For many people, the first signs of warm weather represent the beginning of summer. Not for me. In my world, summer only begins in the middle of June, when some scruffy, bruised and battered hockey team in some fortunate city trots the Stanley Cup out to center ice and hands it to their scruffy, bruised and battered captain.
It’s incredibly difficult for any sports team to win multiple championships in close succession. Yet the Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups in the six seasons from 2009-2015.
In an interview after the final game in 2015, Senior VP and Advisor Scotty Bowman (who owns 14 Stanley Cups as a coach or executive) explained the team’s success this way:
“It’s simple. Everybody knows their role. Everybody executes their role. And everyone is accountable for their role. The GM leads and manages, the coach coaches, and the players play. Stan (Bowman–Scotty’s son and the team GM) has no interest in coaching, Joel (then-coach Quenneville) has no interest in managing, and the players work hard for one another.”
While I’m fairly certain the Blackhawks are not an EOS company, it sure sounded that way to me.
When implementing EOS with our clients, one of the first things we do is teach the power of role clarity using a tool called the Accountability Chart. This tool is a powerful way for owners and their leadership teams to achieve absolute clarity about the work that needs to be done in order to achieve desired business results, to organize it in the most effective way, and to make sure everyone knows exactly who is accountable for what.
With this, you have a strong platform upon which you can turn your company into a consistent champion. Without it, confusion reigns supreme. No one is certain who is supposed to do what, energy is directed in unproductive ways, and the organization underperforms.
Bowman gave us a perfect template for success. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are the functions and roles throughout the organization clear and known by all?
- Is every member of the team consistently executing on his or her role? (Note that this season, when the Blackhawks could no longer say this about their coach, they replaced him.)
- Are all of your team members pursuing a common goal and holding each other accountable when work needed to reach that goal isn’t getting done?
Very, very few business owners can answer all three questions with an absolute, unequivocal “yes.” If you can, you’re way ahead of the game.
If you can’t, just let us know. We can show you how.
