David Saltzman: 0:02

What if the biggest thing holding back your leadership team isn't strategy or talent, but the way you actually run your business? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

Announcer: 0:16

This is the Shift Shapers podcast, Connecting benefits advisors with thought leaders and entrepreneurs who are shaping the shifts in the industry. And now here's your host, David Saltzman.

David Saltzman: 0:30

And our guest today, who's going to help us answer that question, is Charlie Ray from EOS, or EOS, rather, worldwide. He works with leadership teams to bring clarity of vision, real traction and healthier dynamics that drive growth. Welcome, charlie.

Charlie Rhea: 0:43

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the podcast, David. Looking forward to it.

David Saltzman: 0:47

It's our pleasure. So for listeners who may not know what is the entrepreneurial operating system and why has it become so impactful for leadership teams.

Charlie Rhea: 0:56

Yeah, so it's an acronym. The EOS is the Entrepreneurial Operating System, so just break it down backwards. It's a system for how you operate as an entrepreneurial type leader. So in its core, it's a business operating system. It's a way to manage human energy, to get everybody focused on rowing in the same direction. One of the beautiful things I love about EOS is the simplicity. So, david, we like to talk about EOS with describing you with three extremely clear benefits. See if this resonates with you If you're listening.

Charlie Rhea: 1:29

Vision where's the company going? Right, how are we going to get there? Where are we going? How are we going to get there? That's what EOS provides. It's a system for getting you and your leadership team 100% on the same page on vision. Traction is the second benefit, and that's about focus, discipline and execution. So a lot of change is happening around the world and we must be quick to adapt and adjust, be flexible, and so how do you do that? You be extremely focused on the right priority. So vision without traction is hallucination. So what we say here at EOS is as goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the company. So you got a clear vision and you're executing on that vision every single day with focus and discipline and real accountability.

Charlie Rhea: 2:17

And the third piece is healthy. David, healthy means open and honest. We had a great conversation the other day and it's just about being honest, being real, getting to the root issue, not talking about the surface. Let's get to the root issue and it's built on vulnerability-based trust. We can talk on that later if you want, but it's just saying hey, at the end of the day, for the greater good of our company, let's make a decision. Let's make a decision. So we like to say vision, traction, healthy. Those are the three benefits that a company running on EOS actually walks through and is able to get those three benefits. So, yeah, that's a quick two minute summary for you.

David Saltzman: 2:55

No, that gives us a great foundation. So let's start by talking about who you typically work with. Now, from our conversation, you primarily work with small leadership teams, right? Why is that the ideal size for your practice to be most effective?

Charlie Rhea: 3:09

Yeah, Well, to step back even further, you know, Gino Wickman is the founder and creator of EOS Worldwide and he came up with this acronym and basically it's a way to harmonize and organize all the moving pieces in your business. And when he started to actually do this and run this with companies, it happened to be that these companies were growth minded, they were ready for change, they were wanting to change. So it doesn't work well with prideful people that are stuck in their ways. But if you're growth minded and you have a leadership team, we say about 10 to 250. So that's our sweet spot. Can it work with a one person size company, a solopreneur? 100%? What about a thousand person size company? Yes, because it's built on time, tested principles. But our sweet spot is entrepreneurial type companies that are privately held and they're in that 10 to 250 in terms of full-time employees. So that's the sweet spot.

Charlie Rhea: 4:06

And one of the reasons it works so well is because most, like most people, we get off track. Right, it doesn't matter if you're a father, if you're a mother, if you're just a parent. If you're in a stage of life as a leader, you get off track. And so what EOS provides is a framework to have one common vision, one common language, one common voice to be able to say, hey, let's get back on track. It's a common system on saying how do we get back on track? And then David, stay on track. So that's that's why it works really well with small teams, you know, mid to small size, 10 to 250. But the reason it's so powerful is that it's getting people on the same page and then keeping them on the same page. So I love to dive more into that if your audience wants to hear that.

David Saltzman: 4:53

Yeah, we will. We're going to do a deep dive into all of this stuff, but once you've got, I'm just trying to set the table so people kind of get an idea of what this framework looks like. So once you've got the right team in the room, let's dig into what you actually teach and you touched on it a little bit Vision, traction and health. Let's talk about those first two and then we can talk about health, because I'm not sure that most people incorporate that when they think about this, and again, from our off-air conversation, it's critically important.

Charlie Rhea: 5:19

Yeah. So again, the vision is just very simply where are you going? What's the direction that the company is going? And a lot of leaders have the vision here, david, they have it in their head. But what we do at EOS and I'm a facilitator so I'm going to pull it out. I'm a teacher, I'm a coach we're going to pull it out by asking powerful questions when I work with my clients, but we're asking them questions to pull the vision. It's already in your head the CEO or the founder right, it's in your head. Let's get it out on paper, let's simplify it, let's clarify it and then let's communicate it and reinforce that communication over and over again. Sometimes people have to hear things seven times for them to hear it the first time, and so it's a matter of saying we're going to reinforce organizational clarity.

Charlie Rhea: 6:14

One of the things that EOS was built on was Patrick Linceoni's book the Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, and in that book he goes into the four disciplines of what it means to be an extraordinary executive, and one of them is providing organizational clarity and then reinforcing it. So the cool thing about vision is that EOS actually does an extremely powerful job on clarifying and simplifying the vision and then communicating. We have a discipline that's called shared by all, and this is what it looks like Every 90 days, the CEO or the founder, the business owner, is going to get up in front of the company and share the vision. They're going to give a state of the company address. And here's what it looks like, david, very simple. Where have we been, where are we at, where are we going? And so you look, you recap the past quarter, the past 90 days. Hey, hey, team, it's for the whole company, hey, team, here's where we've been, here were some of the results, here's where we're at currently, today and you're sharing the vision. And then here's where we're going in the next 90 days in your casting vision, your forecasting, your, your promoting them. It's almost like think William Wallace, braveheart, like freedom, right, when do you want to rally the troops for battle? Before the battle, in the middle of the battle or at the end of the battle? It's before the battle gets started. So it's like at the beginning of the quarter, like let's rally the troops, let's bring them in and get them 100% rowing in the same direction, all focused on the right priorities for the next 90 days. We call it the 90 day world. So, david, that's one huge area and that's what we call vision.

Charlie Rhea: 7:54

The traction piece is about the focus and the discipline. It's saying okay, now that we have a clear vision, how do we maintain traction? Think about just that word momentum, traction. You're thinking about a tire. You're digging into the, into the road, and you're you're going through the dirt and it's hard, it's frustrating, but you start to get momentum like a flywheel. It takes a lot of work at the beginning and that's where it's built on two things focus and discipline. If you're focused on the next 90 days and you're disciplined to stay focused every single week, what's the result? Extreme execution. That's what EOS does. It provides a system for extreme execution day in and day out, and that's the beautiful thing. And I can talk on health here in a second, but those are the first two key components. Those are two of the major results that EOS creates, and I get very fired up and passionate about it because you've seen it and I'm sure you listening to this.

Charlie Rhea: 8:54

What do most people struggle with, david? The vision's great. They struggle with discipline. Follow through. They struggle with shiny objects squirrel. They get distracted. This right here, the phone. It's distracting people. It's giving them excuses to not communicate well, to not follow up and follow through, to not stay focused, stay disciplined to execute on the right priorities. So that's where the vision and the traction are really really good. They're synergistically complementary.

David Saltzman: 9:24

So let's talk about health, because for our audience, when we talk about health, we're thinking employee benefits. That's not exactly what you mean when you talk about health. Yeah, so bring that third element in for us.

Charlie Rhea: 9:34

Yeah, let's unpack health. So again, patrick Lencioni and his work with the five dysfunctions of a team. We love Patrick Lencioni at EOS Worldwide. His books are phenomenal, but he goes into this really important concept of vulnerability-based trust. And if you're familiar with the five pyramids of the five layers of the five dysfunctions of a team, the five pyramids of the five layers of the five dysfunctions of a team, at the bottom it's trust. And so trust is the bottom of the pyramid, meaning everything starts with trust. And let's go to, like, even a high level picture how do you generate new business? How do you build a relationship? It's you do business with those you know like and trust the know like and trust factor.

Charlie Rhea: 10:15

So we teach vulnerability-based trust, not predictive trust, and there is a distinction here. So, david, predictive trust would be like, hey, did you do what you said you were going to do? I trust you, you're going to get it done, and that's important and we definitely want that. But what we teach is a vulnerability-based trust, meaning, hey, david, for the greater good of our company, you're not following through on what you said you were going to do. So let's talk about that. What's going on? We're going to call enter the danger. It's a hard conversation, right, it's a fierce conversation, it's a courageous conversation and, again, it's rated, it's molded together in this context of for the greater good. We're going to make a decision about why are you not following through and how can I help you right, or we have a discipline that we teach.

Charlie Rhea: 11:07

Let's put the right people in the right seat. So healthy. When we say healthy, we mean open and honest. Open in the terms of every single person, 10 people, 250. It doesn't matter. Every single employee is the right person and they're in the right seat. They totally embody and exemplify, they understand the core values of your company and they're in the right seat, meaning they are dominating the game in terms of their focus and their discipline. They have a unique ability, a Dan Sullivan strategic coach word. Their unique ability is to do this role. They have five specific roles that are so crystal clear and when you're leading right, if you confuse, you lose. So you're providing clarity again, reinforcing organizational clarity.

Charlie Rhea: 12:00

If you're constantly trying to put the right people in the right seats and you're having a conversation, then that's creating team health and again, you're basing it off of vulnerability based trust. You're saying, for the greater good, we need to have a conversation. Something's not working with the five roles that we have for you and your seat. Let's have a conversation. Something's not working with the five roles that we have for you in your seat. Let's have a conversation. How can I help you be successful? And it's not attacking the person, you're attacking the problem together, open and honest. So open is hearing, really humbling yourself to hear the other person. That's hard to do. People want to be understood. But honest is the second piece and that's where you must, for the greater good. You must have that hard conversation.

Charlie Rhea: 12:44

If the expectations have been laid out and they're crystal clear this is what's expected and they're not following through on what's expected, you have to step up and inspect what you expect as a manager, the whole rule of what you permit you promote.

Charlie Rhea: 13:00

So if you're going to see somebody consistently underperforming, you're not going to step up and say something.

Charlie Rhea: 13:06

You're promoting a lackadaisical culture where people are just not working with excellence, and that's not healthy. And here's the best part about it. Okay, everybody likes vision and traction, it just totally resonates. But you see, at the end of the day, culture eats strategy for breakfast, and so if you can truly dominate the game with building what we call team health. You're actually gonna have even higher execution on your vision and your traction. You will get so much better in terms of working smarter because you're working healthier as a leadership team. And as goes the leadership team I mentioned this so goes the rest of the company. So if there's dysfunction at the leadership team level, it will be exponentially worse, grown in a bad way in terms of the lower levels and vice versa. If the team is very tight up top and they are locked in with their communication, they're open, they're honest, they're willing to be vulnerable, that is actually going to have a domino effect on the lower levels of the leadership in the company. So it really does start with you, the leader.

David Saltzman: 14:11

And now a word from our sponsor. If you're like most advisors, you've used platforms that promised to help but only added work Outdated legacy systems, weeks-long setups, endless data formatting headaches. Benepower changes all that. Built by benefits pros for benefits pros, it was designed for AI from day one so everything works faster and smarter. They integrate vendors in days, not weeks, and take any data format Excel, pdf, whatever and make it usable instantly. Benapower's Truvo app gives employees real-time AI-powered help by chat, email or voice, and pre-authorization alerts prevent costly surprises. You get performance measurements and one-click reporting so you spend less time on admin and more time growing your book. Move from frustration to freedom, from vendor to trusted advisor with BenePower. For more information or to schedule a demo of BenePower Advantage, go to BenePowercom. Or to schedule a demo of BenePower Advantage, go to BenePowercom. And now back to our conversation. So, charlie, how do you? Let's move into the practical. How do you help leadership teams translate a big vision into practical execution without losing momentum?

Charlie Rhea: 15:30

Yeah, that's a great question. The reality is that, again, the vision is already in the head of most of the leaders, and so it's how do we get into a room and bring that vision out and clarify it and simplify it? And how do you do that? You would think, logically, you just start by asking the questions of what are the eight areas of the business that we need to be clear on, and we do teach that. But you know, actually, david, the first place to start is in traction. It's in focus and discipline. It's to say, let's build the entire business around true accountability. Again, going back to what we talked about earlier, organizational clarity. So if your company does not have an accountability chart, they're missing an incredibly powerful tool. Now let me just explain what that is, because that's actually the first place that you're going to start is saying who is accountable for what? So it's an org chart, an organizational chart on steroids. And here's the big difference when you think about building a company, you're focusing on who do we have in the company. You're looking around okay, where do I put Bob and Joe and Susie and Sally? And you're building the company traditionally around the people. With an accountability chart, you're actually going to go structure first, people second. And here's how it works, david, you're going to look at a year from now, where does this company need to go? And you build the right structure.

Charlie Rhea: 17:01

Looking at functions, what are the major functions of this organization? And, for example, you have a marketing and sales function, an operations function and a finance function. Those are the three basic functions. You also have these other two very important functions, which is an integrator and a visionary. And let me just give you a distinction. The integrator is holding the other three functions accountable. They are truly driving results and execution. They're usually extremely disciplined, very focused Think COO. They're really, really good at following up and following through. The visionary is casting vision. They're all about big ideas, problem solving these, managing big relationships. They're not very good at holding people accountable. They're not good at having those tough conversations. That work is much better done by the integrator function.

Charlie Rhea: 17:52

So notice, we're not talking about people, david, we're talking about building the right structure structure first, people second. So that's kind of phase one that we teach. And then we go to phase two and we say, hey, okay, let's look at the finance function. Let's keep it simple. What are the five roles of the finance function and typically HR I mean your audience may kind of fit in some of this. Sometimes we call it HR function or admin function.

Charlie Rhea: 18:15

The key here is you're actually describing the function, not titles. It's not VP of HR or VP of sales. We're trying to stay away from egos, so we keep it based on describe what the function is and keep it simple. What are the five roles of each function? So, structure first, people second. Have we talked about people? No, you're building the structure on accountability chart.

Charlie Rhea: 18:42

Now you go to phase three and you put people in the seat. So go back to the idea of putting the right people in the right seat. You now look at your current team. You bring it back to reality and you say, okay, based on today, where do we need to put people? And so you start to put them in each seat and you test them. Okay, could Bill be a good seat for operations? Does he get it, does he want it and does he have the capacity to do a great job? So it's just keeping it super clear who is accountable for what and who reports to who.

Charlie Rhea: 19:16

So in terms of the opportunity that you have as an organization to actually say where do we start? It's with accountability. You don't start with vision, you start with accountability chart and creating a foundation on focus and discipline. Because as you get clear on who does what, then you actually create 90 day priorities. We call those rocks and then you start to work on discipline with weekly level 10 meetings. So there is a method to the madness and when you start with a foundation of focus and discipline, your execution is going to go so much higher. And then when you bring in the vision as a secondary session, the vision is so much more easily accomplished in terms of now you've already established who does what and so it's much easier conversation.

Charlie Rhea: 20:05

Sometimes people get stuck in all these core about the stuff that's important. It's it's the shiny objects, it's the stuff that's fun. It's fun to talk about. But we actually need to hold off on talking about the vision and first build a foundation on focus and discipline and true accountability. So it's a little counterintuitive. I would encourage the readers if you're a reader, check out the book Traction, because in that book it actually explains the process and I wish they put this chapter in the beginning. But if you look at the back of the book, it tells you the exact process, on how to follow it, and it kind of lays it out just like I just did right now.

David Saltzman: 20:40

And we'll link to all of these books that we're talking about all of the Lencioni stuff, because here on Shift Shapers we're big fans of Patrick Lencioni. We'll link to all of these things in the show notes. So question for you what's the biggest shift you've seen in a leadership team once they start fully embracing the EOS process?

Charlie Rhea: 21:02

Yeah, I'll tell you the most common one that I see, and it's the bottleneck. I've done hundreds of meetings with leadership teams and one of the questions I love doing we do a free 90-minute strategy session. We call it the 90-minute meeting. One of the questions that I ask in this meeting is hey, leadership team, what's working and what's not working right? I look at challenges and constantly, consistently, I get this answer the bottleneck So-and-so is the bottleneck.

Charlie Rhea: 21:28

Usually it's the founder, it's the CEO or it's very top heavy. There's one heavy hitter sales leader, or one or two sales leader. They're getting 80%, 70% of their revenue from like one or two people or one or two big accounts, and so it's. How do you eliminate bottlenecks? And the cool thing about this is that EOS it's really a leadership development program, it's an operating system, but what it is at its core is it's here to develop a leadership team and that's why the Patrick Lencioni, all the books that he has we just took those concepts and practically implemented them into a framework of a journey. We call it the journey. So you even have heard me refer to the leadership team a few different times. I'm constantly, from day one in that first session, I'm constantly referring to them as hey leadership team.

Charlie Rhea: 22:20

How do y'all want to move forward on this decision? Bob, over here, the CEO is the bottleneck. If he is not in the room, how does the team operate? John Maxwell talks about the sign of good, strong, effective leadership is how does the team operate when the leader is not in the room? So the long winded answer to this is EOS eliminates bottlenecks, because what does it positively create? A foundational leadership team that's highly cohesive, highly functional and they're extremely healthy again, open, honest and willing to be vulnerable. They're willing to say yeah, guys, to be honest, I'm the issue, I'm the bottleneck, you know. So let's figure out how to solve this together.

David Saltzman: 23:06

If a listener wanted to start making their team healthier. We've got just a couple of minutes left. I thought this would be a great question to wrap up with. If they wanted to do that, like tomorrow, what's one small action that they could take right away?

Charlie Rhea: 23:17

one small action that they could take right away. Yeah, you know, one of the best things to do to improve health is to increase trust, and one of the fastest ways to build trust is, again, to do what you said you're going to do. So if there's only one key takeaway that you can get from today, it's how can we practice trust, vulnerability-based trust, on a regular basis every single week and I'd love to again. We can put a note in the show notes here, but the weekly level 10 meeting is an opportunity to have a meeting that starts on time, david, it ends on time, same day, same time, and it's the same agenda.

Charlie Rhea: 23:57

It is an incredibly simple framework on how to have an effective and efficient we all love being efficient, but let's be effective too An efficient and effective meeting every single week, and that is where you get to practice team health. You get to practice vulnerability-based trust, being open and honest, having real conversations, solving real issues at the root level, one time for the greater good. And so, again, if there's only one thing a listener can do, is think about starting building trust by having a really good weekly meeting, and as you do that, you're actually going to start to build momentum to then be able to have it impact the rest of the company. So it does start with you and it starts with building trust.

David Saltzman: 24:42

If listeners want to reach out to you, what's the best way to get ahold of you, Charlie?

Charlie Rhea: 24:46

Yeah, for sure you can reach me on my email, charlieray, that's R-H-E-A. Charlieray at EOSworldwidecom. I'm also fairly active on YouTube. I'm constantly producing one minute two minute shorts on quick topics related to leadership, things that I'm really passionate about, and then also all things EOS, and I also have some long form content where I do a deep dive into each of these topics. For example, the level 10 meeting. I actually sat there and said, okay, if I had to teach somebody how to do this right and make a YouTube video, how would I do it? And I'm just talking directly to you to teach it. So, yeah, follow me on YouTube. I have a lot of free resources there and would love to connect with anybody If any of this resonates with you, especially the team health.

Charlie Rhea: 25:30

Team health, again, is something that is. It's overlooked, but it is a ultimate, the ultimate competitive advantage. In fact, another book reference the advantage by Patrick. In fact, another book reference the Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. He talks about why team health is the ultimate competitive advantage, and so, yeah, I would love to talk to anybody if you're interested.

David Saltzman: 25:47

Charlie Ray. Eos Implementer. Charlie, thanks for a great and fascinating conversation.

Charlie Rhea: 25:51

Yes, for sure, david. Thanks for having me, and may God bless you, and I look forward to interacting again.

Announcer: 26:00

The Shift Shapers Podcast is a production of Shift Shapers LLC, and I look forward to interacting again.