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

by Gino Wickman

We’re going to whittle this down to a more manageable list with a process of elimination I call ‘Keep, Kill, and Combine.’

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

consensus management does not work. It’ll put you out of business faster than anything else. What does work is giving everyone the chance to express his or her opinion. If the team can’t agree, the integrator makes the final call.”

Alan walked the team through his illustration of a typical sales process, identifying “number of new clients” as a trailing indicator and earlier steps in the process as leading indicators.

Is this a number the leadership team wants to see every week? • Does the number make sense weekly? • Can we gather this data each week?

mastering five leadership abilities: simplify, delegate, predict, systemize, and structure.

leaders who work beyond their capacity can only endure for about six months before they burn out, leave, or begin consistently underperforming.

not having enough time is a serious issue that should be added to the Issues List, not ignored or accepted as the way things are destined to work forever.

He reminded them that a To-Do is a seven-day action item and urged the leaders to stop signing up for To-Dos that couldn’t possibly be done in seven days.

“When Eileen asks you to prioritize the issues,” Alan replied, “be ready to suggest at least one issue as the top priority.

whatever the reason for your preference, be quick and vocal when Eileen asks for priorities. And Eileen, when the team is stuck, be ready to make the call and prioritize the top three issues on your own. After all, if it’s taking you five minutes, that’s one more issue you could solve each week!”

When someone just wants to discuss an issue, make sure the team first identifies the root cause. That will help you discuss and solve the right thing. When you don’t identify the root cause, you end up discussing one or more symptoms or stuck in an endless dialogue about everything. Once you’ve identified the real issue, keep the discussion focused and free from politicking. Help the team conclude by making a decision and agreeing to a plan of action. Remember, when the team is divided and everyone’s been heard, you have to make the call. Once you solve the issue, make sure that whatever the conclusion, it’s crystal clear and fully supported by everyone in the room.”

“Aspirational Core Values,” Alan summarized, “are characteristics that sound great but don’t define the culture that exists in your organization today.

If it’s not true of the company today, you can’t use it to hold people accountable tomorrow. It’ll be a joke.

Permission-to-play Core Values are traits essential to this organization. You will never hire someone without these traits, and you’ll ask people to leave the organization when you learn they don’t possess them. But these Core Values don’t define what’s unique about your culture. Every company requires them; they’re table stakes.

Honesty and professionalism are two Core Values that might be described as permission-to-play values.

Accidental Core Values are characteristics that may have gotten you to where you are today but won’t be required of everyone in the company forever. An example of an accidental Core Value is something like entrepreneurial spirit.

ask them to imagine their company in ten years—maybe when they have 250 people. There are 12 people in the accounting department alone. Is it still going to be important for each of them to possess an entrepreneurial spirit? If the answer is no, we have to kill it. It’s not a timeless, essential guiding principle.”

three-strike rule. You sit down with that person for the first of three meetings and explain exactly why he or she doesn’t fit your culture, doesn’t GWC his or her seat, or both. Provide specific examples of what’s not working, and set a deadline for correcting those problems—say, thirty or sixty days. If the person hasn’t risen above the bar by then, it’s the second strike, and it means a second meeting and a written warning with another deadline. Strike three means termination.”

“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!”

Eileen followed the same pattern with the next two Core Values, defining them, illustrating them, and finally providing three examples. Even when Carol’s ratings were pluses, Eileen gave examples and provided positive feedback. That helped Carol understand that Core Values could work in her favor, and it also helped pave the way for the tougher conversation to come.

“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.”

“When you’re over capacity,” Alan continued, “step two is listing everything you do during a typical week on a blank legal pad. Record everything you do and how much time it takes. Step three is putting everything you do into one of four quadrants on this simple diagram.”

“The upper left quadrant is for the stuff you love to do and are great at. The stuff you like to do and are good at goes into the upper right. Everything you don’t like to do but are good at goes in the lower left quadrant. Most entrepreneurial leaders spend lots of time in this quadrant. You’ve trained or forced yourself to do things that the business requires because, frankly, there’s nobody else here to do them. The lower right-hand quadrant is where you put stuff you don’t like to do and aren’t very good at. Lots of people could do those things better than you, and some of them are already employed at Swan Services and earning far less per hour than you. If you’re trying to delegate twenty hours worth of work each week, delegate it from the lower two quadrants. If there’s nobody on your Accountability Chart who will love to do and be great at that stuff, you occasionally need to create a new seat.

when everybody spends most of each week doing work they love and are great at, they’ll have more energy, be more effective, and get more done. And the company will make more money.

When they own Rocks that involve other people, they call the meetings, kick the butts, and get the important stuff done. And the more people you’re relying on to get your Rock done, the more you have to factor in lost time when you’re making a plan to complete your Rock. You have to think three steps ahead and plan for delays, because busy people aren’t always going to be available when you need them. If you plan for that, people can occasionally let you down and you’ll still complete your Rocks.”

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.”

“Start using these core values in the hiring process. Once you think you’ve identified a right person for a right seat, give the core values speech with real passion so that person knows what he’s about to get himself into. 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.”

‘all Core Processes documented, simplified and followed by all’—FBA for short.

term issues,’ right?” “Exactly,” replied Alan. “Long-term issues belong on your V/TO. Those are things you don’t need or want to tackle until your next Quarterly Session, at the earliest. We’ll put them on the V/TO because we don’t want to get bogged down worrying about them until we’re back together on June 24. Short-term issues go on your Level 10 Meeting agenda. These are issues you want or need to solve during the quarter. They’re smaller, more pressing obstacles or opportunities that you feel must be addressed before late June.

“Does anyone have a number-two priority?” Alan asked. “Somebody just take a shot over the bow—this shouldn’t ever take more than thirty seconds.”

“Step one in the Three-Step Process Documenter is simply getting you all on the same page with what your handful of Core Processes are and with what they’re called. Step two is documenting each process at a high level. In one to ten pages—ideally closer to one—you simply identify the major steps in the process. This approach documents the 20 percent that gets you 80 percent of the results. We describe the major steps in some detail with a couple of bullet points. This becomes more of a high-level training guide than a detailed SOP manual.

Once your Core Processes are documented, step three is compiling them and placing them in a manual or on a shared drive.

“You have to understand and agree on the big picture before you start documenting a bunch of processes and procedures. The good news is we can get that done right now.”

every business has an HR process, a marketing process, a sales process, and one or more operating processes for how you build your products, deliver your services, and take care of your customers. Every company has an accounting process, and many have a customer retention process for how they measure and maintain customer happiness. Those are the kind of big, high-level processes we’re looking for here.

many of the suggestions were actually major steps in a higher-level Core Process. Not surprisingly, much of the debate centered on the sales-ops handoff and the number and specificity of the operations processes.

“The first next step is cleaning up your Issues List. We have to decide where each of these remaining issues belongs. So as I read down this list, I’d like you to say one of two things: ‘V/TO’ means it’s a long-term issue that you don’t want to deal with until your next Quarterly Session in September, at the earliest. ‘Level 10’ means it’s a short-term issue you want or need to resolve this quarter.”

ran through next steps for the team, assigning clear ownership and deadlines for all the work. He recapped the To-Dos from the day and asked Eileen to update the V/TO and create the new Rock Sheet.

‘State of the Company’ message. It’s a simple, powerful way to communicate clearly with your entire organization on a quarterly basis. If you want your vision to be shared by all, it’s essential. Plus, you have to say it seven times to be heard for the first time. After each Quarterly Session, assemble the troops and use the V/TO and other tools to briefly explain where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. Look at the past, and take a few minutes to celebrate recent successes. Let ’em know how you did on your Rocks. Share the V/TO with them, and explain next quarter’s Rocks. If there were any changes to the Accountability Chart, share that, too.”

When you get close and are down to a couple of top candidates, consider grabbing dinner with each of them or doing something social to get to know the real person.

“it’s vital that you use the Core Values speech when hiring. The second discipline is conducting quarterly State of the Company meetings. The third is to incorporate the People Analyzer into Swan’s performance review process. The fourth step I’d recommend is something you can implement right away.

Make a point of catching at least one person each week exhibiting a Core Value. Tap that person on the shoulder immediately, and use the Core Values speech to recognize him or her. If you can do it in front of a large crowd, that’s even better.”

Annual Planning on the board: “Day one is all about staying at a high level,” he explained. “Building team health, challenging yourselves and getting 100 percent on the same page with your vision at thirty thousand feet, and smoking out issues. Day two is completely different—that’s when we bring your vision down to the ground, craft a clear plan for next year to achieve it, and resolve all your key issues.”

“Day one is all about staying at a high level,” he continued. “Our first objective is to increase team health. That means that whatever degree of team health you walked in with today, it needs to be some degree higher by the time you walk out of here this evening.

The second objective is that you leave here crystal clear on Swan Services’ vision. When the dust settles at the end of day one, we need you all 100 percent on the same page with where the company is going.

The third objective is to build and get clear on your Issues List. Today we’re going to smoke out issues; we’re not going to solve anything. Day two will feel completely different. That’s when we dig into the nitty-gritty, do our planning for next year, set Rocks for Q1, and solve...

“When we review your V/TO at an annual,” he explained, “nothing is sacred. In other words, we’re going to go through each section of the V/TO and challenge everything. We have to make sure every section is right. Today we’re going to go all the way through the vision side of the document, creating a brand-new 3-Year Picture for the organization. We’ll throw out the old picture and make a new one because you’re smarter, better, and stronger as a team than you were nine months ago when we first created it.”