Every quarter we set seven or eight Rocks per person and we consistently only finish about half of them. How do we break this cycle of over-promising and under-delivering on our quarterly priorities?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Failing to complete Rocks is a classic sign of priority dilution. When you set seven or eight Rocks per person, you are setting your team up for failure. In EOS®, we live by the rule that if everything is important, nothing is.

To break this cycle, you must limit your goals. A healthy leadership team should focus on only 3 to 5 company Rocks per quarter, and individual leaders should have no more than 1 to 3 Rocks of their own. This forces you to make hard choices about what actually matters.

Use John Maxwell's framework for prioritization: identify your major goals that require team cooperation and focus solely on those critical objectives. If a priority does not directly move the needle on your 1-Year Plan, it is not a Rock.

Additionally, you must build white space into your weekly calendar. If your leaders are booked solid with back-to-back meetings, they have zero time to execute their Rocks. Protect blocks of unscheduled time to work on these strategic priorities. During your Level 10 Meetings™, track progress weekly using only three statuses: on track, off track, or done. If a Rock is off track, IDS® it immediately to clear the roadblocks before the quarter slips away.