(EOS Episode 32) The Fundamentals of an EOS Rollout

Certified EOS Implementer Michele Mollard lays out what it really takes to roll out EOS across a whole organization, starting with the human side of change and ending with the discipline to keep it alive. Learn how honest communication, active listening, and visible leadership energy turn fear of the unknown into momentum and traction.

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

Transcript

Why EOS Must Spread Companywide

Richard Piet 0:01

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals. Michele Mollard is a certified EOS implementer. There are a number of these episodes. If you're seeing or hearing this one, look for more. Subscribe, follow, whatever the word is, and you'll get a little alert when these episodes come available. Today's discussion is one I would imagine folks are curious about. The fundamentals of an EOS rollout. Michele, welcome back.

Michele Mollard 0:35

Thank you, Richard. Thank you for having me.

Richard Piet 0:37

This is probably what people want to know, right? They ask you, well, how does this start? What, you know, what happens when we start doing this?

Michele Mollard 0:46

Yeah, that's exactly it. It's it's um, I think it's uh when people think about EOS, sometimes they talk about, oh, I'll just do this for the leadership team. Uh, but EOS is never meant, has never been meant to sit with just the leadership team and the skills and the attributes and the technology and the tools to stay there. It is meant to migrate uh all the way through the organization, all the way to part-time, third shift, every part of the organization. Uh, and so I just wanted to talk about it uh a little bit um from a high level, just rolling out anything uh and then rolling out EOS, if that works for your uh brain power, Richard, if that works.

Richard Piet 1:23

I'm following you so far, at least.

Change Management That Actually Works

Michele Mollard 1:26

Let's do this. Okay. I I love it, I love it, I love it. So I just want to talk about rollout of anything, right? So change management, right? A little bit of a buzzword around this world, change management, um, and a little bit of uh practicality that needs to happen with that. Uh, it is all about managing change, right? It's a fancy word of just doing it backwards. Uh and so when you are trying to implement anything new, even a new payroll system, a new 401k system, a new uh person, right? It all talks about change management. And I just wanted to talk about really th three things, right? It's all about communication, it's all about listening, which is a form of communication, but it's all about listening, and it's all about space, giving them enough space. So communication and how we're delivering it and what we're saying, listening is a major factor of being able to receive feedback and then ultimately giving everybody the space they need to absorb it. And so sometimes for many early adopting people, they can whap and they're gonna get it right away, and they're just gonna grab hold and they're gonna run. Uh, I'm not an early adopter uh and also a high fact finder. So it takes me a little bit more time to hear it, potentially even research it on my own, and then engage with it or roll it out or right, engage with it.

Richard Piet 2:46

Mm-hmm. Yeah. First of all, the word change has a little bit of uh scary charge to it, doesn't it? People say, oh man, this is uh a little scary when we have to do things differently. And uh what's at the root of that? We're afraid that we're we're just not gonna know what to do or it's gonna disrupt. Isn't that what what's in there? You gotta work through that.

Michele Mollard 3:11

For sure. You have to work there through that. And uh, I would say, I'm somewhere in my 50s, and I would say that every time for me and for everybody else that I have coached or led or what have you, it's the fear of the unknown. And so that's why communication is key. Listening is key so they can ask questions and the space to be able to formulate what they want to ask and being able to do that, right? And so it's just they don't know, you know, let's talk about work. They don't know if they still have a job. Like that's where people's brains go. Like when you go and do this, especially with the EOS, it's like, am I getting fired? What's this new system? Are they bringing in AI, right? I mean, who knows when people are listening to this in the in the course of the next century? Uh but right, it's all these things. And so the more we can settle in with them, the more we can uh explain the why behind why we're doing it, what's in it for them, good, bad, ugly, right? All of those things, that is what it to for me, what it really takes to be able to roll something out or manage change really, really well, is making sure that they understand that.

Richard Piet 4:14

And that's one of the first things you're doing in this is helping them get through that uh, I guess I'll call it scary part in the beginning, and then it maybe peel back some of that emotion and start looking at it practically. Is that fair?

Michele Mollard 4:31

For sure. And so I'll just we'll flip over to a little bit of you know, kind of generic talk of change management and then EOS rollout. Uh and I'll go through these uh for some people that don't know EOS as well, but there's five major foundational tools that we talk about initially to roll them out. And so I'll just keep talking about five foundational tools. I'll share with them. The biggest thing what I'm finding from it is people are saying, hey, Michele, we're gonna we're gonna do EOS. It's an operating system, it's how the human energy or the human people operate within our business. Uh and so when we are rolling this out, we don't want to share with them that we recognize things were broken, bent. And I'm like, oh, they already know. Right. And so we're afraid to say to the employees, warts and all, to say, this is why we did it. We we have not been making a great profit. Let's be honest. Uh, we feel like we haven't been listening to our staff well. We feel like everything's a little chaotic. I feel like the business is running me. Uh, and all your employees know all of that. They may not know how to label it, they may not know exactly what to do. They sure the heck don't know how to fix it, or if they even think it's in their realm to fix it. And so when we roll this out, EOS specifically or anything, share all the warts, share the why, share what you're recognizing were the problems in order to say, hey, now we're fixing it. We're here, we're vulnerable, we're humans. Here's all the transparency, and kind of hit it with them, right? They already know.

Richard Piet 6:02

Is it typical for management or owners to do that, be vulnerable, or is it uh a go-to to try to put up a veneer?

Transparency And The Real Why

Michele Mollard 6:14

It'll depend. Uh um, I'll probably get scrutinized for this one. Generationally, it's more and more acceptable to show vulnerability, to show transparency in leaders. Uh, in my mid-50 era, they're more transparent than my parents who are in their 70s. My dad owned a business, uh, 70s and 80s, and that millennials, Z's, alphas, they're all coming with full transparency, right? And so, which is great, right? And so I I think it's a great movement. I think it's a great way that people want to engage, and so they're asking to be included in the why, and therefore they're very vulnerable to understand. Uh, and so a little bit of both, no, I don't think everybody is wired with it, uh, but I do think it is a leadership ability that we need to adopt, uh, not only in change this period.

The Five Foundational EOS Tools

Richard Piet 7:04

All right. So we get through that initial part, yes, and now we're really looking at what the rollout means, what has to happen now?

Michele Mollard 7:14

Yeah, I think um we're talking about EOS, the five foundational tools, right? So the vision traction organizer or a strategic plan. We're talking about scorecards, KPIs, metrics, whatever that might be is number two. We're talking about how we meet on a regular basis, number three. We're talking about priorities, rocks, whatever we want to call them. We call them rocks. Uh, and then our org chart or our what we call an accountability chart. So those are the five tools that we're talking about and recognizing how each person engages with that, right? And so in the accountability chart, what does that mean? And we could be here all day and I don't want to do that. And so there's plenty of other episodes before or coming that we're gonna talk about what that means, but it's basically how they sit and what they're accountable to do. And so we have to make sure they're on the same page, right? It's just basically their job description summarized really, really small. And so as we're rolling out these five foundational tools, look for the early adopters, look for the what I call journey champions. And so, in every, absolutely every organization, even within a team, there are people that will want this, that will see it, that will glom onto it and grab it. And so sometimes we feel like in organizations we have to get the lowest common denominator and work on them. And I'm saying, get your early adopters, get your journey champions that latch onto this and let them do the work, right? So you are here as the leader. They are them, they are, they are part of that team. You are not, you are the leader, right? And so there's a difference. And so if you can get them to wrap each other around and be like, come on, let's just give this a shot. Let's go, let's go, that will carry more weight. So find them, feed into them, have them help lift the change, lift the rollout as we're going through.

Richard Piet 9:09

Uh that's interesting because I have a feeling that some owners, managers might fear that this change, there's that word again, uh, will result in a bunch of resistance. What you just said is there's almost always early adopters who say, let's go, I'm ready.

Find Early Adopters To Lead

Michele Mollard 9:32

Yes. And I think that sometimes we don't know our employees as well as we should know our employees. And so there are some that, you know, are, you know, like I would say those that are doing their job well, those that are asking questions, those that are trying to, even if we're not running on US, those that are trying to improve their teams, they are the ones that will grom on to this kind of change management or EOS rollout very quickly. And so maybe we just don't know, and we should know. So there's a side note, um, that we really should know uh who those are. And sometimes I honestly have had a pre-rollout rollout, meaning I have had a one-to-one conversation with them to say, you're an exceptional employee, you're wired this way, but and then I roll it out to them so that I kind of have a plant in the audience, right? Like you think about the some comedians have a plant in the audience so they laugh at the joke, and then everybody goes, Oh, if he thinks that's funny, I'll laugh because I think that's great. You kind of have already a plant in the audience, right? As you're rolling this out uh to the rest of the staff.

Richard Piet 10:35

All right. So we have the five pillars, and we're getting through the notion of change. We've got early adopters, maybe we're starting to feel a little bit of the momentum now. What's next in the process?

Leaders Set The Energy

Michele Mollard 10:49

Yeah, for me, I would say it's, you know, now we're having this kind of pre-work that's going on in our brain. It it is going back to the communication, it is going back to listening and how we do that. And so it you you have to bring the energy, right? And so if you're not excited about the changes that this could bring, or you're even having a little nervousness, which is okay, right? Like uh, I hope, I hope this EOS thing works, right? Um, and so we we we may not know that as leaders, but we've got to show a united front. So the entire leadership team that's going on this journey, having the energy, making sure we're doing that. So if we're reading our new core values and we're like, and uh it's integrity, it's hard work, it's right, like they're just not there. And so, I mean, anybody, right, is just like always bringing the energy, always bringing that maybe ever there for they can buy in. And so I always say they're always watching, right? Employees are watching you and they're watching you engage. And if there's a side conversation being like, this is good, but it's not great, forget it, right? Like it's any part of any change that you're not fully bought in, right? It's like it's you know, maybe we have to disagree to commit, but we got to still commit. We got to still go, right? Uh, and so I think that's the next step to this is really, you know, kind of more on that kind of finalizing that the big piece of it is it's it is about communication, but it's about how you communicate, setting them to the why, painting the picture of how they're gonna engage with the tool, how they can affect the tool in a good way, uh, really being able to get feedback from them if they're nervous and things of that sort, then just go with it, right? And just be able to have them engage with it as we go.

Richard Piet 12:28

So Boy, uh, I can appreciate the point you made about the leaders setting the tone for how things go. Because uh sometimes I wonder if we even realize that when we are the leaders, that if we come across like Ferris Bueller's teacher, you know, it it it's not gonna it the enthusiasm's not there, right?

Michele Mollard 12:52

Definitely not there.

Richard Piet 12:53

You've got to set that. Yeah, yeah.

Not Set And Forget

Questions, Contact, And Subscribe

Michele Mollard 12:55

Definitely set that, right? I mean, again, they're watching and they're being able to do that. It's much better as we go through there. And I think too, it, you know, the my last kind of piece on this is it's not set it and forget it. And so sometimes we roll something out, we talk about the change and we are all energized around it, but in six months, kind of like our uh New Year's resolutions, maybe six weeks or six days, it's kind of faded out. And so EOS, EOS roll out the whole piece. It's a lifestyle change, it's a new way of operating our business, and we've got to embrace that. And so it's not just one rollout meaning, it's a continuation of beating the drum of how this is helping. Eventually, they'll see the transformation in you as a leader, the transformation in the company, the PL, all the things that come with uh implementing EOS, less chaos, all that. They'll see it. But until they're uh see it and feel it, uh, we have to continue to beat that drum. We have to continue to have the energy around it and the passion around it.

Richard Piet 13:52

All right. So did that get your wheels turning a little bit? Maybe you started to imagine what an EOS rollout could look like where you are, and we would not fool ourselves in thinking that uh a light went completely on in your mind and you said, Yes, I want to do it. Well, maybe it did. But generally speaking, you're beginning to think about this, I would expect. And Michele is ready to answer the questions that you have about your specific situation and how a rollout might affect that. Contact information in the show notes, so just reach out, and Michele can answer those questions and help you think about it more. Certified EOS implementer Michele Mollard here on EOS Traction for Your Workplace Goals. Subscribe because we have more episodes coming. We'll see you then, Michele.

Michele Mollard 14:49

Thank you very much, Richard.