Our leadership team is highly ambitious and we keep setting twenty to thirty Rocks each quarter because everything feels like a priority. How do we build the discipline to restrict ourselves to the vital few without stalling our growth?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If everything is a priority, nothing is. Setting twenty to thirty Rocks is a guarantee of mediocrity and burnout. It results in a team that makes one inch of progress in thirty directions rather than miles of progress in three.

To break this habit, you must enforce the EOS® rule of less is more. Limit your company Rocks to three to five absolute priorities per quarter, and limit each individual leader to three to five Rocks. This forces you to make painful trade-offs during your quarterly planning sessions.

When a leader proposes a Rock, the team must ask: does this directly move us closer to our one-year plan, and is it truly vital for this quarter? If the answer is no, it belongs on your long-term issues list or must be deferred.

Remember that Rocks are in addition to your day-to-day job, not a replacement for it. If you overload your team, they will drop the ball on daily operations. True operational discipline means saying no to good ideas so you have the focus and energy to execute the great ones.