EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals

(EOS Episode 22) They Faced Chaos, Chose EOS, And Built A Clear Path Forward

• Michele Mollard

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Certified EOS Implementer Michele Mollard is joined in this episode of EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals by clients and father-daughter team Denny Stults and Ellen Kluck of Visiting Angels in southwest Michigan.

Denny and Ellen share how they used EOS to move from reactive chaos to focused growth, doubling weekly care hours while building a healthier culture. 

The conversation is candid about pain points, tough choices, and the power of simple tools used with discipline.

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EOS-Traction for Your Workplace Goals is a Livemic Communications production.




Richard Piet:

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals. Michelle Mollard is a certified EOS implementer, entrepreneurial operating system. We've done a number of these episodes, and we invite you to subscribe. Where you get podcasts, just type it in EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals. Bloop, there will be, and there'll be a subscribe button you can choose and be alerted when these episodes come available. Michelle Mollard, as I say, is a certified EOS implementer, and sharing insights about your workplace goals and how EOS can help with them is the focus. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Richard. Boy, we have special guests today. Tell us who we have.

Michele Mollard:

I am so excited. Uh, we have Denny Stultz, visionary of visiting angels in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a regionally area, actually, not just Kalamazoo, but they do southwest Michigan. Uh, and then Ellen Kluk, uh, which is the integrator uh at said same company. Uh and I've got a little secret father-daughter specialty right here. Uh, just a dynamic duo as we talk about with the Visionary and Integrator, but even more dynamic because it's father-daughter. So uh super excited to have you both. Thank you both for joining us today.

Richard Piet:

Hello.

Michele Mollard:

Thanks for having us, Michelle.

Richard Piet:

Yes, hello, Danny and Alan. Thank you for uh being here. What does visiting angels do? Let's find that out first.

Denny Stults:

Well, uh, we are in the business of keeping people safe and comfortable and independent in their homes. And uh typically we work with folks that have some type of a physical challenge or a cognitive challenge, uh, maybe a family together, maybe a single person, but we send angel care professionals into their home to do whatever it is that they need. It could be uh cook a meal, um, play a game, uh, help with uh personal care, showering, toileting, those types of things. And uh, we do that for an hour at a time, up to 24 hours uh in a day.

Richard Piet:

Ellen, this is interesting because I think sometimes the notion is when these challenges are presented, being in the home is uh for a limited time only. And uh what you're doing is assuring that that isn't the case.

Ellen Kluck:

That that's so true. I think that a lot of people don't dream about aging in a nursing home or aging in somewhere other than the house they've lived in, maybe just for a short while or for 77 years. So we want to become part of their care team to help them stay in the place that they want to be.

Richard Piet:

All right. So, Michelle, when you meet someone like Danny and Ellen, and uh they've brought evidently some challenges that they've faced to you, what do you want to know? And how did it eventuate with visiting angels?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, uh maybe Ellen and Denny did not know this at lunch uh when we were at lunch when we first met. Uh, but definitely first trying to figure out are they ready to get unstuck? So the stuck is always very apparent. It's I I knew what it was when they came to me. Well, once we got into the meeting, it was very apparent to me what it was or several things that it was, but it is the mindset of I really want, I'm done being stuck. Uh, and so that's what we're really looking for. And then the second part is are they done being stuck? And then do they want to grow, right? So our psychographics is somebody uh that is more about more afraid of status quo than is of change, right? And so sometimes they want to get unstuck, but the uncomfortable part of getting unstuck, they're not ready for. Uh, and so I'm looking for those things to, you know, no one really wants to be uncomfortable, that's for sure. But these guys, uh, in the years that we have been working together, uh, have transformed, right, right through that uncomfortable and several starts of uncomfortable. They have hit several ceilings along their journey as well. Uh, and so they just never stopped, right? And so that's what you're really looking for is for a company that's like, oh, I hit another ceiling. All right, how do we get through it? Oh, hit another one. How do we get through it? And and this Denny Ellen, a team of now a hundred, uh, I think guys, you can correct me, uh, just a massive team uh to be able to do that, all of them really driving for it. So that's what we're looking for.

Ellen Kluck:

We are 130 now.

Michele Mollard:

Oh my goodness.

Ellen Kluck:

We're growing.

Michele Mollard:

Wow. Holy stuck. I think that they started with me. Like we we only see each other once a year now uh in the journey that they're on. They've kind of gone through the heavy part of the two-year journey with me on a regular basis. Uh, and I think 70 or 80 was maybe where the number was uh just well, it would be I I can't know exactly three or four years ago uh is where we'd done it because this will be our third or fourth annual. So yeah.

Richard Piet:

Wow. There's uh evidence of being unstuck, right? And and so we're saying stuck. But Danny and Ellen, did you feel stuck? I mean, what motivated you to want to do this?

Denny Stults:

We um we both came to home care with no experience, and we we started from the ground up, just Ellen and I and one other individual. So that was 2017. We started a little bit slow, we got some traction. Uh, we took on a partner in 2018, somebody that bought property around us, and together we were moving the business forward. I brought uh some skills from the corporate world uh at Kellogg's for 37 years. Ellen brought some uh people skills with her recent degree in psychology from Michigan, and then we had our business partner who was a corporate lawyer and wanted to get into the business. Well, we started building and uh getting to know each other and thinking that we had things going on, and and then we we went through COVID and our partner kind of decided she wanted to go do other things. And then we, Ellen and I were at the point where, you know, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna move this? And there was uh, you know, some things that we had to work through. And fortunately, my wife Susan went on a golf outing and uh met Michelle in uh I think Grand Rapids, and she came back and she said, you know, you ought to look at the COS thing. And so we sat down, as as she mentioned, I think it was in 2023, and um we signed on the bottom line. Our partner decided to go in a different direction. So Ellen and I uh met with Michelle for our first meeting, and the journey began.

Richard Piet:

Well, you never know what might happen when you meet somebody on the seventh T or something.

Michele Mollard:

Right? Yes, yes.

Richard Piet:

This is a typical situation, Michelle. Uh describe that. You uh you you meet folks, there's in Daniel Ellen's case, there's a family dynamic. There was an outside person. There's a lot of things at play here, right?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, um, I would say there's no typical. It has been all over the place uh in the journey of how where they're coming to and how they're meeting and uh what's going on from there. And so it's definitely not uh typical. The typical is they've hit a ceiling and they're just stuck. That's the only thing that's typical. Uh it's father-daughter, it's two brothers, it's husband and wife. Scenarios are different with no partners. Partners, some of them come at two million, some of them coming at me at 10 million, right? It just depends on the journey. So there's really no typical, it's really about the I want to move forward, I want to go. And sometimes we've got it organically growing this organization. And I don't know for these guys, but organically we've done it. Uh, but now we got to strategically do it. And how do we do that? And and EOS is just an operating system about how the humans operate within the business. And so it was just really getting them succinct on how the humans operate. How do they meet? How do they uh respect each other with core values? Uh, how do they have goals? How do they have all those things? And it really does that. This team does all the hard work. As I say, I'm I'm the girl at the front of the room with the marker, uh, but they do all the hard work, right? And so I just give them the framework and teach uh EOS. So I'm a coach, facilitator, and teacher, right? So I teach EOS, facilitate the discussion, coach the game from the outside. Uh, but these guys do the work. There is no part of me in their business doing the work. They've done all the work.

Richard Piet:

Alan, talk about what you understood to be one of the main reasons why you decided to do this. And here's why I asked that. Some folks are watching this and they're running their finger around it saying, geez, should I do this? Should I not? How do I know? What tipped the scale for you?

Ellen Kluck:

Well, I was gonna quit. That tipped the scale. Oh my um, so that was a big one. Um, Denny had been grooming me, unbeknownst to me, for years, to take on ownership. And I was really hesitant to do so. And when the opportunity arose to do that, I it was do I take this on or do I say, Sayonara, I'm gonna try something else. And bringing Michelle and the EOS structure gave me a lifeline to be able to say, I can do this. I had it in me all along. I just needed some extra tools to be able to proceed forward. And you mentioned, Richard, a lot of other people out there. Um, I was sitting in four seats within the company, and seats are roles. So I was spreading myself very thin, doing four people's jobs. And uh over the course of the first year, year and a half, I narrowed it down to only two, and that felt great. And now I'm just doing my main role, and I'm really glad that I chose the EOS journey instead of trying to build my career elsewhere.

Richard Piet:

Uh, you run into this, Michelle. I trust, right? Uh folks are spread out four jobs. Yeah. Whoa. This is a lot of harriedness that happens, I think, in those situations. Boy, this is a real solution in that way.

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, I think that people don't realize that as they organically grow, it just happens. You just kind of fall into that seat and you don't even know that you are until you kind of put it back. You know, you kind of, I always tell the teams, look at it from a board of directors, right? Elevate it and not even look as employees and look at this from a board of directors and go, oh my goodness, right? Like when you step outside the box to look in, right? And so I always say you can't read the label from inside the bottle, right? You can't. And so they're in every company. I'm in my own bottle. You're in your own bottle, right? Richard, and it's hard to see it from the outside. And so many times people find themselves in a lot of seats. Um, and so it is, you think about 100% of your time, even if that's 60 hours, if you're in four seats. I don't do math in public because I'm not good at it, but whatever that is, that's 10 hours more, right? 12, I think is my my math says maybe 12 hours, that you're doing each seat. And they're full-time seats. And so you're doing that maybe a quarter of the effort, all your effort wanting to be in it, but a quarter of the effort by production, right? Of um being able to do that job well. And so when you have 50 hours or even 40 hours to do one job, yay, right? That's what we're trying to get to.

Richard Piet:

Yeah. Wow. So, Denny, what was your view as the EOS opportunity was put forth? You had a perspective too. Alan shared hers. What was yours?

Denny Stults:

Well, we had put together business strategy and and were working at, but in the process, we weren't communicating very well. I like to say there were a lot of wounds that we just kept putting band-aids on. Uh, when we got Michelle, she started ripping the band-aids off and uh exposed uh some things that we probably knew and we could fix some things we didn't know, uh, some things we wanted to fix, some things we didn't, but we had to. And uh that process was emotional and we couldn't have done it on our own. I mean, there were a lot of tears. Which seems odd in a business setting, but that's where we had it, we had to kind of tear ourselves down and then build ourselves back up for the with the tools. And the tools are super simple. Going through the corporate world, you know, we had the best of everything, all the consultants and things coming in. Baloney. It's the simple tools that you do every day and you know what your role is, and sometimes you stray from that, but the other people see you and they call you on it, and then you get back in line and the thing works. So it's been amazing to me. I uh actually want to take it to some nonprofits that I'm involved with now because we're so efficient here. If you're in a meeting with uh you're in a business or in a in an effort with somebody and they're not, it just makes you crazy. So anyway, uh that was kind of the way I belt through the process. And now I wake up happy and uh I'm doing what I should do and what I want to do. And you know, Alan can manage this growing business, it's crazy, and everybody knows their role. And we can talk about it because we know what we're supposed to do. It's clear.

Richard Piet:

Alan, you talked about one job, four jobs, one role, four roles. That's one comparison uh like Danny has alluded, that is different now than it was. Does something else come to mind? Anything else come to mind from yesterday to now and the difference?

Ellen Kluck:

Well, um, we've doubled our business, so that's a big difference. Uh well, there you go. We evaluate our organization based on how many uh hours of care we provide a week. And when we started with Michelle, we were around 900 hours a week, and now we're looking at 2,000. So that means growth in positions, that means growth in revenue and profit and in being able to give back to all of the wonderful people who work for us. So before we started with Michelle, we were just putting out fires left and right, and now we have a system to be proactive and to create programs for our angels that work for us, as everyone is an angel who works for us. Daddy may tell you differently for himself, but we are all angels. And um, you know, we have programs to help them advance their careers, to get bonuses, to have benefits, to have work-life harmony. And those opportunities didn't exist at the start, and they do now. And we just look forward to offering as much as we can to the wonderful people who work and visiting angels.

Richard Piet:

Michelle, is this typical? And by that I mean it's very clear to Danny and Ellen 900 hours, 2,000 hours. Our work has doubled. It's in the stats. Is that typical that it's that easy to see the difference between yesterday and today on either side of the EOS journey?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, and I want to make this very clear. It is easy to see the difference. It is not easy to do. Right. So EOS is a simple set of practical tools, not easily done to transform your business is not for the faint of heart. Right. And so it's just not. It's just a it's a new way of looking at potentially everything. Uh, and I would say that one of the best things about EOS, it allows teams to address the team health, which is honestly what gets in the way the most, right? And so we don't really know uh what those are. And some are slight team health issues and some are long-term team health issues, and going back years or going back a year, right? And so there's no way to know what that is. But if it's a year old, it doesn't mean it's less impactful than something that's 30 years old, right? It's not because of the longevity of that. Um so I just wanted to share that that yes, these results, uh, you know, and Ellen and Delhi, Denny can speak to it. The first year, I think they thought I was gonna kill them because in the way, in the fact that slow them down. I was slowing them down, slowing them down, going like pull on the reins of this horse, this thoroughbred that wanted to run. These two and the rest of their leadership team are amazing, amazing leaders. Um, and so I'm slowing them down, going, just hold on, hold on. And I knew, like I, Ellen and I've had some other conversations. There's some things that they've done, some changing wise. And as soon as I was able to let go of the reins when they got into the Kentucky Derby, which was year two, a little bit into year one, but definitely in year two. I'm just, I'm just a jockey sitting on there praying I don't get thrown off because they're going so fast, right? And so again, that's really how it feels for most teams is the is it is a slow process. There's not massive growth in the first year. Again, more about systems, processes, internal stuff, internal and humans. Uh, and then it's the numbers that can see it in that year two, three, four. Uh and these guys have been running their lives and their teams without me. I like I say, I just get with them uh now twice, you know, a year, uh once a year, excuse me, for a two-day. Uh, and this is the second time we've done that. So they have very little guidance from me now. They they have the the foundation, they know what to do, some conversations once in a while, but they're just, you know, other teams are different. Some teams, after they graduate, as we call it, uh, call me often, which is fine. Uh, and some teams are, you know, just uh it's just a matter of the leadership team and what they need. And I'm always there. Um they're always a client of mine, whether whether they like it or not. They could say, um, we don't need you now for the annual, which would make me so happy, which would be fine. Uh, but they're always a client. And if as soon as they call, they're in the queue, just as my clients that are active, right? And it's just how we and I say this as me with Ellen and Denny, but the whole inframotor community, right? There's 850 of us around the world that care like this. Like there's no, there's nobody that I have never met that and I met a lot of them. Um, pretty social person. I've met a lot of them, uh, not a one of them. So the journey is the same and the outcomes are the same, just as in the journey. The foundation is the same, the journey is very, very different, but the outcomes are the same.

Richard Piet:

Danny and Ellen, this question is for either one of you. What has this clarity done for you as you look ahead to the future? This must have unclouded any sort of fog that might have been in the way or most of it.

Denny Stults:

For me, um it unclouded everything. Uh, not that it doesn't get cloudy. The fog does roll in from time to time. Um, and then we just look at what our future is gonna be through the VTO. Are we on track? Are we off track? How are we gonna get there? And it's very easy to get back on track. Um, the other thing for me is just we we always thought we had great values and we thought we were a great company and everybody loved us. When we finally have put our core values down on paper, that really crystallized things too. And we've made an adjustment on it since we did that. We made little tweaks, but basically that's the core of why we exist and who we are and the type of people we want to attract. So um it's very, very efficient, even when days get cloudy. How about you, Ellen? What do you think?

Ellen Kluck:

Yeah, I think for me, I was living just day to day, and I'm in my mid-30s and built a family. I have three young children, um, a three-year-old boy and twin seven-month-old girls. So I didn't know how I was going to balance such a demanding position. But now it's it's very clear. It's very clear to have the path at work, and we know where we're going to end up because with EOS, you you create a big, hairy, audacious skull. Known as a B HAG. And, you know, as I mentioned, our hours are at 2,000 and we want to be at 6,000 in 2032. So we know where we're going and we we know what tools to use to get there. And then it's not a sense of ease, but a sense of certainty then allows you in your personal life and me in my personal life to when I'm at work, I focus on work. And when I go home, I focus on home. And I can be the person I want to be with the fog cleared.

Richard Piet:

Big, hairy, audacious goal, B Hag. It fits. I get it now. Yeah. All right. You know, I want to ask one final thing from both of you. Someone's listening to this again. They're running their finger around it, they're trying to decide. Do you have any advice for them that might help with the decision?

Ellen Kluck:

A simple version of a pro con list, but making that con list all the things that are a problem, and then showing that to Michelle or any EOS implementer and saying, can you help me with this?

Denny Stults:

Danny, anything to add to that? Um it's hard to beat that one, Alan. Um I think the only thing that I would add is um look at uh where you want to be and be willing to consider new ways to get there. And if you can get to that point, you can make this investment and it becomes very clear where your strengths are gonna fly and where you're not strong, it needs to go uh to somebody else that is and make that organization. As Alan said, you know, she was sitting in a couple of four seats. I was sitting in a couple of seats. And uh when we finally determined the structure, we got really, really good people in those seats, and and I think that's that's the key to our success and continuing.

Richard Piet:

And if you want to hear about just that alone, there are episodes in this series talking about the right people in the right seats, so you can hear more about that by listening or watching those. Michelle, is this all folks need to understand about this? I mean, Ellen and Denny clearly stated it. You want to do something new, you want to see it in a different way, this is a potential way to do that. What do you tell folks when they have to make up their mind and they're trying to decide?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, I think Ellen is right. Pros, cons, lists. Uh, I think I would just add on the idea of if you want vision for your organization where everybody is on the same boat as you, which we don't often have, rowing in the same direction with those oars in at the same time. If you want that, if you want accountability and discipline in the organization, some of your employees will not make the journey. Ellen uh and Denny have uh learned that as well, as far as leadership team members as well as employees. Some people just are not ready for accountability and discipline, but you will find the ones that do and you will absolutely attract them. And so if you want that, and then ultimately if you want a healthy, cohesive uh team, as I said, the kids are watching. And so, as goes the leadership team, so goes the rest of the organization. And so leaders have made everything that's great and they should relish in that, but they, just like raising children, have potentially made the errors or the problems in the organization. And that you have to own that, right? And that's the journey that Ellen and Denny went on is uh just looking at that. So I think it's more about that vision traction healthy part, too. Not more about, but it is as well as what Denny and uh Ellen had said that really gets there if they want to go to the next level.

Richard Piet:

Denny Stultz, Alan Kluke, visiting angels in Southwest Michigan. So glad to have heard your story, your EOS traction journey. Thank you for that.

Denny Stults:

Thank you, Richard. It was fun.

Michele Mollard:

Thanks, guys.

Richard Piet:

Michelle is a certified EOS implementer. Her contact information is in the show notes for this episode. You don't have to wait till that golf outing where maybe you'll meet her in the clubhouse or something. Uh, you can reach out right now and ask the questions that this has stirred up in you. And we invite you to subscribe to EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals for more episodes like this. Take care.