EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals

(EOS Episode 23) Map Your Year: From Vision To Milestones

• Michele Mollard

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Certified EOS Implementer Michele Mollard unpacks how reflection becomes traction when you stop waiting for a date and start mapping a route with clear checkpoints. 

A road-trip metaphor brings EOS tools to life, turning big goals into weekly corrections you can actually make.

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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 with certified EOS Implementer Michelle Mollard. Our episodes are out there. Have you heard them? Maybe this is the first one you're hearing. Well, subscribe where you get podcasts, and then you'll be alerted when these new episodes are deployed. And you also can go back in the library and check some of these things out. We're focused on the entrepreneurial operating system and prospectives from a certified implementer like Michelle, looking at what some of the challenges business owners and operators are having, EOS solutions to those, et cetera. Today, we're focused on reflections, looking at what some folks may be reflecting upon, generally at the end of the year, because that kind of stimulates these kinds of thoughts as people say, What's your New Year's resolution? You can tell how I feel about those by that snarky sound. We can tell. We can tell. We can tell. But uh generally speaking, though, we do take moments, do we not, to sit back and reflect on what's gone on in the year, what our accomplishments have been, what our challenges have been, and how will that be going forward? Michelle, this is where a lot of us are now. It might be the end of the year, but it could be other times. People reflect all year long, don't they?

Michele Mollard:

For sure. I think, yeah, I think you're right. This seems to be the time of the year that people slow down and connect with family and reflect uh in many ways, right? Personally, professionally as well. But uh, it could be done anytime, right? I always I always I joke around people who say, Well, I'll start my exercise routine on Monday. And when they don't hit Monday, they just like, well, I'll start next Monday. I'm like, what makes Monday a magical day? Right. So I say the same thing about this is if you are in this mode and you are listening to this in July, don't wait till December of whatever year you're in uh to be able to start this. Start now. That would be my first little bit of advice is don't wait till Mondays.

Richard Piet:

What happens, have you noticed, when people do reach this point? July, December, whatever it is, where they start to uh reflect on what's gone on or hasn't gone on, or there's a a little bit of weight, extra weight maybe on someone's shoulders when that happens. Take us there. What does this mean?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, and if Richard, if you'll allow a little bit of leeway, I'd like to kind of take us there in two different pictures, right? In a big picture and then in a minute picture, because reflections not only are just big, uh hairy, audacious uh kind of look forwards, but it's also reflection can be very minute and those corrections could be there. So I think about this as just relating it to a trip, right? So I'm gonna take a trip. I'm starting here in Michigan. I'm in Michigan, folks. I'm starting in Michigan and I'm going to San Francisco. And so from a big picture standpoint, this long-term thinking is I could say to myself, I want to see all these things along my journey. And if I just get in the car and drive, the next thing I know, literally, next thing I know, obviously two, three, four days later, five days later, depending on how you do this, you could be in for San Francisco looking back and saying, I didn't see the arches in St. Louis, I didn't see the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, I didn't see the Badlands, I didn't see, I didn't do, because you didn't plan that route well enough ahead of time. And so you will still get to San Francisco. I want everybody to hear me. You will still get there. But what is that journey look like along the way? Is it a surprise? Or and it's wonderful if you want a surprise. Road trips are easier uh than your business. That's a little bit tougher. Um, to say I want to be at 10 million and I'm not sure how to get there and I'm not gonna map it, I'm just gonna let it go. I don't think you get there, personally, that's my professional opinion, um, as opposed to mapping that. So that's the big picture.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, I'm ready for the little picture now.

Michele Mollard:

You're ready for the little picture. Okay. So on that journey, right? And so if we say, and now let's just plan the movie that the long term, we did map it. We did want to go to those three places and then ultimately hand in San Francisco. The short term is when we got in the car, we long term, right? Looked at our rear view mirror, we looked at our side view mirrors, everything's aligned. It's great. But if we still took the surface area of those three mirrors and put it to the windshield, they're still smaller, right? And so everyone says, oh, look forward, don't look back. I would say there's still some look back, right? And so think about as we're driving, we don't do get in the car, look at the three mirrors at the beginning, and then when we get in San Francisco, we look at the three mirrors and that's it. Along our journey for four or five days, six, seven days, whatever it is, we have checked our side view mirrors and our rear view mirrors when we're changing lanes, when we are braking evidently very fast and want to know what's going on behind us and what might be coming at us and what we need to avoid. And so again, the ability to reflect on those things and saying, okay, what's happening along this route in minute corrections? Rumble strips are another thing, right? They're not in the car, but oh, I gotta get back, right? It's not a it's not a yeah, it's not a whole jerk right now. Um, we're in the winter months. You'll be sideways and upside down if you do that. It's just a course correction. And so our weekly ones, right, as uh tool-wise from the US world is potentially our scorecards, is our priorities of our rocks for the quarter. Those are small little course corrections that we can make along this way to go to see the arches, to go to the Rocky Mountains. Badlands are kind of going backwards a little bit. So I'm not I I clearly haven't mapped this yet. Um Badlands and then ultimately to San Francisco, right? But just come thinking about that. And so uh sometimes uh people come to me where they haven't set that map. They just say, I want to get to San Francisco and they haven't done the steps in between, or they have done the steps in between, but yet they're not checking their mirrors to see that if it's safe to change this lane or if it's safe to break this hard or what have you. So it's an analogy that hopefully works for people to wrap their head around.

Richard Piet:

Well, and and if they are reflecting at this time and looking back at what the road trip has been like, and they do say, I missed the arch, there's a certain weight that comes with this in uh feeling like you you miss the mark.

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, I think the whole thing is, you know, if you plan it, then you won't miss the mark, right? And so what gets measured gets done. And whatever that is, right? That obviously the map, right? It's a measurement of time, it's a measurement of completion. Um, but what gets measured gets done is really a great um mindset uh to think about as we're doing um the planning for our organization. And so sometimes chaos ensues because we've allowed it. Um, and or the other part of this is we set the map when we leave the house, but we never look at it again. And so looking at, am I on track, am I on Route 70? I don't even know where Route 70 goes in the US. I know 80 goes across, but it doesn't get me to the arches. Um so right, if I'm on this route and I'm just driving and I don't look at that map or don't listen to my GPS or just go, and we're not kind of doing that. And so sometimes we do that is we set a vision for the year and we don't look at it again. And so setting that and looking at it and saying, how do we break this down quarterly and looking at it quarterly? And then your side of your mirror is how do I look at it weekly? Right. Because it is all of those things. So sometimes we just say, here, here's our one-year goal, and maybe think about all the things that need to go into that one-year goal, but we haven't been able to really map that really well and to stay the course because we haven't looked at it often enough to stay the course.

Richard Piet:

So this is the foundation of not hitting our goals, then is we haven't figured out the path entirely.

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, I think it's, you know, we could relate this to anything. There's so many analogies of weight loss, of fitness, right? Uh, and so a couch to marathon, you don't do it overnight, right? It's a potentially, if you're going from the couch, I will say from sort of experience. I didn't I didn't finish it, I didn't continue the the whole course. But like from the couch to a 10K, 5K, it's still all these steps that you need to do it. You don't wake up at the morning of especially a marathon and say, I'm gonna run that, right? I would say even if you're going from a couch to 5K, you potentially didn't run the whole thing. You probably completed it. There's a lot of people that could complete it, but they didn't complete it maybe to the best of their abilities, uh what they thought they would do it in, right? They had a timeline, right? And there's always a score. You would say, Hey, I want to finish this in 13 minutes or I want miles, you know, 13 minute miles, or 17 minute miles, whatever that might be, or eight if you're really good. Those are those measurables, those courses, those things that we make for ourselves. And so I think we've done it sometimes personally, and we don't think about how to do it business-wise, and we get lost.

Richard Piet:

And so these reflections then can be pretty tough. Uh you look back, and not only then do you recognize you didn't get to the destination or you didn't see the other attractions on the way, but you're not sure how to do it, how to change it.

Michele Mollard:

Yeah. Yeah. One thing I want to share is if you are listening to this and you are like at the point, you're like, I did it again, right? I did another year, do something about it, right? And so my thing is you're part of the problem or you're part of the solution. And I said that in every part of life. Uh, and so be part of the solution. And so what next, right? And so I'm completely biased. I have fully aware. I am completely biased to EOS, right? The tools that I would look at are are what's called a vision traction organizer. It's a strategic plan that'll help you get there. Uh, it sets your 10-year target, it sets a three-year target, a one-year target, quarterly rocks, right? Uh, it sets your compass around who you're hiring, right, which is your core values, uh, and trying to get the right people of the organization. And then the other tools that you can just start with uh working on is a scorecard dashboard, KPIs, metrics. We call them scorecards and measurables. Uh, and that'll give you your weekly corrections, your weekly side view mirrors, rear view mirrors, uh, things on that side. And so there's just two tools that would be really good to change, right? To be part of the solution, uh, to be able to be here wherever you are one year from now, look back and be like, I got them. And even if I did it, I was close, right? Like I did a drive-by to the arches. I didn't stop and get out, but I did a drive-by. At least you saw them, like kind of a thing, right? Like um, not always the best, but you were closer than being in the Badlands thinking I want to be at the arches. Right. So you're at least you're a little closer uh in that aspect.

Richard Piet:

That's a a great point. That of course this roadmap helps you reach your end destination, but it also keeps you motivated, focused, informed about all these steps along the way.

Michele Mollard:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And what I love about them is celebrating it along the way, right? So ownership, uh being on a leadership team in the business, uh, having an ownership mentality is hard work. And so there's a great book out there, I did not write it, called The Gap in the Gain. And many owners look at the gap and saying, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. But look at the gain and say, I did. And this is what has come from it. And so, again, part of the problem, part of the solution, we can hash over all the negative. We still got to have a plan and we still miss some things. But what was the good part of that, even though we missed it, right? And so you will not, I will guarantee you, in the course of your, I've owned several companies now in my journey. Uh, you will not hit every goal. You will not hit every milestone, you will not hit all those things. It's all in the comeback. It's all what you learn from it, and then you go, right? And so um, I think those things too are um good to reflect on and to look at and to realize that even though I didn't hit it, you could beat yourself up for a long period of time. I'm just saying don't. There's some gain that has come from you missing it.

Richard Piet:

Right? All right. So before we go, yeah, talk right to folks who are in the middle of their reflections and not feeling the love, whether they missed some of their goals or missed the big goal, whatever the case might be, and they're feeling a little bit unsure of what to do now. You talked about focusing on the gains, not just the gaps. But what else would you tell them right now as they're contemplating how the next steps should be?

Michele Mollard:

Yeah, again, biased. I I'll just tell you flat out, grab what's called the vision traction organizer, two-page strategic plan, and start working on it. Again, part of the problem, part of the solution. Be part of the change that you want to see and go do it. Uh, there's an expression out there, choose your hard, right? There's a the everything is hard to do. So being in San Francisco without seeing everything was hard, right? But being the on the journey to San Francisco doing all the things is hard as well. But the hard that you, I think, would want to choose is the hard that will hit these goals that you want to go, right? I mean, no disrespect of anything, but being rich is hard and getting there, but being not so rich, right, and that's hard, right? And so every part of it, being uh overweight is hard, but being fit is hard, right? And so choose the hard that you want to do. And I know that's really blunt and really a little bit in your face. And for those of you that don't know me, I apologize. But those of you that know me and have been on this podcast, uh I I am a little bit hard at doing it because we're on this mission, we're on this earth for one thing, um, right? And we just we just want to do great stuff. And what does that legacy look for you? Um and this is all about building that legacy. And so my ask is to grab some sort of strategic plan. It doesn't have to be 17 pages, two pages, two-page strategic plan. Get it done, get working on it. Call me if you need me. Uh, Richard will tell you where to find all those things uh for me. Uh I'm on LinkedIn, I'm I'm on email, I'm on uh lots of different uh avenues, Apple Podcasts and Spotify and all those things. But just do something in the right direction that gives you clear direction and grounds you and know that you can hit those roles and hit those opportunities.

Richard Piet:

All right. True enough. Uh you can reach out to Michelle easily by looking at the show notes for this episode. The link is there, and you can ask for the VTO if you want, and uh she'll make sure you get it. But uh, we really do invite you to check out some of these other episodes too, which can help you in your thinking, in your reflections on uh what the year has been like, what the next year could be like. EOS, traction for your workplace goals, Michelle Mollard, and I think of it as 1L2Ls. If you're typing that in, Michelle 1L Mollard 2Ls, it's in order, it's sequential. Uh so just type that in too. You'll find her as well. But the easiest way is through those show notes, and of course, to click the subscribe button where you get podcasts, and you'll get a little alert when we come back around again to chat with you more about EOS. Michelle, thank you until next time. Thank you, Richard.