I was recently with the leadership team of a proud company that had a big challenge. They had been experiencing declining sales and profitability. The senior leadership team understood the gravity of their situation, but they couldn’t get the mid-level managers and the frontline employees to see a need to change day-to-day habits.

Like many companies, the culture of the organization had become stale. The employees had a lackadaisical, “So what?” kind of attitude: “So what if this order is not shipped on time? So what if the customer complains?”

Did you know that the most important part of your annual planning session isn't planning? If you're like many companies, your leadership team skips the most critical component of your annual planning. And it negatively impacts your team's creativity and goal setting for the coming year.

Business leaders of entrepreneurial companies are so hard-charging, so busy, and so overwhelmed, that they tend to see only the gaps ahead of them. These are the goals, ideals, and accomplishments they haven't reached yet. When you're feeling overworked from the previous year and start looking at all the gaps you have yet to cover, it can put you into the wrong frame of mind for moving forward.

Every session with one of our Leadership Teams starts with what we call the “Check In,” which generally consists of several questions that help us transition from working “in” our business to working “on” our business. One question is always, “What are your expectations for today?”

I check in after each member of the Leadership Team is done. And my ongoing expectation is always, “Please be open and honest – just say it.” And this is one of the most difficult behaviors for a Leadership Team to exhibit – for lots of reasons.

The power of EOS^® is that it gives your company a single way of doing business that's simple and proven. Over 40,000 organizations around the world are running on EOS and getting their business under control. By addressing the Six Key Components™ of your business and providing a model for solving your company's issues for good, EOS helps you grow to achieve your vision and goals more effectively.

But some leadership teams that are running on EOS aren't gaining the traction they'd expected to see when they started using the system. As a leadership team, they're getting more done, solving more issues, and working together better than ever. But the business as a whole isn't improving, and the operations side of the company is still out of control. What's going on?

Poor accountability could be the single greatest threat to your company’s future – creating a culture of excuses, confusion, and inefficiencies – ultimately resulting in a poor performance.

According to Gallup, only 30% of employees are “engaged,” 50% are disengaged (just going through the motions) – and an incredible 20% are actively disengaged, or working against you every single day – all of which directly impacts a culture of accountability.