Get A Grip: An Entrepreneurial Fable . . . Your Journey to Get Real, Get Simple, and Get Results

by Gino Wickman

The third Key Component is Data. To be 100 percent strong in the Data Component you need two things: Scorecards and measurables for everyone in the organization.”

“When you’re strong in the Vision, People, and Data Components,” he said, “you have a transparent organization. All of your challenges become crystal clear. There’s no place to hide, and you start to smoke out the real issues.

“The ‘I’ stands for ‘identify,’” Alan explained, “the ‘D’ stands for ‘discuss,’ and the ‘S’ stands for ‘solve.’ This stems from our discovery that when tackling issues, even talented leadership teams spend most of their time discussing. They rarely identify anything and almost never solve anything.”

“My clients define Rocks as the three to seven most important things they have to get done in the next ninety days. When your business is running on this system, every person in the organization will have at least one Rock each quarter.

Setting and achieving Rocks each quarter creates a ninety-day world for everyone in your organization. You come together, see how you did last quarter, recheck the vision, and then set new priorities for the next ninety days. This keeps everyone laser focused. Everyone owns a piece of the vision and is working together to achieve it. We come up for air every ninety days and repeat that same pulse forever.

A rule of thumb with the Accountability Chart is to think about the next six to twelve months. What major functions do you need to take your company where you want it to go? You have to get the structure right before we work on getting the right people in the right seats. Always think structure first and people second; that’s the only way to get it right.”

“When someone ‘gets it,’ their brain is innately hardwired in a way that matches the demands of the five roles in their seat,” Alan explained. “When someone ‘wants it,’ they genuinely spring out of bed every day—wanting to excel in their roles. And when someone has the ‘capacity to do it,’ they have acquired the intellectual and emotional maturity, education, training, and on-the-job experience to consistently perform well in the seat.

“The sun,” Alan explained, “showers the earth with billions of kilowatts of energy every day. Because all that energy is diffused by the earth’s atmosphere, the worst thing that happens is that you get a little sunburn. On the other hand, a laser beam uses just a few kilowatts of energy. Because that energy is tightly focused in a single direction, it can cut through steel. That is the power of focus.

“In most entrepreneurial companies, the urgent is the enemy of the important. Leaders get sucked into the day-to-day, distracted by daily tasks and countless interruptions.

Keep it—meaning someone on the team believed it was one of the top three to seven priorities for the company this quarter • Kill it—meaning it was not a top priority for this quarter • Combine it—meaning it was similar to something else already on the list and could therefore be combined with the other item into a single Rock

Alan then walked the team through IDS. He carefully explained how to begin each week by prioritizing the three most important issues on the list and then jumping right in to IDS for the first one. Next he reminded the team how to identify the root cause of the issue, discuss it briefly (with everyone saying what needs to be said only once, because more than once is politicking), and solve the issue by agreeing on a plan to make it go away forever.

“Whenever you’re dealing with a people issue,” he explained, “whether you’re discussing a problem with one or more Core Values, GWC—really anything—always bring three data points. One example the person can rationalize, two she can wiggle out of, but three is a flat-out epidemic!”

“It’s quite common to have a leadership team seat with no ideal person in the company to fill it. Often a leader has to own two or three seats until the company can fill them with the right person. That’s not ideal, and it’s an issue, but it’s better than having an important seat vacant for an extended period of time.

“Solve your people issues,” Sue said quickly, “or you’ll never have enough time.”

“If the people in your department don’t share the Core Values or don’t GWC the roles in their seat, they’re consuming precious time of yours each week. Keeping them around means you have to do some of their work. You have to deal with mistakes, personality conflicts, and management issues. So when I ask if you have enough time, you’ll never say yes until you permanently resolve those issues.”

Everything falls neatly into one of the four compartments: The first compartment—goals from your 1-Year Plan—is for your twelvemonth priorities. We’ll set these three to seven important long-term goals for the year today. The second compartment is for quarterly Rocks. The third compartment is To-Dos—where you capture and commit to seven-day action items. The fourth compartment is filled with your issues—everything that’s left unresolved. Issues fall into two categories—long-term and short-term. Long-term issues go on your V/TO; they’re big issues that you don’t want to be distracted by right now. We’ll solve as many of those as we can at your next Quarterly. Short-term issues go on your Level 10 Meeting agenda; they’re the issues you must solve or want to solve this quarter.

When you catch an employee doing something worth recognizing, praise him or her in public for exhibiting one or more of the Core Values. If you see someone behaving in a way that doesn’t match your Core Values, counsel him or her privately. When you repeat yourselves often about these rules to play by, your team will respond, and you’ll create an amazing culture.”

Make it clear that people who don’t fit the culture will stick out like a sore thumb. If you do this properly, you’ll usually scare away candidates who can’t consistently exhibit these core values.”

“Remember, the target market is about where we spend our proactive sales and marketing energy.

“If you focus your proactive marketing and sales efforts within this market and you get a lead from outside, win the business if it fits.”