Making Rocks, Not Resolutions

A new year always has that fresh-start feeling. That’s why one of the first things we do in January is to hold our annual planning meeting.??

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We don’t try to fit it around the day-to-day. We don’t plan separately then present back to one another.??

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Like the rest of DCX, we use the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to bring structure, clarity, and focus to our annual plans.??

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We make rocks, not resolutions.??

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From Skeptic to Convert??

When I heard about EOS, I didn’t think we needed it.??

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I was running my previous business, things were going well, and we were already doing quarterly meetings. I thought we were doing enough.??

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Our SVP of Sales, Rory Young , had implemented EOS in another business and shared it with me in the early days of DCX as a way to take things up a level.??

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After reading the book, I was convinced. Rather than playing around with parts of the system, we decided to follow it to a tee. We wanted to get the most out of it.??

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Annual Planning, The EOS Way??

If you’ve heard anything about EOS, it’ll probably be people talking about “rocks” — or quarterly goals for those not familiar with EOS.??

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The annual planning process is a level above this and is based around a “Vision Traction Organizer” (VTO).??

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What makes this approach stand out for me is the focus on the longer-term vision, putting this year in context.??

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EOS gives us a structure to ask the bigger questions: What’s the ten-year vision? Are we still talking to the same audience? Do our processes still work for us???

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More Than a Plan?

The result goes far beyond an annual plan that just looks at the year ahead. It’s a complete reset.??

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We’ll revisit our values. We’ll reset our three-year vision.??

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Only then do we work out how we’re going to take a step towards that vision this year, breaking that plan down by quarters.??

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Investing in Annual Planning??

Tackling big questions properly takes time.??

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That’s why we set aside a couple of days for the leadership team at the start of the new year where we step away from our emails and just focus on planning.??

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When we were starting out, we planned the meetings ourselves. But it’s time intensive and we wanted to fully embrace the EOS method to get the benefits, so we now use an EOS Implementer to facilitate the session.??

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A Constant Point of Reference?

It doesn’t end with the meeting. Team leads then hold their own quarterly planning meetings, cascading down the direction and what it means for that team.??

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As a leadership team, we meet on a monthly basis to go over the VTO that we developed and see how things are shaping up.??

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Every quarter, each person in the company sits down to plan their rocks, referring back to that annual plan and three-year vision.??

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It gives us an instant way to check that what we’re working on will contribute to the wider business goals. If not, it’s not a priority.??

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Starting from the Same Place??

Following this method means our leadership team are talking the same language. We’re aligned on where we’re headed and how we’re going to get there.??

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That clarity trickles down. When people know what’s expected of them and how the work they do makes a difference, they’re engaged. They’re ready to perform. They’re invested in making that plan a reality.?

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I can’t think of a better way to kick off a new year.??

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See you in two days!?