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All right, y’all. I am back today with another episode about EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. I’ve been doing this series documenting our journey through EOS. So if you haven’t checked out the previous episodes, I would encourage you to do so because they build on one another. [00:01:00] So you might be a little bit lost if you just jumped in today.
Today is the 9th episode in the series, and I’m talking about our first quarterly pulsing meeting with our integrator. This is a session after our initial few meetings. This is our first get-together after we’ve been at it for a few months on our own, and I’m excited to share some of these details with you. Let’s get to it.
All right. This is an interesting time of reflection. It’s been about 2 to 3 months since the last EOS episode, and it feels like a lot has happened since then. So let’s recap the day, [00:02:00] chat about where we’re at, and what happened during this quarterly pulsing.
Just to put this in context, with the EOS system, you do three days right off the bat to get the ball rolling. You do your first day to lay the groundwork and learn some tools. You come back a month later and do two days in a row. And then, you take a break and come back for a quarterly pulsing meeting. So from this point forward, we will be doing one EOS meeting with our integrator every quarter. And this was the first one.
So we showed up. The day was quite structured, like usual. There was always an agenda. First, we reviewed our Rocks. If you don’t remember, Rocks are the key activities or tasks that we decided we needed to get done over the course of the quarter. So we reviewed the Rocks. [00:03:00] We were graded on our progress and I’m happy to say we did very well. We got, I think, 100% of our Rocks completed, which was pretty amazing. Our integrator said that the goal is 80% or 83%. So we did great, which is awesome for a group of high-achieving, essentially lifelong students.
I love this part of EOS. We identified the important goals and then there was always accountability to get them done. This is just another example of more accountability to get our work done. We showed up and we got graded.
Here are some examples of our rocks just to show you what those might look like.
One of mine was to figure out our long-term office space plan. I could go into great detail about this, but the short story is that our lease is supposed to be up in another [00:04:00] month. So at the beginning of this quarter, it was a big priority to figure out long-term office space.
Another priority was to finalize our pay rate rubric and roll it out to everyone.
Another big project was rolling out EOS to all of our staff.
One of my personal Rocks was transitioning the big-picture finances to my integrator or assistant director. This was a big one for me. I’ve long considered financial stuff to be the last holdout of trust for me and getting help in running our practice. So this was big to transition big picture finances and let her into the financial picture of our practice.
Another rock was to clarify “House on Fire” documentation and HIPAA problems within our practice.
That [00:05:00] gives you an idea of what we were working on and what we got done.
So we started with a review of the rocks and got graded on our progress. We then moved to actual IDSing, Identify, Discuss, and Solve or IDSing the existing issues on our list with the help of our integrator. Sorry, not our integrator, our implementer, my fault. I think I called him an integrator earlier as well. That is not true.
The terminology gets a little twisted here in EOS. The integrator is the person in your business who often is the yin to the visionary’s yang. It’s the doer. It’s like the COO to a CEO kind of relationship. So the integrator is the person that works in your practice to help everything run smoothly. The implementer is the EOS staff person who [00:06:00] helps your business implement EOS principles.
So our implementer helped us IDS our existing issues with the continued emphasis on finding solutions rather than just talking about things forever. I love this because our implementer let us know that many businesses struggle with talking too much instead of solving, but psychologists and mental health folks are especially guilty of this.
So I love this. We were able to see him model the IDS process in a way that solves the problems and cuts to the core of the problem rather than talking about it forever. So that was helpful to go through some things on our list and have an external facilitator.
We also identified rocks for the next quarter; those things that [00:07:00] we need to be working on, things we need to prioritize to move the business forward, the most important things. And we set goals for the final quarter revenue and profit for 2022.
Again, this was an interesting process for me to continue to get comfortable talking about the financial picture with my team. This is something that I’ve previously held pretty tight. And the more that I talk through those things, the easier it gets. I’m finding that it’s relieving and it’s nice to have someone else or several others share the burden, so to speak of the financial information.
Let’s take a break to hear from our featured partner.
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All right, let’s get back to the podcast.
All right. So the big issue that we identified today is a term that I’ve used here before and that’s right person, right seat. So we found that in particular, our second-level leaders are settling in, but not without some waves. That became a big discussion point, integrating our second-level leaders, helping them to feel comfortable, and making sure that we have the right people in those seats.
In the EOS system, when I say second-level leaders, I mean, [00:09:00] those on the leadership tier below our main leadership team. Our main leadership team is five people. We go together to the EOS meetings each quarter. Our second-level leaders are the ones who exist below our leadership team. So these will be like site supervisors. It’s our master’s program training coordinator. It’s our group coordinator. It’s our finance person. It’s our testing care coordinator. There are lots of folks on that tier. And so we’re continuing to make sure that we have the right people in the right seats on that tier.
Another big concern that we have had to work toward and solve is our Admin Finance Lead is going out on maternity leave. And so we’ve had to prepare for that and figure out what to do. [00:10:00] So we are having another member of our Admin team who’s been around for a long time is going to step in as an Interim Admin and Finance Lead. She will be attending the L10 meetings and taking over as much as she can.
My apologies. You may hear a sleeping dog in the background.
All in all, I love these days. To have someone else come in and lead the show is really nice. It gives me time to step back and participate in the process rather than having to focus on leading the process. And this is just a rare opportunity for me. Generally speaking, in any meeting within our practice that I’m a part of, I feel like I need to lead it even if I’m not the designated leader. So to show up to an event like this and know that someone else is absolutely the leader and I can sit back and just participate is so nice.
[00:11:00] It reinforces my love for my leadership team. Every meeting, they keep proving that they can hold so much responsibility and information that I have carried myself for years. And it is so meaningful to me. Entrepreneurship and business ownership can be a very lonely experience. Having a leadership team has helped me to feel much less alone and much more supported through this process.And I think that they love it too. They are the right people in the right seats and they’re all just shining in these roles. I think they’re enjoying the responsibility, the action that they can take, the support, the leadership that they’re getting [00:12:00] to do. It’s going well so far.
The next reflection is, not the next reflection, rather the Main reflection, I suppose, from this day is gratitude, appreciation, and optimism around this process. I feel like we are really settling in and getting into a groove though. Although we continue to have some ups and downs and transitions, it is a positive experience.
And so after this day, we set forth and our next meeting is scheduled for December 7th. We’ll come back and have a similar structure, I would guess.
So, this is EOS. Like I said at the beginning, this is meant to be a real-time documentation of our journey through implementing this business framework. [00:13:00] If you want to learn more about it, there are plenty of resources in the show notes. There’s plenty of books and plenty of websites. I’ve even done a podcast episode with my brother-in-law who has implemented EOS in his software business over the last several years. That was great. We talked about the right person, the right seat and values. So check out these resources. It’s a pretty cool system. I recommend it for any group practice owners who are looking for more structure and accountability in their practice.
All right, y’all, that’s all for now.
All right, y’all. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Always grateful to have you here. I hope that you take away some information that you can implement in your practice and your life. Any resources that we mentioned during the episode will be listed in the show notes, so make sure to check those out.
If you like what you hear on the podcast, I would be so grateful if you left [00:14:00] a review on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast.
And if you’re a practice owner or aspiring practice owner, I’d invite you to check out The Testing Psychologist mastermind groups. I have mastermind groups at every stage of practice, development, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. We have homework, we have accountability, we have support, we have resources. These groups are amazing. We do a lot of work and a lot of connecting. If that sounds interesting to you, you can check out the details at thetestingpsychologist.com/consulting. You can sign up for a pre-group phone call and we will chat and figure out if a group could be a good fit for you. Thanks so much.
[00:15:00] The information contained in this podcast and on The Testing Psychologist website are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast or on the website is intended to be a substitute for professional, psychological, psychiatric, or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.Please note that no doctor-patient relationship is formed here. Similarly, no supervisory or consultative relationship is formed between the host or guests of this podcast and listeners of this podcast. If you need the qualified advice of any mental health practitioner or medical provider, please seek one in your area. Similarly, if you need supervision on clinical matters, please find a supervisor with expertise that fits your needs.