Ep 36 - Can EOS and OKRs Work Together? Bridging Vision and Execution With Expert Jessica Lee

Sara: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Thinkydoers podcast.

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Thinkydoers are those of us drawn to deep work, where thinking is working.

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But we don't stop there.

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We're compelled to move the work from insight to idea, through the messy

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middle, to find courage and confidence to put our thoughts into action.

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I'm your host, Sara Lobkovich.

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I'm a strategy coach, a huge goal setting and attainment nerd, and

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board-certified health and wellness coach, working at the overlap of work

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life well-being I'm also a Thinkydoer.

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I'm here to help others find more satisfaction, less frustration, less

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friction, and more flow in our work.

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My mission is to help changemakers like you transform our workplaces and world.

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So let's get started.

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Welcome back, friends!

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I am coming at you live from inside the race trailer at

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CVMA down in Chuckwalla today.

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So, again, a lo-fi intro for an episode that definitely deserves better because

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Jessica Lee, our guest, is such a pro.

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But wanted to get this out to you.

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And if that means a lo-fi intro, then we'll do a lo-fi intro.

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Before the holidays, we dove into the alphabet soup of goal setting.

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And today, I'm really excited to share a conversation I recorded with Jessica

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Lee, owner of Optimized Execs, who brings a unique perspective on being both an

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EOS® integrator and we'll talk about what EOS is in the episode, and an OKR coach.

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If you are leading or supporting a small or medium-sized business, or even larger,

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really, there's a lot to learn here.

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You're especially going to want to tune in today and give this a listen because

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we explore how the frameworks of EOS and OKRs work together can work together

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to help your organization thrive.

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We will dive into everything from the visionary-integrator

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relationship to practical ways these tools complement each other for

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better goal setting and execution.

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So let's get into the episode.

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Jessica, I want to welcome you to Thinkydoers today.

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So, let's have you introduce yourself to my listeners.

Sara: 00:02:24

Who are you and what do you do?

Jessica: 00:02:26

Sure.

Jessica: 00:02:27

Thank you so much, Sara.

Jessica: 00:02:28

My name is Jessica Lee, and I am the owner of Optimized Execs.

Jessica: 00:02:32

We are a business consulting firm that helps CEOs of small and medium-sized

Jessica: 00:02:37

businesses who are feeling overwhelmed and unsure how to grow by offering some

Jessica: 00:02:43

support and some strategic solutions.

Sara: 00:02:45

You and I connected thanks to the amazing Liz, who both of us know.

Sara: 00:02:50

She played matchmaker— another amazing OKR professional in both of our network.

Sara: 00:02:56

She introduced us based on your background in EOS.

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And so we're going to talk about other things today, but I'm kind

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of on an acronym kick right now.

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So let's start with what EOS is and how you use it.

Jessica: 00:03:12

Absolutely.

Jessica: 00:03:13

So EOS is actually one of my favorite tools that I have in my toolbox for

Jessica: 00:03:18

helping entrepreneurs and small businesses to stabilize and turn their vision into

Jessica: 00:03:24

execution so that they can grow and scale.

Jessica: 00:03:27

Those who have maybe never heard of EOS, I'll just start at the top.

Jessica: 00:03:30

EOS stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System®.

Jessica: 00:03:35

It was founded by Gino Wickman in 2008.

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He wrote a great book.

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I actually have it here if anyone hasn't read it, it's Traction.

Jessica: 00:03:42

The book was written off of Gino's firsthand experience as an entrepreneur,

Jessica: 00:03:47

weeding his way through figuring out how to have a system to be able to

Jessica: 00:03:51

do all of the things that a business needs to grow during that important

Jessica: 00:03:56

phase of launching and then growing.

Jessica: 00:03:59

It's a very practical hands-on framework, perfect fit for startups, entrepreneurs,

Jessica: 00:04:05

businesses under say 400 folks.

Jessica: 00:04:08

I got excited about EOS when I was the COO of a small business

Jessica: 00:04:13

that was in that exact predicament.

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So we were small, but mighty and had some really big growth goals, but

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lean in terms of leadership structure and constantly feeling unsure.

Jessica: 00:04:25

Do we have the right people?

Jessica: 00:04:26

Are we doing the right things and are we truly ready to grow?

Jessica: 00:04:29

And so that's when I first started hearing folks in my network, that I was explaining

Jessica: 00:04:34

the challenges that we were facing to say, " Have you heard of Traction?

Jessica: 00:04:37

Have you read Traction?

Jessica: 00:04:38

Have you done EOS?

Jessica: 00:04:39

You've got to do it.

Sara: 00:04:40

When we started talking, it was about the intersection of

Sara: 00:04:44

how might EOS and OKRs be aligned or different or work together.

Sara: 00:04:50

And since then, you've become an OKR coach.

Sara: 00:04:53

I would say you're probably a pretty good expert on that.

Sara: 00:04:56

So for folks who are wondering, how does EOS and OKRs or Objectives

Sara: 00:05:02

and Key Results, how do those things complement each other?

Sara: 00:05:06

How are they different?

Sara: 00:05:07

Tell me a little bit about those two acronyms together.

Jessica: 00:05:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica: 00:05:12

As you spoke to earlier in the conversation, I was sharing with

Jessica: 00:05:15

Liz, who we have in common, something that I was running into time and

Jessica: 00:05:18

time again, as I was working with the small business CEOS through the

Jessica: 00:05:23

EOS framework, was difficulty or pain points related to measuring outcomes.

Jessica: 00:05:30

So EOS has what they call Rocks.

Jessica: 00:05:32

Quarterly Rocks.

Jessica: 00:05:34

They recommend about five things that are the most important things to

Jessica: 00:05:37

focus on right now this quarter and then measurables being how do we get

Jessica: 00:05:42

together each week and confirm that we're doing the things that we should be

Jessica: 00:05:46

doing to get these rocks accomplished.

Jessica: 00:05:48

And often I was being called in as a consultant saying,

Jessica: 00:05:51

"Hey, we've implemented EOS.

Jessica: 00:05:54

We like EOS, but we are having a hard time and we don't know if our people are the

Jessica: 00:05:59

problem, or if we are just writing really bad goals." And a lot of the work I was

Jessica: 00:06:04

doing, or a lot of the time I was spending with CEOS, was really around taking that

Jessica: 00:06:09

vision and turning it into powerful rocks or objectives, making sure we're focusing

Jessica: 00:06:14

on the right things and then measuring both iteratively and at some sort of

Jessica: 00:06:18

outcome milestone, how we've done. And so as I was explaining what a need there was

Jessica: 00:06:23

in the EOS world for just better coaching and advice and help for CEOS to really

Jessica: 00:06:28

get those rocks and measurables right, an aha moment went on for Liz and she was

Jessica: 00:06:32

like, "I know who you have to talk to.

Jessica: 00:06:34

Have you heard of OKRs?" And to keep with the acronyms, Sara, I said, "Nope.

Jessica: 00:06:39

But I know KPIs are, so KPIs, but I don't know OKRs." So we had a chuckle and she's

Jessica: 00:06:44

like, "No, go check out Sara's stuff." I checked out your stuff and was like, yes.

Jessica: 00:06:48

And then as you know, took your course and just so much value in terms of

Jessica: 00:06:53

how they can intersect, because of the focus on aligning vision and

Jessica: 00:06:58

being very clear at the top about what our vision is, and then making sure

Jessica: 00:07:02

that aligns downstream to our folks.

Sara: 00:07:05

That's awesome.

Sara: 00:07:06

I know your work isn't limited to EOS and OKRs.

Sara: 00:07:10

Are there other methodologies that you put together with those two in your practice?

Jessica: 00:07:16

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Jessica: 00:07:18

what I typically do when I engage with a new potential client is I go through a

Jessica: 00:07:23

series of discovery questions to figure out what the right fit solution is.

Jessica: 00:07:28

That involves really taking a look at what's working, what's not, big picture

Jessica: 00:07:32

goals, And that's what I like about EOS.

Jessica: 00:07:33

They do challenge business owners to look at the 10 year and then the

Jessica: 00:07:37

three year and then the one year.

Jessica: 00:07:39

Research shows that we will dramatically overestimate what we think we could

Jessica: 00:07:43

do in a short amount of time, but we will grossly underestimate what we

Jessica: 00:07:47

could do in a larger amount of time.

Jessica: 00:07:49

So taking time to make sure that you're thinking big picture down the road.

Jessica: 00:07:54

And not just always looking at what can I do this 30 days

Jessica: 00:07:57

and feeling like I missed it.

Jessica: 00:07:58

But really taking a look at the end goals as well, or the

Jessica: 00:08:01

longer-term goals is powerful.

Jessica: 00:08:03

That's something that I really like about EOS and that first

Jessica: 00:08:06

kind of visionary piece of work.

Jessica: 00:08:08

When I work with CEOS and business owners about defining their vision and

Jessica: 00:08:12

then what their pain points are and what opportunities we have to grow on,

Jessica: 00:08:16

that's a time that I then reflect on what tool or framework will best serve them.

Jessica: 00:08:22

So sometimes that's EOS, but sometimes it's not, right?

Jessica: 00:08:25

And for a variety of different reasons, and sometimes it's pieces of EOS.

Jessica: 00:08:29

So EOS has some great practical tools for, you know, there's

Jessica: 00:08:32

one called the people analyzer.

Jessica: 00:08:34

That's taking the time in a space separate from your goals and objectives

Jessica: 00:08:38

to think about and talk to your people and say, "Do I have the right people in

Jessica: 00:08:43

the right seats?" And do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it?

Jessica: 00:08:48

And I love that about EOS because again, one of the pitfalls that I find when

Jessica: 00:08:52

people come to me as a consultant is they say, " We're not meeting our sales

Jessica: 00:08:55

revenue goals, so I'm pretty sure I just have to fire everyone." And lumping

Jessica: 00:08:59

performance in human motivation in with business objectives, of that caliber

Jessica: 00:09:04

is just wrong for all the reasons you and I have talked about before.

Jessica: 00:09:07

I love that piece of EOS and OKRs, where it takes the time to coach to

Jessica: 00:09:13

say, it is really important to talk about what the business needs to do and

Jessica: 00:09:17

make that big and lofty and measure it.

Jessica: 00:09:19

But that does not mean that we tie all of our individual contributors

Jessica: 00:09:23

to, and we need to find intrinsically motivating ways to really motivate our

Jessica: 00:09:27

people and measure growth for them.

Sara: 00:09:29

you mentioned the People Analyzer.

Sara: 00:09:31

What are some of the other building blocks of EOS that you find

Sara: 00:09:35

particularly helpful with clients?

Jessica: 00:09:37

Yeah, so I'll talk about the main components.

Jessica: 00:09:40

And the first one is the Vision Traction Organizer, and that's really

Jessica: 00:09:44

about sitting down and making sure that the company, the CEO, the owner

Jessica: 00:09:49

is very clear on their vision, their core values, and their mission.

Jessica: 00:09:53

And then not only that it's clear at the leadership level, but that

Jessica: 00:09:56

there is a system within the business for communicating that downstream.

Jessica: 00:10:00

That also involves identifying your key clients, your target

Jessica: 00:10:04

goals, so really figuring out how we can take our big vision and

Jessica: 00:10:08

then boil that down into traction.

Jessica: 00:10:09

So a lot of vision exercises and then a 10-year, three-year and one-year plan.

Jessica: 00:10:14

So that's a very powerful roadblock of EOS.

Jessica: 00:10:17

The second one, I would say, is the rocks and measurables.

Jessica: 00:10:21

There's a lot of emphasis in the book Traction that talks about uh, the pitfalls

Jessica: 00:10:25

for small businesses or overworked business leaders who feel like they

Jessica: 00:10:29

have to solve for everything right now, or oil the squeakiest wheel right now,

Jessica: 00:10:35

because today it's the squeakiest wheel.

Jessica: 00:10:38

When in reality, we should get clear on what the most important few

Jessica: 00:10:42

things are for a longer period of time, like a quarter, and then try

Jessica: 00:10:45

very hard to stay focused on that.

Jessica: 00:10:47

And the fires will come up and people have to respond to fires and business,

Jessica: 00:10:50

we all get that, but the majority of your day, the majority of your

Jessica: 00:10:54

work, should some way be feeding those big rocks that we agreed on.

Jessica: 00:10:58

And if not, then the leadership team should come together and have that

Jessica: 00:11:00

conversation and acknowledge that.

Jessica: 00:11:03

And then similar to OKRs Objectives, Key Results, there's

Jessica: 00:11:06

the rocks and then measurable.

Jessica: 00:11:08

So after you've identified your quarterly rocks, you go through an exercise of:

Jessica: 00:11:12

What does that look like on a day-to-day?

Jessica: 00:11:14

If we are doing the things that we need to do to move this rock

Jessica: 00:11:17

forward this quarter, how can we measure that we're making progress?

Sara: 00:11:21

how are EOS measurables and Key Results different or similar?

Jessica: 00:11:27

So that's a good question, and the best way that I can answer that

Jessica: 00:11:31

is that in my training on OKRs, and everything I understand about OKRs,

Jessica: 00:11:37

there's just a lot more substance into the important ingredients to

Jessica: 00:11:42

coming up with those and making sure that we are measuring things

Jessica: 00:11:45

both iteratively, like indicators, and then outcome-based results.

Jessica: 00:11:48

And that's really why I think learning and leaning into this

Jessica: 00:11:52

practice of OKRs was something that I wanted to do to complement

Jessica: 00:11:55

my abilities as an EOS integrator.

Jessica: 00:11:58

I think that EOS is great about giving the basic tools and frameworks for

Jessica: 00:12:02

a business to implement and grow.

Jessica: 00:12:04

But I don't know that there's enough deep-dive guidance given in the

Jessica: 00:12:08

framework to say, "And here's how you could do a really bad job at setting

Jessica: 00:12:11

objectives and key results, there are rocks and measurables, and here's

Jessica: 00:12:15

some key points for doing it well."

Sara: 00:12:17

So it sounds like Key Results might provide a little bit more

Sara: 00:12:22

rigor —you learn my approach to Key Results, so there's a lot of rigor

Sara: 00:12:28

around my approach to Key Results.

Sara: 00:12:29

But for EOS practitioners or consultants who want to apply more

Sara: 00:12:34

rigor to the measures, is that where Key Results are potentially helpful?

Jessica: 00:12:40

Yeah, that's exactly it, Sara.

Jessica: 00:12:42

I don't think that there is a lot of guidance and even.

Jessica: 00:12:45

I've helped several companies implement their EOS framework, and then I serve

Jessica: 00:12:49

as their integrator, but I've also consulted where, like I mentioned

Jessica: 00:12:52

earlier, folks have come and said, "Hey, we're doing it, but we're struggling.

Jessica: 00:12:56

Can you help?" And that is a pitfall.

Jessica: 00:12:58

And I just don't think that there is a lot of, Really good guidance on how.

Jessica: 00:13:03

And so it's left up to, if folks were not that great at setting goals

Jessica: 00:13:08

and objectives prior to implementing EOS, it's not going to solve that

Jessica: 00:13:12

or take them to the next level.

Jessica: 00:13:13

And I think it's so important for a variety of reasons.

Jessica: 00:13:16

But yeah, I think it's absolutely a good idea for anyone using EOS to learn about

Jessica: 00:13:22

the focus that the OKR framework places on doing a good job of defining the what

Jessica: 00:13:27

and the why, and then being smart and intentional about how we measure progress.

Sara: 00:13:32

So earlier on, you mentioned business leaders who get into that

Sara: 00:13:37

overwhelmed state, or they're really focused on having to solve for everything,

Jessica: 00:13:42

Yeah.

Sara: 00:13:43

How do you create space for leaders who are in that space to

Sara: 00:13:47

kind of zoom out and see that they need to get above the fires that

Sara: 00:13:52

they're fighting on the present day?

Jessica: 00:13:54

Yeah, that's great.

Jessica: 00:13:55

And I can speak specifically, to the EOS framework.

Jessica: 00:13:58

And I know we talked about a couple of the foundational pieces or the

Jessica: 00:14:01

tools, as they call them in EOS, but another one is the L10 meeting.

Jessica: 00:14:05

So there are weekly meetings that are pretty structured in format that the

Jessica: 00:14:09

EOS framework gives you, and it really engages that leader or leadership

Jessica: 00:14:13

team back into: What is our vision?

Jessica: 00:14:16

What are our top priorities?

Jessica: 00:14:18

And what are we measuring?

Jessica: 00:14:19

really good facilitator or integrator in an EOS system will make sure

Jessica: 00:14:24

that we're keeping folks on track about talking about those most

Jessica: 00:14:28

important five things or the rocks.

Jessica: 00:14:30

And if we're starting the meeting off on a tangent and we're in a responsive

Jessica: 00:14:34

mode, then that's a time that a good, strong integrator will come in and

Jessica: 00:14:38

say, "Hey, I'm going to call time out for a second. This sounds really

Jessica: 00:14:41

important. I want to get to it." But they do at the end of the meeting, and

Jessica: 00:14:45

it's intentional that it's at the end.

Jessica: 00:14:47

They call it IDS, Identify, Discuss and then Solve.

Jessica: 00:14:51

And so they do an IDS phase.

Jessica: 00:14:53

And so if it wasn't a planned, proactive rock that we're discussing, it's a

Jessica: 00:14:57

new issue or the fact that it's a hot topic and you want to put it on

Jessica: 00:15:01

the front of the agenda, where we're here to talk about the five most

Jessica: 00:15:04

important things that's an issue.

Jessica: 00:15:05

And maybe we need to adjust things.

Jessica: 00:15:07

That's the power that an integrator in the EOS system will bring is to be

Jessica: 00:15:10

able to say, "Hey, I'm hearing this, and I'm not ignoring it, but let's talk

Jessica: 00:15:14

about this during the IDS phase because we're gonna have to talk about how we

Jessica: 00:15:18

give this the right amount of attention without distracting ourselves from

Jessica: 00:15:22

the five things that we agreed were the most important for this quarter."

Sara: 00:15:26

So it's cool.

Sara: 00:15:27

I was familiar because I run into so many methodologies.

Sara: 00:15:31

I can't become an expert in every one, but I was familiar with the concept of rocks

Sara: 00:15:36

and measurables, and I didn't realize that EOS had roles and responsibilities.

Sara: 00:15:42

So tell me a little bit more about the integrator and the role of the integrator.

Jessica: 00:15:47

Yeah, absolutely.

Jessica: 00:15:48

So really, at the core of the foundation, and in my opinion,

Jessica: 00:15:52

other colleagues share this with me.

Jessica: 00:15:53

I know a great pairing between the visionary, Whitman refers to him as

Jessica: 00:15:57

the visionary, him or her, and that's typically the CEO but not always, but

Jessica: 00:16:01

the visionary and then the integrator.

Jessica: 00:16:03

Very often the COO, which is how I became an integrator,

Jessica: 00:16:07

but doesn't always have to be.

Jessica: 00:16:08

It's one of the few systems that is acknowledging the kind of

Jessica: 00:16:12

push and pull that happens in an organization because a very good,

Jessica: 00:16:16

strong visionary CEO is so important.

Jessica: 00:16:20

And we want them to be visionary.

Jessica: 00:16:21

We don't always want to spend our time being the COO and the operations person

Jessica: 00:16:26

being like, "Oh my gosh, there we are like chasing purple squirrels again.

Jessica: 00:16:29

They need to chase purple squirrels, at least a few of them." And so having

Jessica: 00:16:33

that duo sets you up for that success.

Jessica: 00:16:36

We create space.

Jessica: 00:16:37

A good integrator is going to create space and say, " I don't

Jessica: 00:16:40

want you to not be the visionary.

Jessica: 00:16:41

I'm not going to tell you're distracting people by being the visionary." A

Jessica: 00:16:45

great visionary is at the core of a lot of successful companies. We are

Jessica: 00:16:48

going to spend time regularly to say, Do we agree that these are the most

Jessica: 00:16:53

important things for everybody else in the company to focus on for the next

Jessica: 00:16:58

quarter?" You keep dreaming big and you think about what we're going to do.

Jessica: 00:17:02

But I want your buy-in.

Jessica: 00:17:04

And then I can help make sure that the rest of the organization is marching

Jessica: 00:17:08

towards what we've agreed upon as the most important things for this quarter

Sara: 00:17:12

I was just writing a response to a media inquiry the other day

Sara: 00:17:17

about the role of the chief of staff.

Sara: 00:17:21

EOS might be a really helpful toolkit for our chiefs of staff who are in

Sara: 00:17:26

that right-hand role but who might not be enabled around how to do it.

Sara: 00:17:31

I'm a stickler for shared words and meanings, and just having something like

Sara: 00:17:35

EOS, that's an established framework could really help leaders and chiefs of staff

Sara: 00:17:41

improve their clarity of expectations for each other and negotiate what's

Sara: 00:17:45

challenging about those integrator-like or chief-of-staff relationships with leaders.

Jessica: 00:17:50

You're 100% right.

Jessica: 00:17:51

And like you said, chief of staff, COO, integrator, really that second

Jessica: 00:17:56

in command or that partner that's a little bit more operational focused,

Jessica: 00:17:59

operational minded to a visionary CEO, really is an important dynamic.

Jessica: 00:18:04

To have a strength at that leadership level and not have

Jessica: 00:18:07

a CEO who's feeling frustrated.

Jessica: 00:18:09

You know, CEOS call me all the time and they say, can you coach?

Jessica: 00:18:11

I'm the problem.

Jessica: 00:18:13

Like I'm driving my people crazy.

Jessica: 00:18:15

I'm not focused.

Jessica: 00:18:16

Like I tell them one thing, and then I think of four more things.

Jessica: 00:18:19

Can you help me?" And that's, yes, I can.

Jessica: 00:18:21

And you don't have to change.

Jessica: 00:18:22

Like you can keep doing that, but you can't do it all on your own.

Jessica: 00:18:25

And you need people to understand that there is a space and an importance to

Jessica: 00:18:29

what you do, and every idea doesn't need to make it down to everybody else who's

Jessica: 00:18:32

trying to focus on the last important thing that you told them to work on.

Jessica: 00:18:36

So I agree with you a hundred percent on that.

Jessica: 00:18:38

And in fact, besides the book Traction, there's another book called Rocket Fuel.

Jessica: 00:18:41

It's a little smaller, shorter read, and I recommend that all the time.

Jessica: 00:18:45

Some companies are ready to roll out an operating system,

Jessica: 00:18:48

and some just aren't yet.

Jessica: 00:18:49

It takes some work and some commitment, but either way, I think there's some

Jessica: 00:18:53

fundamental pieces, like the visionary and integrator duo relationship

Jessica: 00:18:58

and respecting the strengths of each personality type, that I think

Jessica: 00:19:02

we can pull from that framework.

Jessica: 00:19:04

and it helps empower business leaders.

Sara: 00:19:06

That's fantastic.

Sara: 00:19:07

Those relationships I think are so under served in terms of

Sara: 00:19:11

education and business books.

Sara: 00:19:14

And so it's great to add a couple more resources to my " So You're

Sara: 00:19:18

a Chief Of Staff Now" guide.

Sara: 00:19:21

What is a particularly fertile ground?

Sara: 00:19:25

What organizations would you say should really take a look at EOS?

Sara: 00:19:29

Are there characteristics of an organization or a situation that EOS

Sara: 00:19:34

might be part of the prescription for.

Jessica: 00:19:37

Yeah, I would say it is businesses from anywhere from two to,

Jessica: 00:19:42

I would say, 250-300 employees, that are really starting to feel like they

Jessica: 00:19:48

need help in order to grow and scale.

Jessica: 00:19:51

So they're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by their current operations.

Jessica: 00:19:55

The CEO or leadership team is just feeling like there are

Jessica: 00:19:58

not enough hours of the day.

Jessica: 00:19:59

They cannot do it all.

Jessica: 00:20:01

I hear that so much.

Jessica: 00:20:02

I, as an entrepreneur, I thought I could do it all, and now I can't,

Jessica: 00:20:06

and I know that I need help.

Jessica: 00:20:07

Really any business between two and 250 folks.

Jessica: 00:20:11

that just know that they are ready to grow and take things to the next

Jessica: 00:20:14

level, but they need that structure.

Jessica: 00:20:17

That is somebody that I always say, "Read Traction, or at least skim

Jessica: 00:20:21

through it and call me because I think this could be a great solution."

Sara: 00:20:24

Awesome, Jessica.

Sara: 00:20:25

What haven't I asked you that I should?

Sara: 00:20:29

What else do you want to get out there today?

Jessica: 00:20:31

I know we touched on a few of the core components and tools of

Jessica: 00:20:35

EOS, but one we haven't talked about yet that I think is really powerful

Jessica: 00:20:39

is, um, the Accountability Chart.

Jessica: 00:20:41

So the Accountability Chart really just takes the concept of the traditional org

Jessica: 00:20:46

chart, but it challenges business owners to simplify it down into only a couple

Jessica: 00:20:51

of key buckets, like sales and marketing, operations or delivery, and then finance.

Jessica: 00:20:58

And then it has you create seats.

Jessica: 00:21:00

And so you define the seats that you need filled, and then there's a process

Jessica: 00:21:05

for aligning to make sure you have the right people in the right seats.

Jessica: 00:21:08

And then as you grow, um, kind of filling those seats.

Jessica: 00:21:11

And it's a framework that's done just a little differently because a lot of

Jessica: 00:21:14

times we try to measure people based on this kind of nebulous job and how they're

Jessica: 00:21:20

doing it a lot of different things.

Jessica: 00:21:21

But we don't have the seat well-defined.

Jessica: 00:21:23

And so before EOS has you go in and analyze how somebody is doing it a

Jessica: 00:21:28

role, they really challenge you to say, "What does that seat look like?

Jessica: 00:21:31

Do you have your role well-defined?" And then we can talk about having

Jessica: 00:21:35

the right people in the right seats.

Jessica: 00:21:36

And I think that's huge for business owners.

Jessica: 00:21:38

I think there's quite honestly, often doubt when outcomes don't

Jessica: 00:21:42

start coming in the way that we want.

Jessica: 00:21:43

When numbers aren't where we need them to be as a business leader, we start

Jessica: 00:21:47

saying, "Do I not have the right people?

Jessica: 00:21:49

Is it the people?" And I love that EOS has a system for, "Why don't we take

Jessica: 00:21:53

a look at the structure and the seats that you need filled to do a really good

Jessica: 00:21:57

job before we start analyzing people."

Sara: 00:22:00

I do a lot of work on the how do we map goal-setting to individual evaluation

Sara: 00:22:06

and performance pay and all that.

Sara: 00:22:08

And it's a complicated question.

Sara: 00:22:10

But one of the things that I struggle with has been the relative arbitrariness

Sara: 00:22:16

of evaluation based on job descriptions.

Sara: 00:22:18

So I love that idea of identifying what are the core

Sara: 00:22:23

mandatories for this seat type.

Sara: 00:22:25

Or even, you said sales and marketing, finance, operations, like even

Sara: 00:22:30

saying, those seat roles could be described in terms of alignment to

Sara: 00:22:36

those seat types or those disciplines.

Sara: 00:22:38

So you might have someone in operations that needs to work on internal reputation

Sara: 00:22:44

or someone in engineering who needs to work on developing skills to sell.

Jessica: 00:22:49

Right.

Sara: 00:22:50

So, I don't know, am I understanding that right?

Sara: 00:22:52

That it's like there are certain kind of skills that are identified

Sara: 00:22:56

that then can be aligned independent of what function someone sits in.

Jessica: 00:23:00

That's absolutely correct, Sara, and that's what I love about it,

Jessica: 00:23:03

there is focus in the framework on.

Jessica: 00:23:05

Taking a look at seats and roles independently of people.

Jessica: 00:23:09

And then other tools like your People Analyzer tool, has a component where you

Jessica: 00:23:13

actually have people separate their paper into four and, "What do you love doing?

Jessica: 00:23:18

What are you great at?

Jessica: 00:23:19

What do you hate doing?

Jessica: 00:23:20

What are you not good at?" And then just filling it out and self-reflecting,

Jessica: 00:23:24

instead of saying, "This was the job, and here's how you're measuring." What

Jessica: 00:23:26

are you going to do differently, which we know is toxic and doesn't help?

Jessica: 00:23:30

You give your people the opportunity to fill that out, and then you wanna make

Jessica: 00:23:34

sure that at least 80% of the work that they're doing is falling in that top tier.

Jessica: 00:23:39

And if it's not, and you either talk about, "Is this the right role? Is there

Jessica: 00:23:43

a different role? Do we split roles up?" There's a lot of strategic ways.

Jessica: 00:23:47

But it takes the time to say, "Find out what matters to your people." And

Jessica: 00:23:51

that's how you're going to get the most out of the people that you have.

Jessica: 00:23:53

And I think that's important, especially at the small business

Jessica: 00:23:56

stage, where sometimes we forget to take that kind of time.

Sara: 00:24:00

I'm also just hearing the importance of shared words and meanings.

Sara: 00:24:05

I think think having a shared vocabulary vocabulary and shared words and

Sara: 00:24:08

meanings within an organization could probably alleviate 75% of conflict

Sara: 00:24:14

that happens in businesses and challenge that happens in businesses.

Sara: 00:24:17

So I'm really a fan of identifying and defining words and meanings with a little

Sara: 00:24:23

more rigor than most organizations do.

Sara: 00:24:26

But I'm hearing that when you talk about EOS too, that there's Set of words that

Sara: 00:24:30

can be given meaning that then help with shared understanding within an

Sara: 00:24:34

organization, which is really what drew me to OKRs, but EOS gives additional tools

Sara: 00:24:41

and frames beyond OKRs that people can align on words and meaning for together.

Jessica: 00:24:47

Yeah, absolutely.

Sara: 00:24:49

If people want to learn more about you and your work,

Sara: 00:24:52

where can they find you?

Jessica: 00:24:53

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.

Jessica: 00:24:56

Otherwise, you can go to my website at www.optimizedexecs.com.

Sara: 00:25:02

I think we might have to work on a little side project for chief of

Sara: 00:25:06

staff integrators around EOS and OKRs.

Sara: 00:25:12

That would be really fun.

Jessica: 00:25:13

I love it, too.

Jessica: 00:25:14

EOS does a really good job at laying out a lot of groundwork, fundamental tools.

Jessica: 00:25:20

But I find business leaders remain, in the "help me" phase when it comes to their

Jessica: 00:25:24

goals, their measurables, their rocks.

Jessica: 00:25:26

The OKR framework is amazing as a tool for people to lean into.

Sara: 00:25:30

Yeah, I even have a little section in my book if doesn't everyone

Sara: 00:25:33

already know how to write goals.

Sara: 00:25:35

It's just something that, unless you're in strategy or behavioral sciences or

Sara: 00:25:41

motivation science, we just don't think a lot about the discipline of goal creation.

Sara: 00:25:46

So I think it's really cool that you spotted that opportunity in

Sara: 00:25:50

your EOS work to dive deeper into the discipline of goal setting.

Jessica: 00:25:55

And Sara, I'll tell you one thing from learning from you when it

Jessica: 00:25:59

comes to Objectives and Key Results that I really took away as powerful

Jessica: 00:26:03

was the actual coaching aspect.

Jessica: 00:26:05

And I know you watched that transformation for me, but I learned so much about the

Jessica: 00:26:09

speed with which I was going through that portion of the EOS with CEOS.

Jessica: 00:26:14

They're like, "Oh, goals. Yeah. I wrote some down once in a while," and

Jessica: 00:26:17

we were just slapping things on paper.

Jessica: 00:26:20

You know, like I'm a problem solver by nature.

Jessica: 00:26:22

It's hard for me to stay quiet and let somebody else reach the answer sometimes.

Jessica: 00:26:26

And what I learned from learning how to be a good OKR coach really was to

Jessica: 00:26:31

allow for that silence and to challenge, "But why? Tell me more about that."

Jessica: 00:26:35

And really the coaching element, and I think that was the biggest aha moment

Jessica: 00:26:39

for me and has helped me become better in doing that piece of EOS with clients.

Sara: 00:26:44

Awesome.

Sara: 00:26:45

Jessica, thank you so much for joining me today.

Sara: 00:26:47

This was fantastic.

Jessica: 00:26:49

Thank you so much for having me, Sara.

Jessica: 00:26:51

It's been a pleasure and I'm sure we'll stay in touch.

Sara: 00:26:54

Thank you.

Sara: 00:26:57

All right, that wraps up my conversation with Jessica Lee about EOS.

Sara: 00:27:01

I want to thank Jessica for sharing her expertise and insights with us today.

Sara: 00:27:05

If you found value in this discussion about practical frameworks for

Sara: 00:27:08

business growth, you're going to want to subscribe to my email

Sara: 00:27:11

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Sara: 00:27:15

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Sara: 00:27:19

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Sara: 00:27:24

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Sara: 00:27:27

So until next time, bye y'all!

Sara: 00:27:30

All right, friends, That's it for today.

Sara: 00:27:32

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Sara: 00:27:35

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Sara: 00:27:41

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Sara: 00:27:50

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Sara: 00:28:02

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Sara: 00:28:15

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Sara: 00:28:19

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