consistency makes troubleshooting possible: when results vary, leadership can inspect the relevant process step instead of guessing.

Traction requires two disciplines

Execution depends on Rocks — a limited set of specific 90-day priorities — and the Meeting Pulse, a recurring rhythm that creates communication and accountability.

Establish Rocks through a disciplined sequence

1. Review the V/TO.
2. List everything leadership believes should be completed during the next 90 days.
3. Keep, kill, or combine items until only three to seven company Rocks remain.
4. Define each Rock so completion will be objectively clear.
5. Set the due date, usually the quarter's end.
6. Give each Rock one owner.
7. Have leadership-team members create their individual Rocks, including company Rocks they own.
8. Record them on a Rock Sheet.
9. Communicate company Rocks throughout the organization.
10. Have departments and employees establish aligned Rocks.

Leadership-team members generally carry three to seven Rocks; employees outside leadership should usually carry only one to three. New ideas arising during the quarter go to the V/TO Issues List rather than being inserted into current commitments.

Make Rocks concrete and binary

A Rock must be specific, measurable, attainable, owned by one person, and due on a clear date. "Work on the customer-service process" is ambiguous; "document the customer-service process and train the department by March 31" can be judged done or not done.

During the quarter, a Rock is reported only as on track or off track. At quarter's end, it is done or not done — eliminating lengthy rationalization and creating clean accountability. EOS expects at least 80 percent completion, not perfection; consistently missing more than 20 percent indicates poor prediction, too many commitments, or an accountability issue.

Operate in a 90-Day World

Wickman argues people naturally lose focus over approximately 90 days. The remedy is not frustration but a recurring reset: every quarter, the leadership team reviews the vision, evaluates the previous quarter, restores alignment, selects the next priorities, and resolves accumulated issues. The meeting is required even when the company appears to be doing well — without the reset, small divergences become fragmentation.

Hold a full-day quarterly meeting

The quarterly session is held off-site for approximately eight hours, following the agenda: segue, review the previous quarter, review the V/TO, establish the next quarter's Rocks, tackle key issues, confirm next steps, conclude.

Important practices: review results as done or not done; seek at least 80 percent Rock completion; determine why incomplete Rocks failed; carry forward, reassign, or convert nearly complete Rocks into short to-dos; challenge disagreement with the V/TO until leadership is aligned; update the long-term Issues List; use IDS on the day's most important issues; and end with feedback, confirmation of expectations, and a meeting score. The off-site setting helps leaders shift from working in the business to working on it.

Hold a two-day annual planning session

Once each year the quarterly meeting expands into two days. Day one: segue, review the previous year, strengthen team health, conduct a SWOT analysis and build the Issues List, and challenge and update the V/TO through the one-year plan — reevaluating core values, core focus, 10-year target, marketing strategy, three-year picture, one-year numbers and goals, budget, and Accountability Chart. Day two: establish next quarter's Rocks, tackle key issues, confirm next steps, conclude. The annual meeting is both strategic planning and leadership-team maintenance.

Use the Level 10 Meeting every week

The leadership team meets for 90 minutes on the same day and at the same time every week.

Reporting sections are deliberately brief; off-track items go to the Issues List without discussion, and at least two-thirds of the meeting is dedicated to solving problems.

Distinguish Rocks from to-dos

EOS aims for 90 percent of weekly to-dos to be completed. A to-do should not remain on the list for more than two weeks; if it does, the commitment or underlying issue needs attention.

Apply the five rules of weekly meetings

A productive weekly meeting must occur on the same day, occur at the same time, use the same agenda, start on time, and end on time. The leadership team masters the meeting first; departments then adopt a version lasting approximately 30 to 60 minutes, while still reserving at least half the time for issue solving.

Phase One — Prepare leadership

1. Commit to one operating system: the leadership team agrees to use the same tools, definitions, rhythms, and decision rules.
2. Become open, honest, and vulnerable: leaders commit to naming issues, receiving feedback, challenging one another, and putting the company above personal territory.
3. Accept that discomfort is unavoidable: clear accountability will expose wrong roles, wrong people, poor numbers, neglected problems, and inconsistent processes — the team agrees not to retreat when this occurs.

Phase Two — Establish accountability

4. Build the Accountability Chart: design the structure required for the next six to twelve months, defining major functions and the five or so most important responsibilities within each seat.
5. Identify the leadership team: the visionary if there is one, the integrator, and the accountable heads of major functions.
6. Place people into seats: apply core values and GWC to determine whether each person is both culturally aligned and capable of owning the seat.
7. Resolve gaps methodically: use the People Analyzer, three-strike rule, delegation, training, reassignment, hiring, and — when necessary — termination.

Phase Three — Create initial execution discipline

8. Set the first company Rocks: three to seven priorities for the next 90 days, each with a clear definition of completion and one owner.
9. Set leadership Rocks: each leadership member assumes owned company Rocks and selects a few additional priorities appropriate to their seat.
10. Install the Meeting Pulse: weekly 90-minute leadership meetings, full-day quarterly sessions, and two-day annual planning.
11. Begin IDS: create the relevant Issues Lists and solve the highest-priority issues through Identify, Discuss, Solve.

Phase Four — Measure reality

12. Build the weekly Scorecard: select five to fifteen leading numbers, assign owners and targets, and review them every week.
13. Create individual measurables: give each person at least one relevant weekly number once the system is established enough to make the measures meaningful.

Phase Five — Clarify the complete vision

14. Discover core values: identify the timeless cultural principles the company will use in all people decisions.
15. Define core focus: clarify the organization's purpose, cause, or passion and its niche.
16. Set the 10-year target: choose one long-range objective that energizes and aligns the organization.
17. Define the marketing strategy: target market, Three Uniques, Proven Process, and — if useful — a guarantee.
18. Paint the three-year picture: revenue, profit, measurables, and a vivid description of the organization.
19. Build the one-year plan: revenue, profit, measurables, a budget, and three to seven major goals.
20. Integrate Rocks and issues into the V/TO: complete the two-page vision and traction document.
21. Communicate the vision repeatedly: launch it organization-wide and reinforce it every quarter.

Phase Six — Systemize the business

22. Identify the core processes: leadership agrees on the few processes covering every major recurring activity.
23. Assign process ownership: the person accountable for each function documents its process, with the integrator coordinating the overall effort.
24. Document the essential steps: apply the 20/80 rule, simplify, remove redundancy, and introduce checklists where useful.
25. Package the company Way: compile the core processes into one accessible operating reference.
26. Train and manage for consistency: explain how the processes connect, retrain everyone, and hold people accountable for following them.

Phase Seven — Roll EOS through the organization

27. Master the tools at leadership level first: leadership must demonstrate the disciplines before attempting to teach them.
28. Roll out one organizational tier at a time, starting with the five foundational tools: V/TO, Accountability Chart, Rocks, Meeting Pulse, and Scorecard.
29. Let every department operate within the same system: aligned Rocks, a weekly meeting, an Issues List, relevant Scorecard numbers, and clear seats and accountability.
30. Move at the organization's sustainable speed: a small company may establish the foundational tools relatively quickly, while a larger one may need years to roll them through every tier — the sequence should be disciplined without forcing change faster than the organization can responsibly absorb.

Phase Eight — Maintain the system forever

31. Review the Scorecard and Rocks weekly, exposing deviations early and turning them into issues.
32. Reset every quarter: review results, revisit the vision, set new priorities, and solve the most important obstacles.
33. Rebuild the annual plan every year: challenge the vision, update the three-year picture, create the next one-year plan, and align the budget and structure.
34. Revisit structure as the company grows — the Accountability Chart is dynamic, and growth may require new seats, different leaders, or further delegation.
35. Audit the entire company at least twice a year using the Organizational Checkup, turning important gaps into issues, goals, Rocks, or to-dos.

The practical target is not theoretical perfection — Wickman regards approximately 80 percent strength across the system as the level of a genuinely well-run organization.

Twenty questions that test the whole system

1. Does everyone understand the same vision?
2. Are our core values governing actual people decisions?
3. Are we concentrating on our core focus?
4. Do we know precisely which customers we serve and why they choose us?
5. Is the long-range vision connected to a measurable one-year plan?
6. What three to seven priorities matter most this quarter?
7. Is each priority owned by one person?
8. Does every major function have one accountable leader?
9. Are the right people in the right seats?
10. Does each person get it, want it, and have the capacity?
11. Which weekly numbers tell us whether we are on track?
12. Does every employee own a meaningful measurable?
13. What issue are we avoiding?
14. Have we identified the root problem or only a symptom?
15. Has the issue produced a clear decision and owner?
16. Have we documented the few processes through which the business operates?
17. Are those processes followed by everyone?
18. Are weekly meetings solving issues or merely exchanging information?
19. Are we completing at least 80 percent of our Rocks?
20. What must be simplified, delegated, predicted, systemized, or restructured to break the next ceiling?