You’re not an Entrepreneur if you have the time and money to do whatever you want.

After completing the Core Values exercise for your organization (learn how on pages 34-45 of Traction) you can make them come alive with a Core Values Speech (see examples on pages 39-44 of Traction) and also with your company’s Core Values Book. This book captures stories from employees, customers and vendors about how your company’s values resonate with them. Let them tell a story about how one or more of your values supported a fellow employee or how it gave a customer a reason to return.

As I began to read this book, I was reminded of a book co-authored by Chip and Dan Heath in which they explain why a few ideas "stick" but most don't. It can also be said about business initiatives in that some have "traction" but most don't. That is Gino Wickman's core thesis. As he explains, most entrepreneurs experience one or (probably) more of five common frustrations: lack of control, underperforming workers, insufficient (if any) profits, limited growth potential, and dysfunctional operations. In a phrase, they can't "get a grip" on their business. What they need is what Wickman characterizes as a "holistic, self-sustaining system that addresses the six aspects of a business": Vision, People, Data, Issues, Process, and Traction. What he offers is the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) that, if "mastered" (i.e. installed and then maintained properly), will enable business leaders to integrate the six components of their business "into a powerful framework that will help [them] gain traction and realize the vision [they've] always had for [their] company."

Are you having quarterly conversations with all of your direct reports? One of the most powerful things you can do is to stay on the same page with your people and help to make little course corrections along the way. Above and beyond your regular weekly meetings, day-to-day interactions and annual performance reviews, I recommend you follow this practice.

Traction, is a fantastic resource for business owners (one person businesses and up) who want to understand the PROCESS side of their business. The tag line for the book is "get a grip on your business", which is exactly what this book is written to help you do. Guiding you through a process to think through the stages of HOW a business works and apply that to your own business. Like many business books, you are thinking about the parts of your business: vision, marketing, plans, obstacles, etc. But the difference in this book, is thinking about these concepts from a SYSTEMS approach. This is invaluable and the glue that binds many concepts together. Many business owners have many of the ingredients of their business (vision, mission, goals, etc.) but struggle to know how to implement all the elements in a system that is sustainable. The traction concepts help to put it all together in a process that supports the owner to stay focused, clear and positioned to move forward.