One of the transformations that happens to companies when they implement EOS® is that they create a leadership team that trusts each other. Often, before EOS, company leaders spend lots of time in unnecessary meetings updating each other on commitments they have made to each other or on the progress of the functional group they lead for the company.
For example, it’s pretty common for the sales leader to keep the rest of the leadership informed about the revenue forecast, but often it becomes more than a scorecard or dashboard. It devolves into an elaborate dance where the sales leader is forced to dissect each opportunity and be bombarded with questions from non-sales executives about what to do. Less commonly, the same kind of thing takes place with the engineering or development group – project by project explanations, percentage complete being debated, scope statements being examined. Why? Lack of trust.
Companies that implement EOS journey from this purgatory to the paradise of complete trust. When the engineering lead says she will deliver the next release on time, everybody believes her. They believe her because she has demonstrated in the past that if she can’t deliver it on time, she will say so and ask for help. These companies get to the point that when one of their leadership team peers says, “I’ve got it,” they believe it. They trust that it will be done.
Are you in stuck in purgatory, or are you traveling towards paradise?