Note from Phil: What follows is a guest post from Gino Wickman, author of the new book Traction. I hope you enjoy it!
Having personally delivered more than 1,100 full-day sessions and helped more than 100 entrepreneurial leadership teams implement EOS in their companies, I am still surprised to learn that five simple things are still at the core of great management. One of the 20 tools in the EOS Toolbox that we teach all of our clients is something called LMA. This stands for Leadership, Management, and Accountability. Under the category of management, we teach five simple disciplines, and from our most inexperienced managers to our most experienced ones, these come as an “aha” and they create a huge impact for them and their teams.
Before applying the five disciplines, two truths must be in place for this to work:
- Your personality is irrelevant. Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of being a downright tough manager or a softy, you will still be great if you do these five things.
- You must absolutely care about your people.
Assuming those two truths are understood:
- You must have clear expectations. Sounds simple, but does each and every one of your people know exactly what you expect of him or her? Spend as much time as necessary to make sure they are clear.
- You must communicate well. Do you know exactly what your people’s issues, obstacles, and barriers are?
- You must have the right meeting pulse. Are you staying connected and on the same page with all of your people, meeting every week?
- You must do quarterly one-on-ones. Every 90 days, have a conversation out of the office about what’s working and what’s not.
- You must reward and recognize. Give the pat on the back and the kick in the butt within 24 hours, always.
Great management takes time, but I assure you that if you practice these five disciplines, it will take you less time than it does now. To download the leadership and management disciplines, click here.
Gino Wickman is the founder and creator of EOS (The Entrepreneurial Operating System) and author of Traction. He has worked with over 100 companies and delivered over 1,100 full-day sessions with entrepreneurial leadership teams of small to mid-sized companies. His clients grow 18 percent per year on average.
