What is Traction EOS ™?
Outlined in the book Traction: Get A Grip On Your Business, Wickman’s system does exactly what it says on the tin. It eliminates confusion, builds clarity and gets everyone within your company working smoothly towards a common set of goals.
Built for simplicity, the Traction EOS ™ approach is focused on six elements, or the Six Key Components, as Wickman calls them. These are:
1. Vision: Just as every person must stand for something, so too must every successful business. A vision is your values and guiding principles; everything your company culture is shaped around and won’t negotiate on.
2. People: No company thrives without good people who can power it forward. The second stage of Traction is about hiring well and putting the right people in the right roles.
3. Data: Nobody can predict the future, but trends can be identified and possible issues anticipated. Stage 3 focuses on gathering measurable performance data about your company so you can take its temperature at regular intervals and understand where things are going well and where intervention is needed.
4. Issues: Done right, the data stage is likely to throw up regular issues. This isn’t something to be afraid of; it’s a sign the process is working. Success is built on acknowledging these problems, tackling them head on and learning from them.
5. Process: It’s not enough to simply ‘have’ a process. It must be documented, understood and bought into by all, and implemented smoothly. Without these things, clarity simply can’t exist.
6. Traction: The end goal is built around accountability. Teams and individuals set goals and are held to account at weekly meetings to ensure they see them through.
Why is Traction EOS ™ important?
This is just the briefest of insights into Traction EOS ™, but it gives you a glimpse of what makes the system tick.
We practice the process because we believe its importance is self-evident and have seen it succeed time and time again, but it can be surprisingly difficult for many companies. Hiring processes go wrong. Managers struggle to communicate with staff. Commitments and crises get in the way. And suddenly what once seemed so simple starts feeling unsurmountable.
Ultimately, though, this is why structure like Traction is so important. As stage 5 of the approach say: process matters. By having the Six Key Components in place, you always have a basecamp to return to and a reminder of what you need to do and why you need to do it, even when times get tough and the pressure builds.
Clarity! It might not seem much, but it really can be the difference between a business succeeding and a business failing.
Find out how Creating Dynamic helped one company thrive through Traction and get in touch to discover how we can do the same for you.
