Debra Chantry-Taylor: How Much Time Do You Really Have To Do EOS Rocks?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Do fewer things. Do fewer things. Better. Pick three to seven company rocks per quarter. That is it. Otherwise you end up trying to do everything and completing nothing. If everything is important, nothing is important. I always say less is more or even less. But obsess, you'll make more progress doing three rocks properly than 12 half heartedly.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:27

Hello and welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I'm your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor, and I'm passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal life by creating a better business. And today it is just me. There's no guest, because I want to tackle one of the biggest, hairiest frustrations I see in business everywhere, and that is rocks. This episode has been designed on the recommendation of one of my clients, Adrian, who said you should put this into a podcast. So here you are now, if you've been around me for more than five minutes, you've heard me banging on about rocks. I bang on about them all the time, and now I'm not talking about diamonds, although I wouldn't say no to a nice, big, sparkly one. I always enjoy my diamonds. I'm actually talking about the 90 day priorities that are supposed to move your business forward, the ones that take you from firefighting to truly building the future. Here's the problem, most people don't get their rocks done. In fact, I'd go so far as to say most leadership teams set themselves up to fail right from the start. And why is that? Because they confuse rocks with boulders. They take on too many. They underestimate how much time they really have, and then they beat themselves up when Surprise, surprise, the corner ends and those rocks are half done, shoved aside or quietly forgotten about. So today I want to talk to you about why most people overload themselves with rocks, the brutal reality of how much time you actually have for them. How to Spot the difference between a rock, a boulder, and a pebble, the crucial difference between company, department and individual rocks. And finally, how to write rocks that you'll actually complete. And these are our smart rocks. So if you listen to this in your car, on a walk or maybe hiding in the kitchen from your kids, don't worry. I'm not going to get overly academic here. This is plain English, practical, pragmatic and hopefully a bit of fun, because the truth is, rocks one of the most simple concepts in business, but also one of the easiest to completely stuff up. So let us start with the brutal truth about time. Every quarter I sit down with leadership teams and we talk about what they want to achieve in the next 90 days. That's 13 weeks in total. And almost every time I hear a laundry list, 12, 1015, Priorities, priorities, and I have to be the bad guy I look at and say, be honest, are you really going to get all of that done? Or are you writing yourself a fantasy novel? Because here's the thing, most leaders massively overestimate how much time they have to actually work on the business. Let's break it down, and I've actually put a graphic in the notes, show notes, or you can email me and ask for a copy of this. But if you think about it, most of us work five days a week, right? And in fact, we don't want our teams to work more than five days a week. And if you use the Pareto principle, the 8020 Pareto Principle, 80% of those are spent in the business, working on business as usual. That's 80% and that's keeping the doors open, that's keeping the money coming in, that's leading and managing your team, all the firefighting, the solving problems, all that stuff that we do day in, day out, one day being 20% at best is left for working on the business. So 32 hours a week in business as usual, and eight hours a week on rocks. So that sounds doable, right? Except it isn't because of out of that eight hours you've already got your level 10 meeting, maybe a same page meeting, maybe a department level 10 meeting, maybe other project meetings, and so that is usually around about three hours. So now you take your eight hours, your minus your three hours for your meetings, and that's the best case scenario. Now you're down to five hours per week, and five hours. Multiply by the 13 weeks that there is in 90 days, that's 65 hours per quarter. That's it. That's all the time you have to shift your rocks 65 hours. So let me ask you, what can you really get done in 65 hours? Not things like change the entire culture, not launch into three new markets, not build a new division from scratch, not change our CRM system. 6565 hours is enough to complete a defined project, make a specific improvement, move the needle in one critical area. And here's the next kicker. If you don't block that time out in your diary, it'll get swallowed up by business as usual every single time. So think of it like a bank account. You've got 65 hours to spend. If you don't allocate it, the world will spend it for you, staff issues, customer dramas, emails, meetings, poof, it's all just gone. And so that's why I use the graphic you'll see in the show notes. It lays out vision. Lee, 416 hours in BAU versus just 65 hours for rocks. It's a real reality check. So next time you sit down to plan your rocks, remember you're not writing a wish list. You're budgeting your time, and the budget is tight.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:16

And here's where most people go wrong. They write boulders instead of rocks, a rock is a clear, defined, achievable, 90 day priority. A boulder is a vague, massive, unmanageable beast that will crush you. For example, a boulder is launch into a new market. Whereas a rock it's complete customer research with 20 interviews and draft a go to market plan. Can you see the difference, the boulder sounds exciting, but it's impossible in 65 hours, the rock, on the other hand, is focused. It's measurable and it's doable. So too often, teams set these boulders and then wonder why they don't get them done. It's like me deciding I want to get fit, so I declare I'm going to become an Olympic athlete by the end of the quarter. Lovely in theory. Sounds great, totally inspiring, but completely unrealistic. So if you've ever tried to push a boulder, you also know what happens. You strain, you sweat, and the bloody thing doesn't move. That's why I always say less is more or even less. But obsess, you'll make more progress doing three rocks properly than 12 half heartedly. And as for my car lovers like myself, think of it like a pit stop in Formula One, the team gets seconds to make critical adjustments. They don't rebuild the entire car in the pit stop. They do the essentials. They're fast, they're focused, and they're effective. That's what rocks are meant to be. They're your pit stop adjustments every 90 days. Now, let's clear up another area of confusion, company rocks versus Department rocks versus individual rocks. I see the mistake all the time. A leadership team thinks company rocks means lots of individuals from all the different departments are working on the rock. And that is completely wrong. The company rocks are actually the top priorities for the whole business this quarter. It's not about who's doing them, who's involved in them. They're about what matters most. They're the levers that, if moved, will shift the entire business. Then we've got department rocks, which is where we break that down into what each function needs to do support the company goals. So sales, finance, operations, marketing, each has their own piece of the puzzle that feeds into what the company is trying to achieve overall in its one year plan, its three year picture and its 10 year target. And then the individual rocks are the personal commitments that each editor takes on to support both the company and their department. So let me give you an analogy. Imagine a family holiday. The company rock is. We're all going to Italy in July. Adrian can relate to this. The department rocks are, mum books the flights. Dad sorts the accommodation. The kids research the activities, and someone organises a pet sitter. The individual rocks are, each person packs their own suitcase. So for some if a company suddenly declares 10 holidays at once, Italy, Spain, Bali, Australia, New Zealand, well, good luck, because you're going to collapse under the weight you and that's why we say fewer is better. Less is more, less. But obsess so pick three to seven company rocks per quarter. That is it. Otherwise, you end up trying to do everything and completing nothing. If everything is important, nothing is important. And I'm going to share a little story here about myself. I mean, for many I would say, almost two years in my EOS practice, I kept setting myself seven or eight rocks, and there's only myself and two others in the business, in this particular business, and so really they were mostly my rocks to do. And I thought, yeah, but, you know, I think fast. I act fast. I can do better than most other people, and so I would generally have somewhere between six and eight rocks that I had to do. And guess how many I got done? In all reality, I was lucky to get three done, mostly two. There was only really after a couple of years of working through this, I realised that I am just like anybody else. So even when you think about company rocks. Somebody still has to own those company rocks. And if you own those company rocks, because they're part of your department, you've got to make sure they're done. And most people can get two or three, maybe four, if they're not massive boulders. So how do you avoid boulders and confusion? You write smart rocks. So for those of you who haven't come across the SMART acronym, it stands for S for specific, be clear about what exactly you're committing to. M for measurable, define what done actually looks like. And I like to say this is my bottle of champagne moment. So I love to crack open a champagne and celebrate when things are going well. And so when do I know I can crack open the bottle of champagne and celebrate. That's what done actually looks like attainable. Ask, can it realistically be done in that 65 hours you've got in the next 90 days? R is for relevant? Does it tie back to the One Year Plan or the three year picture? Because if you think about it, we take our three year picture, which takes our 10 year target down to the ground. Bound, and then our three year picture gets broken into one year goals, which is our one year plan, and really the rocks are the bite sized chunks that breaks that down even further. So is it relevant to what the company is trying to achieve in its 10 year target, in its three year picture, in its one year plan, in its 90 days, and then time bound achievable in 90 days or sooner. So some rocks you might decide don't need the whole 90 days, but they have to be achievable in the 90 days. So an example of a non smart rock is improve customer service. It sounds good. You kind of think, yeah, that moves the needle. That will actually help us to make the business better. Because remembering these rocks have got to be things that genuinely create a better system or process or efficiency for the greater good of the business long term. So it sounds great improve customer service, but what does that really mean? Does that mean that if I just improve one small, little thing that's improved my customer service, a smarter rock would be implement a new ticketing system, train the team, and reduce response times from 48 to 24 hours by the end of a quarter. And if you think about that, quite specific, smart rocks stop arguments in their tracks. There's no Well, I thought we meant because everyone knows exactly what the rock is, how it will be measured and when it will be done. So stories, pitfalls and practical tips. I've got a story from clients who overloaded with 12 rocks and achieved none, versus the team who did three and smashed them. So I have got one of my own businesses that I sat on as a fractional integrator for a number of months, and in the first quarterly session that we did with the team, they actually came up with it wasn't which wasn't which wasn't 12, it was 11 rocks at 11 rocks. And they said, Yeah, yep, no, we can definitely do it. And I explained to them, nobody gets 11 rocks Number No, no, we can absolutely do this. And when they came back the next quarter, they had actually achieved three. And they were like, haven't we done well? We got three out of five rocks. I said, Five rocks. Now we commit to 11 rocks? Oh, yeah. But we changed our mind, and we changed that. We got three out of five. If we're being truly honest with ourselves, we actually got three out of 11 rocks. That's it. You cannot argue with that. That is exactly what we achieved. And three out of 11 rocks leaves everybody feeling despondent. It leaves everybody thinking they're not doing a great job. Whereas I've got teams who do three and they smash them. And guess how they feel when they come into the quarter? They come in and they're saying, that was an awesome quarter. We've achieved our measurables. We've achieved our three rocks. And it actually helps to build momentum, because now they know it's possible they will continue to do that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:36

Another example is a family business that was trying to fix every family dynamic in one quarter. And as you can imagine, that is absolutely a recipe for tears we can't solve. It's not an overnight fix. It's not like a magic silver bullet. We cannot solve all of these things in one go. And if we try to do everything, like I said, if everything is important, nothing is important. So it's really important that we think about what is the number one thing we can actually do, what is the one thing that is the low hanging fruit that will actually move the needle? And it might just be fixing up a poor relationship between siblings, and that might be one thing that we actually focus on for the quarter. It might be redeveloping our accountability chart and making sure that we have that clearly spelled out and have the right people in the right seats, but trying to fix every single family dynamic in one quarter is never going to happen. So if you think back to my car analogy, your rocks are not about putting in a new engine every 90 days. It's about fine tuning the engine so it runs better each lap. It's that pit stop for our car. Practical Tips. These are the things that I know to work if you want to get your rocks done, you have absolutely got to make time to work on them. They will not get done by magic. And so you must put your rock time into your diary. And if you're talking about that five hours per week, best case scenario, you've got to think about this, am I going to do one hour every day for five days? Am I going to do a full day pretty much working just on that rock? Am I going to do a couple of half days really think about what you need, and is it that you need a big chunk of time so you can really focus on this? Or are you happy to break it into smaller pieces and then put that time in your diary? Block it out. Do not allow people to make meetings with you. Ensure that you actually stick to that. And in my experience, putting a little bit more time in than you actually need is a good idea, because idea, because that way, if something does come up and we all have firefighting to do, at least, you can actually then pull some time back from that, break your rocks down into milestones. I'll often do this in a client session, or I'll give it for homework. Within the first 48 hours, this is the only way you're going to keep people on track, because in that 90 days, what's going to happen is the team will get distracted with other things. And even though you're checking in into the weekly level 10 meeting and asking, is the rock on track or off track? You know, people are saying to me, yes, it's on track. Yes, it's on track. Yes, it's on track. The milestones are a sanity check. They are probably five to sort of seven key things that must be done in. 13 days, including the final milestone, which is when it is actually done. Now, what you're doing when you're checking in every single week is you're going, Are we on track or off track? And somebody says, on track, and you're able to have a quick look at sanity check and go, Is this really on track? Have we achieved two out of the, you know, seven milestones, even we're already five weeks into the 13 weeks. And it's not about calling people out, you know, EOS is not about pointing the finger and taking blame, but it's about making it easier for the person who's doing the rocks too, so they can actually say, hey, look, if I have to report on this, am I on track or off track? Looking at these milestones that I have to do in the next 13 weeks, I've got seven of them. Can I be honest with myself? Am I truly on track, or am I still actually running behind? Which brings it to the weekly level, 10 meetings. Yeah, the weekly meetings are the chance to really hold people accountable for doing those rocks. It's to stop the procrastination curve, if you're anything like me, when I was at university, you know, whenever there was an assignment due in I would leave it to the last minute. I'd wait until 3am the night before to suddenly start putting this thing together. It would always get put in on time, and I'm fortunate to say, pretty good student. I always got A's, so it was pretty easy for me, but if I didn't have that deadline, I wouldn't do it. And that is procrastination. That is a common trait in entrepreneurs, particularly when you've got things like ADHD and there's lots of other distracting things around. And so if you use those weekly meetings, what you're doing is you're shortening that procrastination model. You're basically saying, hey every we're going to check in and see where things are actually at. And because I know I'm coming to that level 10 meeting, I'm going to make sure that I've actually done something towards actually achieving that. So use those weekly meetings to hold people accountable, but also give it you know, don't point the finger if you feel like it's not on track. Don't say, I don't think you're on track. Why not just say, hey, look, I don't feel like I'm across that rock. Would you mind dropping it down to the issues list for me so we can just have a bit of a catch up to see where things are at. This will stop people from wanting to tell you all about their rocks when they're actually on track, but it gives you a chance. If you feel like you're not quite across it, they can give you an update, and hopefully, with the luck, you'll see that they actually are on track. The next practical tip is be ruthless about saying no to extra rocks. As a visionary who works with visionaries, there is a tendency to want to add things to the 90 days. I know what we're doing really well. So let's add this thing over here. I've just been to this amazing conference. We should do this. I've just listened to this amazing podcast. Debra said we should do this. And so the next thing you know, you're trying to throw these extra things in there. And the reality is, if it's not a to do something, you can get on the next seven days. And it's longer than that, it probably is a rock, and if it is a rock, you've already got your rocks for the quarter, you've already agreed on what the most important thing is. So we don't want to add anything more to it. If we keep changing our priorities, then nobody really knows what the priority is. So no rocks get added in a quarter. You can sometimes cancel rocks because you actually realise that it's not the right example or not the right rock. So for example, one of my clients actually had in as one of their rocks was to go and investigate opening a New York office. In fact, I think they should open the New York office because they've done some work on it. And so midway through the quarter, they realised this was not a great rock to have. It wasn't a good use of their time, it wasn't the most important thing in the business, and it wasn't going to move the needle. So they cancelled that rock, and that was fine, but you don't get to add rocks on. I always say you're allowed to add rocks when you've actually ticked off every single rock and done it to 100% complete. Then you can go back to your issues list and look for extra things to do, but not before that. So if you've got three to seven rocks, you've got to have every single one ticked off, 100% done. And when we say is a rock on track and is a rock complete, we're talking about complete means 100% done, not 95% there, not 80% there, not we almost got there. We just didn't quite do this. Last bit a rock is either done or not done. 100% or not at all. The next practical tip is, do not write a rock that relies on something externally to actually complete the rock. So if you need to put an application into Council, for example, to get approval on a building that you're building, there's no point in saying getting approval from the Council for that building, because that's beyond your control. The only thing within your control is getting the application in, completed, ready for Council to approve. A Council might take 12 weeks to approve something like that, so you cannot have something that is external in your rock. Make sure you don't do that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:36

Okay, there's my couple of examples, some few pitfalls there, and a few practical tips. So let's pull this all together. Just remember, you only have 65 hours a quarter for rocks, best case scenario, if you're doing the absolute minimum number of meetings. Now, I would like to say you should only be doing three hours of meetings in a week, but that is part of the EOS model. That's the Eos. Is level 10 meetings. So really, that's what you should be doing. But I know for a fact that most people have other meetings, project meetings, catch up, meetings, one on ones, quarterly conversations. So five hours is best case scenario. You're probably looking at more like three to five hours in a week. So if it can't be done in 65 hours, it's not a rock, it's a boulder. And if it's a boulder. We've got to smash the hell out of it, break it down into small, bite sized pieces, that we can actually do in 90 days. Company rocks are about importance, not ownership. It doesn't matter if, if all departments are involved in it, or one department is involved in it, if it is of a level of importance for the company, as in, if the company doesn't do this, it has a major impact on the company that is a company rock, and then department and individual rocks follow after that, with the same rule that most humans can only do two or three rocks in a quarter. Remember my story from before, so you got to look at this and go, Hey, if I've already got two company rocks, because I'm sales and marketing, and two of the company rocks this quarter are around sales and marketing, I'm probably not going to be committing to any more departmental or individual rocks, but if I've got no company rocks, and of course, I've got some time where I can actually work on a department rock or an individual rock, but they have to feed into the overall company rocks. And what we're trying to achieve, or I shouldn't say, the company rocks, but the overall goals for the company is it actually moving the needle towards our one year plan, our three year picture, and ultimate 10 year target. And smart rocks are the only way to guarantee clarity and completion. If you haven't got that level of detail that actually talks about what specifically done looks like, whether or not it's actually achievable. Really nailing that smart part of the rock, you're going to have a problem, because you'll come back together, probably after your Eos session, after your quarterly and go, I don't know what that rock actually was. Or you'll get to the end of the 90 days and you'll go, I don't know what we were supposed to have done. Have we done it? Maybe, don't know. And then finally, less is more or less. But obsess. We want three to seven well defined rocks that will truly transform your business, not boulders, not bigger than Ben Hur and certainly not business as usual, because business as usual, as we know, is covered in our scorecard. Our scorecard keeps us on track for the business as usual. That said, One last quick tip. You may want to look at your rocks when you finish your quarterly and say, Is there anything in here that we need to add to our scorecard that will actually help us. So if you've got a rock about decreasing the customer service time, probably gonna need to have customer service in your school card to measure it. If you've got a rock to actually put your your core processes and document them, simplify them, happy with following them, then you might want to look at each of those individual processes and go, What are the two to three things I can take from that, that I can put into our scorecard to ensure we're actually following that process. So that's me talking at you for quite some time there. I really hope that has been helpful. I do have a challenge for you. So my challenge is to look at your current rocks. Be really honest. Are they really rocks, or are they boulders in disguise, or are they business as usual? So do fewer things? Do fewer things better. One of my favourite sayings being half German is wenegger aber besser. That means less but better. Protect your rock time. Book it out in your calendar. Make sure you have that time to focus on your rocks. Write smart rocks. We want to break open that champagne and have a glass and celebrate when we actually achieve those rocks. And if you do this, and you do it well, you can watch your business shift quarter by quarter, and that's a wrap on today's solo episode of Better Business, better life. Thanks for listening and remember vision without traction is hallucination. Have fun out there you.