My chicken coach is always looking for ways to spoil her chickens.  I remember when she asked her husband to spend $50 on a chicken swing so they chickens could have something fun to play on and his response was there was no way they were spending that kind of money on a swing (I’m proud to say that I built my chickens a swing and all it cost me was the effort of assembling the swing out of recycled materials). My chicken whisperer takes her chickens for a walk after a good rain so they can eat all the worms on the driveway.   These chickens owners really love their chickens and in return, the chickens reward them with eggs o’ plenty.

I enjoy my chickens as well.  I enjoy watching them, especially after making a change in their coop.  They are such inquisitive animals that they just can’t help but go check out any little change I make in their area:  additional food, new toys, or even mice traps.  They will inspect it, peck at it and inevitably start moving things around.

Since my chickens are somewhat famous, I frequently get asked, “Julie, what’s going on with your chickens?” Typically, I smile and say they are doing great.

However, last fall, when my chickens weren’t laying, I was frustrated.  I was doing all the hard work and not getting the rewards for my effort.  During this egg-laying drought, when people would ask me, “how are your chickens?” I’d respond with a sigh and say, “They are fine.”

As much as I enjoy watching the chickens, the purpose of having chickens is to have fresh eggs.  And when they aren’t producing, it is frustrating.  Yes, I still care for them, make sure they have food and water, clean their coop, and bring them treats, but without eggs, it isn’t all that much fun.  I know that this dip in egg production is normal but I can’t help but wonder in the back of my mind if maybe this dip is due to something more than the seasonal lack of daylight.  And this little thought tends to cloud my enjoyment of being a chicken mama.

As a business owner, I know that my business goes through normal cycles.  But when sales are down or I’m having an issue with a client, it can be a bit unsettling.  In my mind, I know this is normal and I need to stay focused on the bigger picture, but some days that feels so hard.

I know I’m not alone in feeling the weight of running a business that doesn’t seem to be performing at the level that it should be.  This weight can lead to feeling like I did during my egg laying drought, and telling yourself and others, the business is “fine.”

When I’m implementing EOS with my clients, I tell them they are not allowed to say the “F word” in my session room.  I don’t want to hear Fine or Sure from them. I want them to get energized, fired up, frustrated, angry, and excited.  Because if the leadership team isn’t feeling that way, how can they possibly expect the employees to bring their best self to the business every day?

Yes, businesses go through really difficult times.  And those difficult times require the leadership team to dig in and solve the issues that are preventing the business from moving through them. That desire to solve those issues requires energy.  As Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”

A recent client was struggling with cash flow.  They had grown very fast, and as you know, growth requires cash.  But they were cash strapped and it was impacting every single aspect of the business.  The leadership team walked into my session room with the weight of the business on their shoulders. The CFO was so stressed, she wasn’t sleeping, and the owner had made himself physically ill from the stress.   “How are you?” I asked.  “Fine,” they replied.  “Are you excited for today’s session?” Sure, they sighed.  The weight in the room was so heavy.  I realized I had my work cut out for me that day.

When we got to issue solving, they were overwhelmed with how to work with the short-term cash flow issues while they secured the financing that was soon to come. We worked through the IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve) tool, starting with identifying the issue, then listing potential solutions.  At first, they let their current frame of mind limit their thinking, but I just kept writing down any idea they came up with. From there, the team identified some significant actions they could take to address the issue in the short term.  As they looked at the list of actions, they started to perk up a bit.

I turned to the team and said, what do you think?  Does this feel like we are identifying some solutions to address this problem?  Instead of the “Sure” I had been hearing all day, I started to see some head nodding.

We took that momentum and turned to another issue that need to be solved.  The team used the same process and came up with some great action-oriented solutions.  I could see some smiles on their faces and I knew we were making progress.

I asked the team, do you think these actions will have a significant impact on your short-term cash flow issue? And the head of operations smiled and said, “Hell, yes!”

Your employees, your customers and your families need you to put the energy into solving the issues facing your organization with energy and passion.  If you don’t have that, how can you possibly expect them to bring that energy?

Are you facing a challenge in your business and you aren’t sure how to solve it? Does your leadership team feel weighed down by these challenges and you aren’t sure how to energize them?  If so, please reach out to me.  I can work with you and your leadership team to provide the tools to help you solve the greatest challenges facing your business, so you can go from “Fine” to “Hell Yes.”

I am always energized by the winter solstice. Yes, it marks the time that our daylight starts to increase. But even more exciting for me is that it is around the time when my pullets start laying eggs. Since hens need about 15 hours of daylight in order to lay eggs, egg production will drop off in the fall/winter. However, once pullets (hens less than 1 year of age) reach about 20 weeks of age, they will lay through the winter.

Once early December arrives, I live in anticipation of finding an egg in the nesting box. Every morning I go up and eagerly peek into the box hoping to find an egg. And this year, I have been disappointed every day past winter solstice and Christmas. My hens looked healthy, they were eating and drinking, walking around the chicken run. But they were not laying eggs.

My fellow chicken mamas were all reporting that their hens were laying eggs. So, at about that point, I started questioning my chicken mama skills. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with my chickens? How did I fail my chickens? Why did I think I could be a chicken mama? I even considered selling my coop and chickens. I know this isn’t helpful for my chickens or for me, but that didn’t stop me from descending into chicken mama purgatory.

Then, on December 26th, I took a step back out of my funk and thought about what I could do for them to encourage egg production. As I considered my options, I decided to give them some fresh oyster shells. Oyster shells are used as a supplement for hens to augment their calcium intake to help them produce strong shells. I emptied the oyster shell feeder on the ground and filled it with fresh shells.

Hens are very inquisitive. They will inspect anything that is changed in their area including new bedding in the coop, mouse traps, food scraps or even weeds from the garden.

So, as soon as I left the coop, they promptly inspected their new shells.

The next day, I was rewarded with an egg. My first egg in 2 months.

Now, you could say that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but I’m just going to go with it. Whatever it was, I am finally getting eggs! Life at the coop continues to be productive and I’m feeling much better about my chicken mama skills!

So, let me ask you. Has your company ever failed to produce the results you desire and you have no idea how to fix that situation? Did you go down that rabbit hole and start questioning yourself as a leader? Wondering if you have the skills to run a business or department? If you have, you are not alone.

However, that line of thinking isn’t productive. And while you may know that deep down inside, it is often so hard to pull yourself out of it.

I was recently talking with a business owner who was extremely frustrated with the performance of his company. As he analyzed the situation, he kept returning to perspective of “what have I done wrong?” However, once we started to talk it through, he began to see the real issue. And the issue was that he was tolerating unacceptable behavior from members of his leadership team. That clarity gave him the courage to make the changes that needed to be made.

I encourage all of my leaders to take Clarity Breaks so they can remove themselves from the day-to-day operation of the business and look at situations from different perspectives. I think we all get stuck in the weeds and forget how important it is to take a step back and look at the situation from different angles. A change in perspective often brings different solutions. The perspective could be that of an employee, a stakeholder not involved in the day-to-day operation, or even a customer. Try asking, “what does this situation need that it currently isn’t getting?”

If you find yourself questioning your skills as a manager, owner, or leader, this is a great clue that you may be in need of a clarity break. And if you get to the point where you realize you need some help solving that issue, remember, I’m just an email away. Together, we can work towards an egg-cellent solution that is in the best interest of all parties.

The fall weather is upon us. The days are getting shorter and nights are getting cooler. Since chickens can’t see well in the dark, they start heading to bed much earlier and sleeping in much later. Even Sven, our sweet rooster, delays his crowing until about 5:30 in the morning (a nice change from the 3:30 AM start in the peak of summer). Hens need about 15 hours of daylight to lay an egg, so unless I add light to their coop, this also means that my egg production is on the decline. The good news is that I do have some pullets (hens that are less than a year old), and once they start laying, they will lay throughout the winter (oh, the joys of being young). So in the next few months, egg production will start to increase again.

However, the biggest challenge for this time of the year is making sure the chickens are prepared for winter. They need enough warmth in the coop during those cold spells we tend to get in the Pacific Northwest. (I know, it’s nothing like the insane winter temperatures the Midwest experiences.)

The tricky part is that I don’t have power available at the coop. So, I’m forced to find other ways to generate heat. Every summer, I completely empty out the coop and fill it with fresh pine shavings. I need to do this early enough in the summer so that the poop the chickens drop on to the shavings as they roost at night has enough time to start decomposing, which generates heat. By the time the cold weather comes around, the goal is to have at least 4 inches of fresh and not-so-fresh shavings on the bottom of the coop.

This all sounds great except that my pullets are currently not being allowed to roost in the coop. They are being forced to cuddle up in the nesting boxes. Last week, I spotted five hens and one rooster roosting on the roosting bars, while the other 11 (a combination of cockerels and pullets) were crammed into the two nesting boxes. If one of them tries to roost, one of the older hens pecks at him. So how do I get my youngsters to start roosting and pooping in the main part of the coop?

I should have seen this coming, as the same thing happened last year, but I neglected to do anything about it. And so, in an effort to stop this vicious cycle, I’m going to fix this issue, once and for all.

This is a common challenge for my clients as well. They know they need to focus on fixing certain issues in the business, but without a strong commitment and focus, things just keep rolling along, albeit with a bit of frustration. One of the tools that I teach them is the importance of setting rocks. Rocks are just 90-day business priorities. The term “rocks” came from Verne Harnish’s concept of life being a glass jar, and we decide what to add to our glass jar. We have rocks (the big priorities), pebbles (day-to-day tasks), sand (daily interruptions) and water (everything else). Most people start by adding water, then sand, then pebbles and ultimately don’t have room for rocks. So, I encourage my clients to start with the most important priorities and then add the pebbles, sand and water.

As the leadership team comes together, they look at their 3-year picture and 1-year plan and then come up with the most important things they need to focus on in the upcoming 90 days. We start with what the company needs to focus on, then expand to what each member of the leadership team needs to focus on. Ultimately, we want to end up with 3-7 rocks for the company and 3-7 rocks for each member of the leadership team. I encourage them to write SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound), or at least define what “done” looks like. Once the team agrees on the priorities, everyone goes back to work with a focus on getting those rocks completed.

In a recent session with a client that has been running on EOS for a while, I was able to observe them really challenge each other on what the priorities were and what they could realistically complete in the next 90 days. It took a while for the team to hash out the priorities to the point that every member of the team was excited and ready to get to work on getting them done.

Unfortunately for me, my hens are not aligned around my rock of getting everyone roosting at night and pooping in the right place. This makes my job quite a bit harder, but I am determined to apply the necessary focus to complete this rock so I don’t let my flock down.

How about you? Do you know what your business priorities are for the next quarter? Is the team working together to ensure those rocks are completed? Or do you feel like you are a bunch of chickens pecking at each other and preventing progress? A new year is just around the corner, and if you want to set yourself up for success for 2024, reach out to me today. I can help your team work together to achieve a vision that is beneficial for all of you!

After erecting a chicken coop we inherited from a professional structural engineer, I was so excited. This coop is built so well and is perfect for three hens who have the opportunity to free range. But as you know, free ranging is not a viable option when you also have two well-trained hunting dogs. So I stared at this beautiful coop and thought, what are we going to do with it?

And then I had this moment of clarity. We could add siding to the coop, turning the entire structure into the coop, and then build onto it with a fence that allowed the chickens to roam around outside. I hurried back to the house to share my moment of brilliance with my husband. Who, as I found out, was way ahead of me on that thought.

Perfect: we were aligned on the vision. Now we could get to work. I started looking for siding and getting ready to make this vision a reality. Of course, as often happens, he wasn’t too keen on this idea…yet.

The fact is, the end of the summer is not the right time to start raising fryers. This is typically done in the spring. And turkeys take 14 to 25 weeks to mature, so, working backwards from Thanksgiving, we’d want to start turkeys sometime in June. We were late to the fryer and turkey party.

But not all was lost. We just needed to make a plan to get us ready for spring chicks. So we started to develop our one-year plan. This included modifying the coop, adding fencing around the coop so the birds could roam, researching the type of chickens and turkeys we wanted, and learning methods for processing the birds.

In other words, there’s plenty to do in this upcoming year. We just needed to get clarity around what to work on when and who was going to do the work.

I will say that we enjoyed the process as we talked through ideas, debated some approaches and set a budget for all the work. In the end, we were both really pumped about what this next year could bring us.

Planning for raising chickens is similar to setting a one-year plan for a business. As a leadership team, my clients work together discussing and debating the most important things they need to accomplish in the upcoming year. Some of them, not unlike me, want to jump in and get started right away. And some of the ideas can be started immediately. However, there are some things that require planning before getting started.

As I watched a leadership team set their one-year plan a few weeks ago, I noticed they kept circling around their ideas until slowly they narrowed down a few goals. And then they debated, quite passionately at times, what they could realistically accomplish in the upcoming year. They whittled down their list to a set of five goals that everyone was excited about. This was their third annual plan, and the visionary said it was the best one-year plan they had ever set. The goals were concise, achievable and, in his mind, the most important things the organization needed to address.

Do you have a one-year plan that your leadership is working toward? Is your leadership team united around this plan? Did they participate in setting it, or did you develop it in a vacuum? Allowing the team to participate in setting a one-year plan means they are much more likely to be willing to do the hard work to achieve it. As we move into the last quarter of the year, if you need help setting an exciting and compelling one-year plan, I’m just an email away.

Have you ever heard the phrase “One bad apple spoils the bunch”?  Have you ever thought about why that is?  I mean, if all the other apples are fine, why does one ruin it?  Is this some extension of entropy, where the tendency of the universe moves toward disorder? I think about entropy a lot, especially when looking at my desk or my closet, and sadly I would say that both of those “systems” are constantly moving toward disorder.  But I digress.

So, if one bad apple can spoil a bunch, could one good apple improve a spoiled bunch?  Or put another way, could one human-friendly chicken improve a flock of human-scared chickens?

Yep, I just used entropy to talk about chickens.  Didn’t think I could do that, did you?  Anyway, here’s what is happening.  As I’ve mentioned, I recently inherited three very sweet, human-raised chickens.  Whenever I come up to the coop, they come running up to me.  They get so close to me that I have almost stepped on them multiple times.

As you may recall, that is not the case with the chickens I raised myself.  I walk into the coop and they scatter, some of them squawking bloody murder.  I look at them and under my breath whisper, “Drama Queen Chickens.”

But since I have brought those three friendly chickens into the flock, my hens come running up to greet me alongside the three I inherited.  It almost seems like their fear of me is starting to subside.  I keep wondering if these three sweet hens are having a positive impact on my flock.

And then I started to think about my clients.  Could one good hire transform a group of under-performing employees? How many Right People (people who fit the culture and consistently demonstrate the company’s core values) does it take to truly create a great culture?  What is the tipping point where this change happens, if you don’t have it now?  I think it depends on the organization, but the ultimate goal is to get to the point where 100% of your people are Right People in the Right Seat.

I don’t have a single client who doesn’t have a Wrong Person somewhere in the organization. When these people issues come up, I will ask the leadership team three questions: Do you want to Coach Them Up? Coach Them Out? Or Live With It?

It really is that simple.  But if you choose to live with it, you could lose some of the Right People you already have, those who want to work for a company that sticks by its core values.

Recently, I had a client who filled a vacant leadership position with someone with a strong background in her field.  Previously, the leadership team depended on the president to make most of the decisions, and while their performance was adequate (or marginal) it was not sustainable for growth.  This new person came into the leadership team with a sense of ownership, focus and energy.  She challenged everyone with her questions, owned her mistakes when she was wrong and put an incredible amount of energy into her department.  Once the team got over the initial shock of working with someone with so much energy, they started to see what ownership looked like in action. In six short months, other members of the leadership team realized the importance of accountability and began to own their own seats.  Finally, the few that resisted realized they had to decide: own their seat or leave.  One year after the new hire came onto the leadership team, the entire team dynamics had changed.  Collectively, the focus became performance, improvement and productivity, and the president began supporting his team members rather than directing them.

If you aren’t happy with the performance of your leadership team, or your organization, I’d encourage you to look at introducing some good apples into your bushel.  You may be surprised at what an impact they can have on your entire organization.  Need help taking that step? Send me an email! I’ll walk you through the process.

If you have spent much time with me, you will know that I love to create things, but I’m not too artistic.  I have this mental picture of what I want to draw, but when it comes to creating that picture with a brush, pen, or Apple Pencil, what actually is formed is very different from what I see in my mind.

When I started thinking about getting chickens, I knew I needed a chicken coop. I was advised not to purchase a coop as they tend not to hold up.  So, during the pandemic shutdown, I realized it was time to build my coop.  The rest of the details that would take us from building a coop to actually getting farm-fresh eggs were a bit fuzzy to me (my husband would probably say they were very fuzzy).  But I didn’t care, I was ready to start that journey.

The reality is that it took me a lot longer than I expected to reach a point where I had the whole Chicken Mama thing figured out.  It seemed like a constant learning process, starting with the fact that chickens can fly (hence the phrase “the chickens flew the coop”).  For the first year or so, I never knew what to expect when I went to the coop, but I knew it wasn’t going to be predictable.

Over time, my husband and I began to come to agreement on what we were trying to achieve.  Yes, the initial goal was to have farm-fresh eggs, but, ultimately, we realized we had a real opportunity to use our property for more than an egg-making adventure.  We agreed to stick to animals that can fly, including fryers (chickens you can eat) and turkeys. And just recently he added the idea of ducks?!?

So we know where we are going long-term, but we need a pathway to get there.  And that is where drawing comes in.  What should Marlee Acres look like three years from now on our way to achieving our 10-year target? We need additional coops for the different chickens and turkeys, we need the skills to kill and prep our birds, we need the time to focus on all these birds and, ideally, we will have dogs that won’t chase and kill our chickens.  In other words, my picture needs to be a bit less fuzzy and much more crystal clear.

This is the same process I take my clients through as we develop their three-year picture.  I like to ask them, Are you ready to start drawing? Then we go to work creating a picture of what their organization will look like on the way to achieving their 10-year target.  This is where we get specific about what they will achieve in the next three years.

Drawing this picture is beneficial because if everyone on the leadership team can see the same thing, the chances of achieving it are so much greater.

During this exercise, I encourage the team to consider all aspects of the business, including their role, the size of the organization, the work being done, the locations and their reputation in the marketplace.

With one of my clients, after we drew the picture, I asked if everyone could see it, and someone said, “No, some parts are still fuzzy.”  The leadership team kept working on their drawing until they could all see it and were excited to be a part of it.

This isn’t an exercise in which you want to just go along to get along with everyone on the leadership team.  If everyone on your team can’t answer “Heck Yes” to the question “Can you see it?” we haven’t done our best work.

When you nail it, the excitement in the room is amazing! And people are excited to get to work achieving the picture you’ve drawn.

If you look at your three-year picture and can’t say “Heck Yes” – email me.  I might not be much of an artist, but I can help you and your leadership team draw an exciting, compelling picture of the future of your company.

Where will we be 10 years from now?, I asked my husband.  It’s a question we discuss frequently.  We are no longer spring chickens (well, I still think I am), and defining what is important in life seems to be a consistent theme in our discussions of the future.

But I also know myself, and the status quo is not something I feel compelled to accept.  So the question I keep asking is, “What’s next?”  Now that we are clear on our core focus – sticking to animals that fly – it is time to focus on where we are going long-term.

We recently inherited three new chickens and a totally awesome coop built by a professional structural engineer.  Those chickens are so sweet – they were clearly raised by a devoted chicken mama and are comfortable around humans and dogs.  Last week, one of them actually took some food right out of my hand – something my chickens would never do.  And the little sounds they make when I walk up to them are absolutely adorable.

The acquisition of the new coop has allowed us to move the timeline for fryers and turkeys forward, but that still doesn’t answer the question of where we are going long-term.

As we talk through this, we get excited about what the possibilities could be for our property.  Fresh eggs, homegrown chickens in the freezer, serving farm-raised turkey at Thanksgiving.  And that’s how we arrived at our 10-year target: “The Best Place for Chickens to Flock West of the Mississippi.”  Oh, man, I can’t wait to have T-shirts made up.

The 10-year target (a key component of the vision of your organization) is the one, long-range, overarching, energizing goal that everyone in your company is working toward.  It doesn’t have to be 10 years – it could be 5 or 30 years, but regardless of timeframe, it’s critical that this target involves everyone and is energizing.

In Ben Hardy’s most recent book, “10x Is Easier than 2x,” he writes that when you expand your mind to encompass what you could actually achieve if you dream big, you can’t then shrink the mind back down to its original state.  He argues that shifting your mindset to make the biggest imaginable changes is easier than making incremental improvements to achieve 2x results.  And this mindset shift allows you (or your team) to reach beyond what is currently in front of you.

In a recent EOS session with a new client, we started to talk through the 10-year target.  I shared some examples from other EOS clients, including some inspiring targets from my own clients. The response from my new client was, “Wow, I need to think bigger and beyond myself. My goal for this business isn’t nearly large enough.”

In talking about the 10-year target with another client, the owner said, “I want to be a $1 billion company!”  And the CFO asked, “Why? You don’t even care about money.”  The owner’s response was that he wanted “unlimited resources to build cool s**t.”  The team loved that idea, and so does the rest of the company.

So, when you think about where you want your business to be 10 years from now, what comes to mind?  Are you thinking beyond making money? Are you focusing on the impact your business could have in your industry?  In your community?  On your employees and their families?

I want to encourage you to dream big!  Even if you fall a little short of your 10-year target, you will be so much closer to what you really want than you would if you just focused on incremental improvement.  Need help clarifying your long-term target? Send me an email – I can help you achieve what you really want from your business.

Almost every day when I drive down my driveway past the neighbor’s pasture, I see their goat with the floppy ears hanging out with the horses. Sometimes he is perched on top of the wood stand, and sometimes he is lying on top of the horse, his legs dangling down on each side. It absolutely cracks me up every time I see it. I hear goats are pretty easy to take care of, so why not get one? I mean, they eat blackberry bushes, and we have plenty of those. And now that we can manage our chickens, why not try out some other farm animals?

My husband has also decided we should raise a lamb. (I just found out a lamb is a baby sheep. I know, I know, I didn’t learn my farm animals when I was younger.) But then, why stop at a lamb? Maybe we should get a cow? I mean, if we are going to go in, let’s go all in.

At some point along this line of thought, a voice of reasons calls out, “What are you thinking?” Chickens are relatively easy to care for, and it took me nearly 3 years to figure it out. And do we really want to spend all our time caring for animals that, in the end, we will probably eat? Well, except for the goat with the floppy ears. I could never eat him, he is too cute.

The fact is, for a while there, my husband and I were chasing shiny edible objects. Until I realized what we were doing. Learning how to raise chickens for eggs does not translate to raising larger animals for food.

That’s when we had to come to an agreement regarding what we wanted to focus our attention on. And I’ll be honest, it was hard for us to agree. Mike, a Midwesterner who grew up on meat and potatoes, thinks we should use our property to raise animals to eat. Julie, a city girl who just recently started living in the country, is very proud of her ability to pick up a chicken with her bare hands.

For now, we have agreed to stick with animals that fly. We currently have lay hens, and in the future we will likely get fryers and turkeys. It is something that we both agree we can focus on and succeed at in the short-term while leaving time for our other interests, including hiking and traveling.

I often see this type of struggle from my clients. They lack clarity around what the true focus of the business should be. It’s easy to want to do too many things at once. When my clients start building their vision, I tell them that nailing the core focus will take somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 years. If the team can’t agree on the core focus of the business, they will start (or continue) chasing shiny objects, possibly even cute goats with floppy ears.

An organization’s core focus is its sweet spot. It is where the purpose meets the niche. Or where the “why” intersects the “what.”

If you take a step back and look at your business, have you ever wondered why some of the work you do is so easy and some of it is so hard? When you are operating in your sweet spot, everything just seems to flow. The hard work doesn’t seem as hard, and the output is top-notch.

One of my clients went through a tremendous growth spurt, and business was great – until it wasn’t. All of a sudden, projects weren’t finishing profitably, customers were unhappy, and it seemed just so hard. When the team finally took the time to slow down and think about why some projects were going great, and others were not, they realized the easier work was right in their wheelhouse. They realized they had a choice to make: continue to grow, knowing that some of their projects would be outside their sweet spot and therefore harder and less profitable, or start turning down that kind of work and focusing on what they truly enjoyed and were really good at.

Nearly every one of my clients has had to decide if they want growth for the sake of growth. Not everyone realizes it’s a lot harder to run a $40 million company with 10% profits than a $20 million dollar company with 20% profits. So, what kind of company do you want? Will the leadership team say no to accepting work that falls outside their sweet spot? Doing this requires an abundance mindset, as well as trust that if you do great work, more will follow.

As you look at your company, what do you see? Are you crystal clear on your sweet spot? Or are you chasing shiny objects because you can’t say no and you think you need the revenue? Answer that question honestly, and if you don’t like the answer, email me. I can help you and your team gain clarity around your core focus.

When I walk up to the chicken coop, my rooster, Sven, makes a certain sound. It is his way of notifying the flock to “pay attention.” This isn’t a special “Sven” sound as my other roosters would do the same thing. He also makes a sound I call “Happy Chicken.” When I go into the run and leave treats for the flock, Sven will make this excited clucking that sounds like he is really pleased with what I brought them. That sound always makes me smile.

But I noticed something funny a few weeks ago. I had just dropped some treats in the run, and Sven seemed happy about it, but then he waddled over to the corner of the run and started making his ”happy chicken” sound – and he was nowhere near the treats I had just dropped. He then picked up a worm and proceeded to drop it in front of the nearest hen for her to eat. In case you don’t know, chickens love to eat worms. Sometimes, I’ll grab worms from the garden and take them to the chickens. Anyway, as I watched this exchange, I realized, Sven isn’t excited about my treats, he just makes that sound to get the attention of the hens so he can give them a treat.

Since the worm exchange, I’ve noticed him make the sound, wait until a hen comes to him, then drop some food for her. In fact, I’ve watched him strut his stuff all over that run sharing the treats with all the hens.

And that is when I realized how much of regular chicken life I missed observing because of the aggressiveness of my former rooster, Oden. When Oden was alive, he was so aggressive that I never had an opportunity to pause and watch the chickens and how they interact. I was forced to keep my eyes on him, lest he find me not paying attention and try to flog me.

As I reflect on the current state of my chickens, I’m pleased with the traction that I’ve been able to make toward becoming the chicken mama I always hoped I could become.

I’m sure many business owners have similar realizations. When you focus on the right things, you find that all the hard work, all the hard decisions, all the time you put in begins to pay off. And that is what the Traction component of EOS is all about. It means making progress toward the company that you know you are capable of becoming. This progress can seem so minuscule and, at times, daunting, but focusing on the right things day in and day out will allow you to achieve what you want to achieve.

In EOS, the tools that strengthen the Traction component are rocks and a good meeting pulse. Rocks are just 90-day business priorities. And by setting the right rocks and staying focused on completing those rocks, you will make progress toward your goals. Choosing the right priorities can be difficult as we sometimes think we have to get everything done in one quarter. With that mindset, not much will be completed. But having the discipline to focus on only the top priorities and make time to get them done will propel the business further and faster than making a little progress on too many priorities.

The other key to the Traction component is a good meeting pulse. That means that as a leadership team, you are coming together on a weekly basis to solve the most important issues facing the business. And by solve, I mean addressing them at the root so they go away forever.

One of my clients is a small but growing professional services company. They were self-implementing but wanted to really master the EOS tools and asked me for help. In their most recent planning session, the team was laser-focused on setting rocks to address issues that were preventing the company from growing. During our mid-session check-in, the visionary shared, “We are having a weird experience. Rocks 100% on track and two meetings where we solved all of the issues on the issues list …. It’s awesome. And the best part is that I really thought some of those rocks weren’t quite attainable.”

If you feel like you aren’t gaining traction in your business, I’d challenge you to get crystal clear on the 3-7 most important priorities for the upcoming quarter. Then use your weekly meetings to resolve issues that are keeping you from completing them. If everyone on your leadership team, or even better everyone in your company, can do that, imagine the traction you could achieve.

Not confident you are gaining the traction you want or need? Send me an email and I can help you and your team get moving in the right direction.