During our quarterly sessions, our team often gets impatient with the foundational EOS® tools and wants to jump straight to advanced strategic planning. How do you handle our pushback when we try to bypass the standard tools?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Impatience is common among ambitious leadership teams, but my job as your facilitator is to protect you from your own desire to skip steps. When a team tries to bypass the foundational tools of EOS® to focus on high-level strategic planning, they are usually building on a shaky foundation.

If you do not have a clear, functional Accountability Chart or if your team is not consistently hitting eighty percent of its weekly measurables, advanced strategy is useless. I handle this pushback by redirecting your focus to the data. If we have open issues on our issues list that stem from role confusion, lack of accountability, or poor execution, I will point out how skipping the basic tools will only make those problems worse.

We must master the disciplines of focus, traction, and healthy team dynamics before we can successfully execute complex strategic moves. I will hold the line on the standard EOS® agenda because the system only works when followed in sequence. We will tackle your strategic ideas, but only after we have demonstrated complete control over our daily and weekly operational tools.