The Entrepreneurial Operating System

Five must-have leadership disciplines for 2024 and beyond

When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, many businesses were partially closed for operations due to mandatory shutdown orders across the country. I was fortunate to land an opportunity to work as a remote human resources manager for Madden Elevator Co., a successful independently owned elevator company located in Louisville, Kentucky. Madden Elevator had been in business for more than 10 years when I joined the company. During my initial onboarding process, Madden Elevator President Sean Madden kept saying phrases like, “K.I.S.S.” (Keep it Short and Simple), “delegate to elevate” and “I.D.S.” (Identify, Discuss and Solve). It was clear to me that Madden Elevator had a distinct way of doing business, and Sean Madden believed in adopting a disciplined approach to leading the company. For a quick second, I thought I had made a huge mistake and accidentally joined a cult movement. But then I began to realize Sean was describing several of the leadership disciplines that all leaders need to practice if they want to become effective leaders. Several years earlier, the company implemented a formal business operating system called the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Within the EOS are five leadership abilities that all leaders need to master to increase efficiency and successfully lead their organizations. These five disciplines are your ability to:

Simplify

I’ll admit, this is one area where I continue to struggle. My natural tendency is to over communicate — bombard the audience with words, pictures, diagrams, flow charts and anything I can fit into a PowerPoint slide. According to a recent study by PumbleTM, a workplace collaboration platform, 86% of employees and executives cite a lack of effective collaboration and communication as the main causes of workplace failures.  Practice keeping your communications short and simple, and you will see better results. 

Delegate and Elevate

Often, in a smaller organization the business owner is performing all the essential job functions to keep the business running. As the business grows, it is essential for the business leader to delegate tasks, rather than doing them themselves. According to the EOS, if it takes 120% of your available work time to do a job well, you must delegate and elevate the extra 20% to someone else. By delegating tasks, you are also providing your employees with the opportunity to learn new workplace skills that will allow you to elevate them to more challenging roles within the company.  

Predict

Strong leaders need to have the ability to anticipate short- and long-term challenges. Per the EOS, short-term predicting is the ability to identify and solve issues on a daily and weekly basis. Long-term predicting is the ability to predict and plan 90 days and beyond. By addressing short-term issues earlier, there will be less of a chance of issues piling up and imploding. Identify issues, discuss them and solve them (IDS). This allows the company to allocate the necessary resources to address the business challenges effectively.

Systemize

In today’s highly challenging business environment where you must do more with less, it is critical to have a defined process for how to conduct your business. Per EOS, to systemize is to document, simplify and get everyone following the six to 10 core processes that make up the way you do business. Document the 20% of the processes that gets you 80% of the results. Along the way, eliminate redundant tasks and incorporate a checklist to help keep everyone working under the same core processes. Train everyone in the organization to follow the core processes to ensure consistency.  

Structure

Organizational charts have been around for a very long time.  This is because an organizational chart helps establish the structure within an organization. Leaders need to be able to create the necessary structure to place “the right people in the right seats.” To do this effectively, leaders need to rise above the business — to see the big picture. From a big-picture perspective, begin to identify who should be accountable for what, and then put the strongest players in those seats. This is the way to get the organization to the next level. 

As 2024 kicks off, I encourage all leaders to work on mastering the five leadership disciplines presented in this article.  Simply, Delegate and Elevate, Predict, Systemize and Structure. Mastering and practicing these five disciplines will make you a stronger leader and improve your company’s bottom line.