About six years ago, I stumbled upon EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. If you’re part of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), you’re bound to hear about EOS—not just because of the similar names, confusingly so, but because EO is a peer group of entrepreneurs, and we can’t shut up about what works for us (myself very much included).
Two years ago, my company, CoderPush, then two years old, was growing fast. I wanted to apply EOS now that we had managers in place. We dove into it, using tools like the Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO), Core Values and Focus, setting Rocks, and holding Level 10 Meetings. However, after a year, I decided to pause our use of EOS, giving our management team the freedom to try different structures.
Now, I’m bringing EOS back, this time with a renewed commitment to make it work.
Why I Left EOS
When we first started with EOS, we were enthusiastic but a bit hasty. We set out to create a Vision/Traction Organizer, and I took on the bulk of the work, building out our 10-year target, 3-year picture, and 1-year plan. I thought I was saving time, but in reality, I was rushing through a process that needed more careful consideration. If we had worked with an EOS Implementer—requiring a big financial investment, of course—they would have ensured we took the necessary time to align our company vision, strategy, and structure.
We also implemented EOS during a period of rapid growth. Our challenges were constantly evolving, and while the 90-minute weekly leadership meetings were engaging at first, we gradually lost steam. With projects piling up, we felt that cutting the meetings to 60 minutes made them more productive. My advice? Don’t apply EOS if your company is still growing fast or making frequent structural changes.
Another reason we stepped away was that the typical pain points EOS addresses—like blaming, avoidance of responsibility, or internal politics—didn’t seem to apply to us. At least, I didn’t feel so. I feel grateful for the kind and supportive coworkers I have on a daily basis. Our challenges felt different, less about internal dysfunction and more about keeping pace with our growth.
Finally, when we migrated away from a smart documentation system called Coda, which we had used to implement EOS, I didn’t feel the need to rebuild EOS in our simpler new knowledge base system, Outline. After we stopped the structured 90-minute meetings, we eventually drifted away from EOS altogether.
Despite these challenges, there were elements of EOS that did work for us: the Issues list, L10 meetings, and Rocks were particularly effective. However, the Scorecard, Process, Smart Rocks, and 1-year plan didn’t deliver the results we hoped for.
Why I Returned to EOS
After stepping away from EOS, I waited until we felt stuck before considering a return. This year, it became clear that we had hit a ceiling. We weren’t achieving the numbers we set out in our 1-year plan, and our ambitious 3-year picture started to look unachievable. To be clear, I’m not a slow-growth enthusiast; I am in the camp of “10x is easier than 2x,” as Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy explained in their book. But I wanted to refocus on building a solid foundation before scaling up.
I picked up the EOS’s second book, Get a Grip, a business fable about a company applying Traction. The story resonated with me in a way that it hadn’t before. I could see our team in the narrative—stuck, unsure of the next steps, but with potential just waiting to be unlocked.
This time, I’m determined to roll out EOS as a Self Implementer but with a more measured, step-by-step approach.
First, I’m focusing on creating a realistic 1-year plan. With four years in the industry under our belt, I now better understand our monthly revenue growth and net profit. Coming from a SaaS tech product background, I had been too idealistic in the past. Now, I’m grounded in the realities of our business.
Second, I’ve reintroduced the accountability chart, but with a better understanding of the differences between an organizational chart based on people versus one based on seats. I brainstormed with other managers, temporarily placing them in and removing them from seats on the chart, then stepping back to think about what the right seats should be. This time, structure comes first, and people second.
Third, I realized that I can’t implement EOS without first ensuring my managers have spent time on the relevant resources. I expect them to read either Traction or Get a Grip, depending on their learning style—though reading both would be best. Aligning on the same book, such as Five Dysfunctions of a Team, helped us in the past, and we had a productive leadership offsite based on the exercises in it. This time, I’ll extract the relevant chapters to focus on implementing EOS.
I don’t want to be known as that boss who just cites books and expects everyone to follow blindly. At the same time, I don’t want to be the kind of leader who dismisses frameworks that have been battle-tested by others. The key is to learn the framework well and apply it thoughtfully—knowing when to generalize, when to internalize, and when to individualize.
For our upcoming leadership retreat, I’ll follow the EOS Quarterly Meeting agenda for our leadership team and document this EOS journey as we go.
Looking Forward
Revisiting EOS has given me a renewed sense of purpose and clarity. This time, we’re not rushing the process. We’re building a solid foundation, one step at a time. I’m committed to sticking with implementing a framework well through the challenges that may come. What’s more difficult, perhaps, is inviting other members to stick with it with me as we let more issues smoke out in order to solve them.