Episode 478 – Unstoppable Leadership: Building Teams That Trust and Deliver with Will Watrous from Unstoppable Mindset

Strong businesses do not become healthy by accident. They are built through trust, clear leadership, accountability, and a willingness to face problems together. Will Watrous joins me to explore what makes leadership teams work and why so many companies struggle even when good people are involved. Will shares how his own entrepreneurial journey led him from marketing into helping leadership teams use the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS, to create greater vision, traction, and team health. We discuss vulnerability-based trust, productive conflict, accountability, business complexity, data-driven decisions, and why leaders must take responsibility for both what works and what does not. Will also explains why simplicity matters as companies grow, how weekly meetings can keep teams focused, and why leaders need quiet thinking time to gain clarity. You will find practical leadership lessons here for building stronger teams, making better decisions, and creating a healthier business.

Highlights:

05:22 How helping one business owner launched Will’s entrepreneurial journey.

11:42 Why strong leadership creates accountability.

15:29 How trust becomes the foundation of healthy teams.

26:20 Why productive conflict leads to better decisions.

40:44 How leaders can reduce complexity as a business grows.

54:04 Why clarity breaks help leaders think and lead better.

About the Guest:

Will Watrous is a business owner, EOS Implementer, and advisor to growth-minded leaders in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow area. He works primarily with founders and leadership teams of companies with 10 to 250 employees who want more clarity, discipline, and traction in their organizations. His work centers on helping leaders simplify complexity, make better decisions, and consistently execute on what matters most.

As a Certified EOS Implementer, Will guides leadership teams through the Entrepreneurial Operating System, focusing on vision, accountability, data, and healthy team dynamics. He is known for being practical, direct, and grounded in real-world business experience. Clients value his ability to ask hard questions, create focus, and turn strategy into clear priorities that actually get done.

Beyond EOS, Will owns and advises multiple businesses, including a marketing company and commercial real estate investments. This firsthand ownership experience shapes how he works with clients. He understands cash flow, hiring decisions, sales challenges, and the pressure leaders face when growth creates complexity. His approach blends structured systems with sound judgment and financial awareness.

Will is deeply interested in finance, long-term wealth building, and disciplined execution, both personally and professionally. He values tools, scorecards, and measurable outcomes, but believes strong businesses are ultimately built by healthy, aligned leaders. His Christian worldview influences how he thinks about stewardship, integrity, and responsibility.

He lives in the Tulsa area with his wife Jenny and their two children, Eli and Ellie. Outside of work, Will enjoys fitness, hiking, travel, learning, and time with his family. He is driven by helping leaders build organizations that are not only successful, but sustainable and well-run for the long term.

Ways to connect with Will**:**

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/willwatrous/

Website:

https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/will-watrous/

About the Host:

Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.

Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT\&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.

https://michaelhingson.com

https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/

https://twitter.com/mhingson

https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/

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Transcription Notes:

Michael Hingson

What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingson, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Well, greetings, everyone, wherever you may be today, I am your host Mike Hingson, and you are listening and/or watching Unstoppable Mindset. Our guest today is Will Watrous, and Will has a I think a lot of interesting things to talk with us about regarding organizations, team building, teamwork, and other such things, and I'm not going to give it away because it's his job to really talk about that, which is a lot more fun. Although I will say that he and I share a like of a particular book on teamwork, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, as we go forward. But anyway, Will, I want to welcome you to Unstoppable Mindset. We're really glad you're here.

Will Watrous

Thank you, Mike. What a pleasure to be on your podcast today.

Michael Hingson

Well, well, I've been looking forward to it for a while, so we're we're glad we're doing it, and we'll we'll take about an hour, and then you can go off to dinner unless you've already had dinner.

Speaker 1

Sounds like a plan.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, Will is in Oklahoma, so I think he's having warmer temperatures today than we are. Anyway, so let's let's go ahead and move forward. Why don't you tell us kind of maybe a little bit about the early will growing up and all that?

Speaker 1

Sure. So I grew up in a little coastal town, Mystic, Connecticut, which is on the shore, northeastern Connecticut.

Michael Hingson

Did you ever have pizza there? I had to ask.

Speaker 1

I did. I did have Mystic Pizza before it was made famous by Julia Roberts' right movie, and that was that was my hometown. Yeah. So the Mystic Drawbridge there, and the old Mystic Village, or the Mystic Seaport. It's a very touristy, but also a great place to grow up. Yeah, on the water, and yeah, the youngest of six kids, five boys, one girl, but don't feel sorry for her because she is probably could still beat me up. She's a strong, strong woman, and yes, pretty, pretty average in in many ways, childhood graduated from high school and went off to college here in Oklahoma. Spent about six years out here going to school, and then went back to the East Coast. This time to Washington D.C. area. I was working in a large nonprofit organization just outside the Beltway, and then wound up going to Boston. Taught at a school in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. And then my wife decided she wanted to go to college out here in Oklahoma, so we moved back out here in around around 2010, and I started a business, and that started my entrepreneurial journey, which was very intensive. Let's say learned a lot, a lot of it the hard way, and really developed an affinity, appreciation for business, for entrepreneurship, for ultimately serving people, which is what most businesses should be designed to do. And through all of that, took some really powerful principles, insights, truths away, and now have the privilege of helping a lot of other business leadership teams run stronger, better, healthier companies.

Michael Hingson

What got you to go to college in Oklahoma? Coming from Mystic,

Speaker 1

well, being the youngest of six, two of my brothers had come to school out here, and so I was following in their footsteps.

Michael Hingson

Where did you go to school?

Speaker 1

So I went to Oral Oral Roberts University. Yep, and I went to a college called Raymo Bible Training College, which is a Christian two-year Christian school out here.

Michael Hingson

And eventually, you came back. And why did your wife want to come? And go to college in Oklahoma, kind of same concepts.

Speaker 1

Yeah, she wanted just so she wanted to go to the Rayma Bible Training College to get a foundation in her faith, and just you know early on in in life wanted to lay that framework, that groundwork, so that she she felt for the rest of her life, and she had met a lot of other graduates from that particular school, which is an amazing school, and they had all just shared how influential, how impactful the school was for them. And mind you, it's not just about head knowledge, you know, not just information. It's about ultimately knowing God better, and so which tends to serve you well in every every area of life. So she was hungry for that. So we decided to move out here. And I, the nature of my work at the time was such that I could work remotely, and so we moved here. And she went to school, graduated, and we stayed and raised a family.

Michael Hingson

So, what what kind of business did you start when you started your business? You said in 2010.

Speaker 1

Yes, in 2010, and so I had been serving in a marketing capacity, doing marketing management for the organization in the D.C. area, and learned a lot simply by doing. Don't have my my college education. My degree is in music performance, actually, so didn't serve me very well as far as marketing is concerned. So I learned a lot by doing, and when I moved out here, I knew someone who had an auto repair shop, and he, through a series of events, had to rename his rebrand his shop completely. the the the I went to his website, I think one day, and it said under construction, and I thought that's weird. I know he has he's been in business, he has a website, so I send him an email, and he emailed me back and said he just asked inquiring is everything going all right? He replied and said I need help right now because we're in the situation where I need to redo everything. So I at the time was not a technician when it came to marketing. I was more of just a manager strategist type. So for whatever reason, I decided that I could build him a website. I just wanted to help, so I didn't charge him anything, and literally went online, and this is many, many years ago. Before there was all of the resources available to us now, and I Googled how do you build a website, and I prayed, and I just went through this very excruciating process of coding and understanding how it all worked. Wound up building him a website, learned a lot along the way about search engine optimization, about digital advertising, and then other you know forms of online advertising. And his he's a great businessman. He does good work, and he has a good reputation. He knows lots of people. His business grew to the degree that he would have some other business owners come to him and say, "Man, what are you doing? Because you you guys are just crushing it. And he's a really gracious guy. He would tell these other business owners, "Well, I have this guy named Will, and sometimes I have to call Will and tell him to tone it down a little bit because I'm too busy. Well, these other business owners demanded my phone number from him because they wanted you know to grow their businesses. So I started getting phone calls from other business owners asking if I would do for them what I was doing for this man, and that started. So I never really woke up one day saying I'd love to start a marketing agency. I just was trying to help someone who needed

Michael Hingson

it,

Speaker 1

and it wound up turning into a business. So then I hired someone, and they started helping me. And then hired some more and grew it and grew it until about four years ago. I stepped away, and there's more to that story as well as as to how I was able to step away. I still own that company passively now. It's a it's a great multi-million-dollar, very profitable, growing company, very healthy company. But now my passion and focus is helping entrepreneurs create businesses that give them what they want from their business that are more aligned, more healthy, and stronger-not just for the business owner and the entrepreneur, but for the whole for the whole company, for everyone involved in that organization.

Michael Hingson

So, you're more involved now in helping people start businesses, or are you still dealing with businesses that exist and you're helping to to kind of improve them?

Speaker 1

Businesses that are already existing. So typically, my my the clients that I work with now are are two to 50 million in annual revenue, 10 to 250 employees. They're growth oriented. They're willing to be open and honest with one another and with themselves, and they're more afraid of the status quo than they are of change. They really are trying to get somewhere, but feel stuck, feel frustrated, feel like the things that have they've been trying to to do to make the business better just aren't gaining traction like they need.

Michael Hingson

Well, how does that differ from what you were doing before?

Speaker 1

Ah, well, so before the marketing agency was really focused on lead generation, increasing their revenue, their sales. Now, what I do is work with leadership teams. I use the EOS model, which is the entrepreneurial operating system, which is a very specific process and set of tools that I teach the leadership team of the organization, so typically that's the three to seven people at the top of the company making the important decisions, and I help them do three things. I call them vision, traction, and healthy. So vision means first getting the leaders 100% on the same page with where is this company going and how do we plan to get there. Traction from the standpoint of helping your leaders to become much more disciplined and accountable, and executing really well to achieve every part of your vision, and then healthy meaning helping the leaders to become a more healthy, functional, cohesive leadership team. Because the truth is that most leaders don't function well as a team, and what I found is, as goes the leaders, so go the rest of the organization. So what we do is we get to the point where everyone in the company is all crystal clear, fully aligned with the vision and plan. They're gaining consistent traction wherever you look in the company, people are executing on that vision together, and they're doing it as a group of people who are who enjoy the work that they do and and enjoy the people that they're around.

Michael Hingson

Okay, what do you think is the problem that leaders and companies most often misdiagnosed in their organizations that create the problems that you have to come in and deal with.

Speaker 1

I would say one of the most common is accountability. It's a it's it's a common hot button frustration of many business leaders, and the misdiagnosis, as you said, is that accountability is actually a byproduct. It is, it's a formula. Actually, the formula is this: L plus M equals A. So the L stands for leadership, plus M stands for management, equals A stands for accountability. So leader accountability is the output, and so rather than trying to make your people be accountable, which you can't really do. What you can do is be a great leader and be a great manager, and the result will be you'll create an environment where accountable people thrive. And so, within EOS, we teach five leadership abilities and five management abilities, or not really ability. They're more like practices, leadership practices, and and management practices. You just do those things well, and and the accountability that you so desire will show up in the organization.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't really understand what accountability is, and and that doesn't help the process, and yeah, you know exactly what I mean, and and that that tends to really make a lot of challenges for people because they they resent rather than recognizing that people who truly understand accountability are are trying to do something to help build the team, help the team work well, and and are looking out for the whole company, but just so many people don't understand that, do they?

Speaker 1

No, and and part of the reason it's interesting. All these EOS tools work together, but another tool that we use a lot is the something we call the accountability chart. The accountability chart is a visual illustration of the structure of the organization, meaning who is responsible for what. So we've got the leadership team, but then every single person in the organization should have a box, a seat on the bus, and within. Box or in that seat, there's five major roles that they really need to own. What I like to say it this way: If the company could speak, why would it say this function exists? Why is this seat in the organization? And many companies have not clearly defined what success looks like for an employee. What are their five major accountabilities or roles within the organization? And so, how can you hold someone accountable to something that's not been clearly communicated from the get go? If they don't really understand what success looks like and what we need them to be doing and focusing and being great at, then it's it's really hard to to hold them accountable.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, and they they just miss it. Well, going back to something I mentioned at the beginning, you and I are both great fans of the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Which which function or dysfunction do you? I can imagine what this might be, but which dysfunction do you most often encounter, and do we find most often with companies and people?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I'll have to start at the bottom of the pyramid because it's right. It's it's it's a it's linear in a way, and and in that one builds upon the other. So the bottom tier of the pyramid is vulnerability based trust. So trust, and that, as Patrick describes it, is being completely open and honest with one another. If you sit down and have a conversation with a peer, you know that they're going to be completely frank. They'll tell you the truth and the whole truth. That, and not only that, you can trust them to have the right motives, the right purpose behind things. It's not political. They're not, you know, kind of positioning themselves and working the politics and dynamic dynamics of the organization. They're really trying to do what's right for everybody involved. So vulnerability-based trust is the first one, and that takes time. That's Patrick defines that as different from the kind of trust that is based on just knowing people in the sense that you can you know what to expect out of them if you're familiar with them. You work with them a lot, so you kind of you can trust that they're going to act a certain way. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about this true, open, and honest approach, being candid with one another, and that comes through some specific exercises. Ultimately, times the more you know about people, about their personal lives, and the more time you spend with them is what ultimately builds trust.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, and it's all about building a trusting relationship that allows for that level of honesty. Because when you truly have it, then you're you're dealing with an environment where when someone says something to you, you know they're not trying to be political. You know they're not trying to undermine you, but they're trying to give you information, and it goes back to accountability and holding maybe you accountable for the things that you said that you were going to do. But it's also about holding the whole company accountable by feeding back to and working with people to get jobs accomplished.

Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely, that's right. And and for that to happen, everyone has to be on the same page. We all must be looking at the same picture of where we're planning to go and agreeing on how we plan to get there.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, and in a sense, even though accountability is at the bottom of the pyramid, it starts hopefully at the top with senior management that sets the tone and starts to create the environment where everyone can learn to trust and work together in a much more positive way.

Speaker 1

That's right. When we when I work with leadership teams, I half jokingly tell them in in our early sessions that they should look around at the company and admire the wonderful things that are happening, the clients and customers that are being served, the employees that are getting their job done. All all of those things are wonderful, and you helped create that wonderful. On the flip side, all of the frustrations, the pain, the things that are broken and not working, you created that too. So you have to take responsibility for all of it, the good and the bad. And so the leadership really does have to. Take responsibility for everything.

Michael Hingson

Why is it that trust is so hard, and trusting relationships are so hard to build, even when when people probably have really wonderful intentions and want to do it? But why is it so hard?

Speaker 1

Ooh, that's a great question.

Michael Hingson

And and I'll and I'll tell you one of the reasons I ask, being a little prejudiced, working with guide dogs. I work with dogs, and I have learned over the years that while dogs may love unconditionally, they don't trust unconditionally. But dogs are more open to trust, and if you really work at building a trusting relationship with a dog, you set the rules. You set which is what they want, you set the ground rules, you set the tone, and if you do it, the relationship that develops is incredible. But that just seems to be something that's really hard for humans to do internally or between human and human.

Speaker 1

You know, I think the answer is in something that you just said, and the word is intentional. Intentionality, I think that most people show up to work focusing on the work, focusing on doing things faster and more efficiently, and the how and the strategy. But they don't focus very much on the health of the team. And Pat Lynchioni talks about that as well. How that most organizations are focused on getting smarter, but not on getting healthier, and he argues that the healthier team will outperform the smarter team every single time.

Michael Hingson

The other part about it is the whole concept of just being open to trust-we we in our in our human world just see so many examples of why not to trust. And I think too many people have just learned, well, we can't trust. We don't dare take the chance. We can't because everybody has their own agendas, and so how can we trust them? Because they're looking out for them. They're not looking out for me, and we teach children this. We teach each other this, and that's so unfortunate because it doesn't need to be that way.

Speaker 1

Yeah, what are they? The wisest serpents, gentle as gentle as doves, is the is the saying. I, I'm not. You're right. There's a lot of people out there, unfortunately, that have ruined it. Let's say the few have ruined it for the many. I think, and the reality is that today you have to be. And now with AI, we don't need to go there. But with AI, you really have to really have to know what's going on because what seems real isn't.

Michael Hingson

Yeah. Do you think that will improve over time?

Speaker 1

What's that?

Michael Hingson

That AI will get better over time, and a lot of things that aren't real today will become more real just because the whole process will improve.

Speaker 1

Will AI improve? Yes, absolutely. Will its results and its helpfulness improve? Absolutely. Will people continue to use that for their own good? You know, for their for their own devices at the expense of other people. Yes, unfortunately.

Michael Hingson

Unfortunately.

Speaker 1

So, what does that make leave? Where does that leave us? I think we have to be all the more wiser to it. You can't. You can't stay ignorant and think that everything's going to be okay.

Michael Hingson

Where do you think AI fits in corporations mostly, or should fit?

Speaker 1

Well, it's it's an incredible tool. It is an incredible tool, and I think it's it's like it's like money. What do you what do you do with it? It's simply a tool. What are you going to do with it? Where does it fit? It depends on what kind of business model, but I see it impacting every business to some degree, we utilize it heavily. I think when I work with leadership teams, I do a lot of facilitation. So we'll we'll sit around this table here. I'm in my session room here, and we have lengthy, deep, meaningful, impactful discussions with one another, and sometimes I even encourage them to use AI to refine an idea or to collaborate over an idea. But I warn my teams that AI has no soul, and what I mean by that is, it's it's information, it's data and information, but the human being there's more to us than just information. It's like the data, the information part of us is like the tip of the iceberg, and but there's a whole mass below the waterline. I believe you have a soul and a spirit, and so the danger I warn teams of is making strategic decisions based on information that comes from AI without really discussing and using their their soul. Sometimes ideas can resonate with a person on a different level. That that AI and just information can't it can't go there. It's not able to go there. So I don't know if that makes sense. But I just warn them: AI has no soul. You need to pay attention to what's going on inside of you as you're discussing ideas and and weigh that into the decision.

Michael Hingson

And I still go back to we're the ones that are and should be the creators, and so it's great to use AI to help a process, but we still need to be the ones to do the real work.

Speaker 1

Yes,

Michael Hingson

and I think too many times I hear about it with with schools and so on. Oh, students are just writing their papers using AI. Well, we need to work on encouraging that not to be the case. The AI can help provide information, as you pointed out, but that's what it is. It's an information source, and it's only one information source, and anyone who is truly looking for information knows full well you don't just rely on one source.

Speaker 1

Right.

Michael Hingson

Even if it's a human, you don't rely on one source.

Speaker 1

That's right. That's right. But it but it is

Michael Hingson

pretty crucial to to work through that. Well, Patrick Lencioni talks a lot about conflict, and he talks about teams that have healthy conflict, and then there are those who quietly just kind of avoid it. What distinguishes, or how do you deal with the two different kinds of teams? Because I know Patrick talks about the fact that conflict is a very useful thing and needs to be respected as part of the process,

Speaker 1

right? So the second layer of the pyramid that he illustrates is healthy conflict or productive conflict, which can only happen if there is a foundation of trust, because without trust, people tend to hold their cards close to the vest. They're not willing to go out on a limb and say something that might be taken the wrong way, because for fear of retribution, or that it could be it could be used against them, or or what have you. And so conflict is may the best idea win. I have wonderful teams. They're healthy teams. They'll fight like cats and dogs over an idea, not over. It's not personal. They're simply fighting for the best idea to win, and so they'll go at it heated conversations because they have strong opinions. At the end of the day, though, what really matters is that everyone has been heard? The point of conflict is to get the options out on the table to see what's possible, to see what's available, and then from those options, pick the best. So, what healthy conflict does is it opens it up for people to share, be willing to get out there, share their opinion, go back and forth, and as I said, everyone gets heard. That's such a critical piece of healthy team is that you're hearing from everyone on the team. They're having that opportunity to share their perspective, and then when all is said and done, the what we call this person the integrator. This is the person who leads the leadership team. They have a decision to make. It's not a democracy. They have heard all of the all of the opinions, and and then they say, "Well, this is what we're going to do. And 99% of the time, reasonable people, even if they disagree with a decision, if they have been heard and know that their opinion is valued, they are willing to commit to a decision that's against what they believe should have happened.

Michael Hingson

Well, so take that to the next level. Let's say that the decision is made, and in a month, it turns out it really wasn't the right decision. Then what?

Speaker 1

Yeah, healthy teams can pivot, and they don't. Excuse me. There's no paralysis by analysis. They're they're able to be flexible and make a quick decision without regrets and move on. You know, in business, most of the decisions that we make are reversible. It's not like we're a brain surgeon and there's someone's on the operating table, and and one slip means drastic results, or it's not a court case, and the judge once they slam the hammer, nothing changes. That's the verdict. In business, most decisions are reversible. Sometimes I see teams or leaders who are hesitant to make a decision, and I encourage them make a decision, commit to it, and start taking steps. We can always iterate. We can make adjustments along the way, but if you don't act, if you don't take one step forward, then you can't steer a parked car, as they say. So, when when your question was if a month later it was a wrong decision, we agree as a team to pivot and move on. And a great healthy team, you know, they'll probably give one another a hard time and laugh about it and poke a bit, but but keep moving toward the goal.

Michael Hingson

But it's all in fun and it's not intended in any way to be personal,

Speaker 1

right?

Michael Hingson

Which is really the key. None of this has to be personal. We're not doing it to one up anyone, and the good teams truly understand that.

Speaker 1

That's right.

Michael Hingson

Do you ever find environments where leaders unintentionally do things where accountability breaks down?

Speaker 1

Yes. One thing that happens specifically with visionary or leaders or founders is something I call end run, which is when they don't follow chain of command. Basically, because of their position in the company, they feel freedom to go to anyone in the company and either make a decision or give them a directive, and the person that they're giving the directive to feels obligated to follow that because it's a senior leader.

Michael Hingson

Yeah,

Speaker 1

and so that really that really damages you know it's chain of command ultimately, but it damages the relationship, damages the health of the team, and the hard thing about it is that visionary leaders and founders are idea people. They are the creators. They're brilliant at coming up with seeing opportunities and coming up with ideas to solve problems and add value, so they have this natural bent to research. They're curious. They'll want to talk to people, employees in the organization, and that's all good. But they do need a healthy boundary and to understand who they should talk to about decisions or influencing employees in the organization.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, I'm curious about something. How do the operations within a business differ from, say, what goes on in the military, where there's an absolute chain of command, and someone along the line, can issue an order to someone, and it's supposed to be obeyed, and so on. But how does military operations differ, or do they from business, or should they from business?

Speaker 1

I yeah, that's a great. I I think there's some strong similarities, and some significant differences. You know, one question, and this was actually oddly enough. This was a military leader. I forgot who it was, but it was a general. He said something he asks his subordinates on a regular basis is, "Tell me something you know I don't want to hear. Tell me something you know I don't want to hear. And his goal there was to truly to create a relationship with his subordinates where they feel comfortable raising their hand, saying we've got an issue, here's a problem, and I think that traditionally in the military that would be resisted. I think the or my my perception anyway is that subordinates would rarely want to say something's wrong. Everything's always okay, you know. Following orders, everything's good. But I respect that that general's practice of of telling his subordinates that, and I I recommend my leaders do it as well because they need to know what's going on. Really, there's this I think a natural desire to impress or to make it look like I'm doing a good job and our department is okay, so they don't bring up real issues. And so the kind might go against your question, but the the common thread there is a willingness to talk about real issues, real problems, to bring them up, solve them together as a team. But first, be willing to identify. And oddly enough, it goes back to the trust piece: to being open and honest. You have to be willing to just call something out. The elephant in the room: several people know that there's something going on. Nobody wants. To say it, just say it. So that that's maybe one similarity.

Michael Hingson

Well, I know that in reality, in the in the military, I at least I've heard this from my military friends. They they do emphasize teamwork and and teaming and so on. But at the same time, they have this reputation where there's an order and you you just obey the order because that's what the general or what someone above you says and it seems like there's a paradox there somewhere.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think in in business, what my observation has been that people do need to know the why. I think in the military that's not required, and maybe same in parenting. Sometimes it's you're on a need to know basis, and you just need to follow the order. Whereas in business, I think it's much more common practice for good leaders to give the context of why this directive matters, so that the people can connect the dots and have a clearer picture of the overall success of the mission, as it were, the goal of the organization. They can see how what they're doing is contributing to that over goal. Overall goal.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, yeah. Well, and in the military, maybe the privates don't necessarily get the get to know the why,

Speaker 1

right?

Michael Hingson

But but the hope is that there are enough people above them who are involved in a process that there is enough of an understanding that that enough people know the why that that the process works, and I guess that's a. I've not ever been in the military, and I'm certainly not going to criticize, but it just seems to me that that the more people can communicate and interact with each other, the stronger the team will be, no matter whether it's business or military.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I would hope.

Michael Hingson

So you know, but so EOS generally represent talks about clarity and execution. Where do leaders typically in organizations lose traction after they set a clear vision? Where do where do things break down.

Speaker 1

You know, I think one of the most powerful ideas within EOS is the weekly meeting. So there is something we call the Level 10 meeting, and the name Level 10 comes from when we started working with companies and 1000s and 1000s of companies. One of the questions we would, one of our first questions in meeting them would be: rate the quality of your meetings on a scale of one to 1010, being best. How effective are your internal team meetings? And on average, they were about a four. And so over time, we developed the level 10 meeting agenda, which is a very specific agenda for leadership teams on a weekly basis to conduct that covers makes those those meetings so effective and efficient. And we keep talking about Patrick Lencioni. He wrote another book called Death by Meetings, which is a great great book as well. But so within EOS, the level 10 meeting is a very clear agenda. It gets everyone on the same page. Data passes quickly and smoothly across the right channels to the right people. We solve problems together, and it's just a wonderful, wonderful way to keep the business moving forward. So your question was, what happens after they set a clear vision? Well, very often they lose traction because they're not on a weekly basis measuring their progress toward that goal and vision, and solving problems on a weekly basis that show up that get in the way because there will always be things that prevent us, that resist us from our goals. So, are we methodically? And this is a discipline. This is it's it's not you know glamorous. It doesn't always feel good. But if you can stick with that weekly cadence, then every single week you're you're measuring what matters, the KPIs? It's a score. You know, one of the items on the agenda is the weekly scorecard, five to 15 numbers give us an instant pulse on the business. Reviewing the data, solving problems, and marching forward. So that's where it gets lost, because also in that meeting, everyone is staying on the same page, and there's that accountability. You're looking across the table, say, asking about this initiative or this project. Is it on track? Yes or no? Are we confident we're going to get it completed on time? Do you need any help? Every single week, the leaders. Showing up to that meeting and asking those questions of one another, and they know, hey, on Tuesday at 2o'clock, I'm going to have to answer this question: Is this goal on track for the quarter? And so that introduces this accountability within the team, where the peer-it's peer-to-peer accountability. They're holding one another accountable for the goals of the organization,

Michael Hingson

yeah, I talked with a person recently on one of our podcast episodes. She runs a a boutique PR organization, and it has been growing, but she's not letting it grow too fast. But it has continued to grow, and and I've asked her, and I asked her how how long do you expect or how much do you want the company to grow, and can it grow too large where it becomes unmanageable? And she acknowledged that that kind of thing can happen, and and it it kind of is an interesting concept because most entrepreneurs want their companies to be successful and grow, but when you get multi-million-dollar or larger companies and you're hiring 50, 100, 200, 500 employees, that kind of ranges raises a lot of different complications, and it gets really overly complex. At what point does all the complexity really become too dangerous to deal with?

Speaker 1

So the complexity model is where you you can calculate how complex business gets by every person you add to the organization. My point is complexity is real, and as a leadership team or as a leader, you have to constantly fight the onslaught of complexity. You have to fight for keep it simple, less is more. Keep it simple, less is more. So, if you had two people in an organization, you've got two lines of communication, one going from one to the other and back. If you add a third person, so you increase the number of people by 50% Now there are six lines of communication, so 200% increase in complexity, and that's just communication. Not talking about systems, processes, culture, all of that other stuff. You add a fourth person, so you increase the number of people by 100% from the two. Now you have a A 500% increase, 12 lines of communication.

Speaker 2

Yeah,

Speaker 1

so you have to, as a leader, fight against complexity, and the way that you do that is by less is more, keep it simple. Within EOS, we set three to seven rocks. We call them every quarter. Those are just business priorities, not 27, three to seven. Because if everything is important, nothing is important. So you're always asking yourself as a leader, what's the simplest way to say this, communicate this? What's the simplest way to do this? Do we have the simplest possible structure for the organization. Occam's razor says that the simplest solution is invariably the best solution, or the best solution is invariably the simplest solution. So the the complexity thing is real. You have to stay aware of it, and and fight against it by keeping things simple as you go.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, and and the reality is, it goes back to what you were talking about. Certainly, the weekly meetings and other methods that you use to make sure that everyone not only is encouraged to communicate, but they do communicate. And again, it all gets back to that bottom level of the pyramid, which is accountability, and as long as everyone understands and feels the concept of accountability, and that we're all working toward the same thing, you have a much better shot at making it successful and making it work.

Speaker 1

Right, that's right. Within EOS, we have a two-page strategic plan, not 50 pages. It's not this giant document. It's two pages that allow everyone within the organization to see who we are, where we're going, how we plan to get there. It's simple.

Michael Hingson

Yeah. So, for a while, you didn't own your own business, and then you you now own your own business. How is becoming your own entrepreneur and your own your own business owner, boss, or whatever you want to call it? How has that changed? Kind of the advice you give to other people, and and what do you think about being? A business owner, as opposed to working within another organization,

Speaker 1

you know, I I think I I'm spoiled. No, I don't think I could ever be a good employee again. Yeah, I just have a deep appreciation for visionaries, for people who see what's possible and then rally a team around them to help make it become a reality. That's a special. That's a special quality, and the world needs lots of that quality. So I, I, I have gained just a greater appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit, and I, I think that it's it's now it's not for everybody, and that's okay. But I, I just can connect now more deeply than I ever could with people who are taking that step of faith, being courageous, doing something that's risky and uncomfortable, and just figuring it out as they go. I think that's for me particularly that resonates. I can't now, and I get it. I I understand. There's the majority of people are comfortable with a oops are are comfortable with a salary, a steady amount of income, and the safety that that brings. But I just it doesn't compute for me. I can't do it. It's just not for me what life is about.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, I know. Especially since 2008, I've not only owned my own company, but it's been mainly me and dealing with lining up speaking engagements and so on, and especially since we moved down here in in 26 2014, I'm I'm very used to being my own individual, and and I I hear exactly what you're saying. I can work in an environment where there are other people, and there's there's times that that's that's a good thing, but I know that especially during COVID, people complained a lot about being locked down and they really missed being with other people, and I always had a little bit of a problem with that because I don't I don't look at other people, so that's one thing, but I learned that I could still communicate with people, and so I I didn't fall into some of those traps. I just do find it interesting, but I understand what you're saying. You're used to to to being the person not only in charge, but you're interested in setting the vision, and there's a lot of merit to that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, and and he it takes all of us. If he had all visionaries and no doers, no you know no executors, then we'd be in a mess. I'm terribly sorry. The it's later here in the evening, and the cleaners are are at the door. Let me just tell them to wait 10. Give me 10 minutes on the office here. I'll be back in just a moment. Okay.

Michael Hingson

So, yeah, I I appreciate the the position, and I can live with it as as well, and I can I can cope. I can work either way, but I I do like kind of really being the person in charge of me, I think it it probably works better. Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1

Yep, we're all wired differently.

Michael Hingson

Yeah, we are. So, in in making decisions, data is is a very important thing, and and it's certainly something that we need to keep around. Why do so many people resist and business leaders resist using data in a kind of an honest way? What are they afraid of?

Speaker 1

Well, I think that data is can make things black and white. I think that data can be very telling because we can share opinions and feelings and ideas, but you can't. The numbers are the numbers; they they are what they are, which is why we use this weekly scorecard in that level 10 meeting I was talking about. But Ronald Reagan said, "Trust but verify. So the idea here is that people don't respect what you expect; they respect what you inspect, and the data is an inspection of what actually happened, what's real, what's what's going on on the ground, and that that's uncomfortable. The numbers don't lie most of the time. Now they can be manipulated, and people can tell stories. But if you're set up in the scorecard the right way with the right. Measuring the right things, it gives you a good idea of what's really going on. So I think it's just a natural resistance, a fear of being falling short, a fear of punishment. Ultimately, you know, in some form or fashion, hardship, difficulty, uncomfortability, things like that.

Michael Hingson

But I think the the other thing I show about data, though, is it is kind of hard factual information, as you say. But it doesn't necessarily always bring the human element into to to things that maybe ought to be considered as well. So that the data should only be part of the final decision-making process.

Speaker 1

It's very true. Very true. If you're looking at the numbers, there's always a story behind the numbers. What's the story behind the numbers? And that has to be part of the equation.

Michael Hingson

As a as a speaker, I get a lot of people who say, "Well, we'll consider you fill out this form, and will evaluate you along with everyone else. And the problem is, I've realized that a lot of these forms, you fill them out, and you get a bunch of words on a screen, but doesn't really tell the whole story. And that's unfortunate because I think that too many evaluators are missing out on really understanding speakers when that happens.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I believe that's true. Yes, absolutely. Hearing someone in person can't compare to just words on a page.

Michael Hingson

Well, so yeah, it's just one of those things that one has to deal with when a team experiences a setback. What is it that causes some people to recover quickly while others don't necessarily recover quickly?

Speaker 1

Why don't some people recover more quickly?

Michael Hingson

Or teams, yeah.

Speaker 1

Or teams. I think I don't know that I can separate teams from people.

Michael Hingson

Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1

You know, and I say that because it has to do with self awareness. It has to do with personal development. I think many of these qualities are inseparable from the performance of the team, because a team is ultimately a group of individuals, and so in that way you've got the team dynamic. But you're you're also going to rely heavily on the character and the qualities of the individuals on the team. And if some people just can't let go, if they can't just raise their eyes or turn their gaze from the past and look forward, then, then they're going to struggle. Now, there are tools. You know, who is it? An autopsy without blame. He called it in good to great. In good to great, he said. This is where. What was his name now? Jim. I forget his name. Who wrote Good to Great, Jim Collins?

Michael Hingson

Collins. He said

Speaker 1

he called it on autopsy without blame, which is a team or person's ability to look back at the past and just understand. Okay, what happened? This isn't this isn't to point fingers. We just need to know what actually went down, so that we can learn from it. Because I tell teams this all the time, the past is only good for one thing-learning from it. And once you learn from it, you got to let go and move on. So the and and it's funny, I say this again every every meeting that I have with them. Actually, we review our data and we look back, we understand what. And then I said at the end of that review, I say, "Okay, that's the past. Nothing else we can do about it. Anything else need to be said before we leave it completely in the past and move forward? And I give them that opportunity to process and to you know make observations, insights, confessions. But after that moment, we got to let it go, and I think that a team has to be committed to be willing to do that for them to be able to to move forward.

Michael Hingson

Yeah. Well, a lot of what you do is I suspect helping leaders, especially shift their mindset in some way. What mindset shift really helps leaders move from reacting to problems to leading intentionally and developing the kinds of of operations that we're talking about here as being successful?

Speaker 1

I think you know you said mindset shift, but this is what I would call a mindset best practice. It's something I call a clarity break. A clarity break is a time scheduled on your calendar. So this is hard landscape. This is a an appointment you make with yourself that you keep, and in a clarity break, you get away from all the noise. You turn all the notifications off. You. On do not disturb mode, and you get a legal pad and a pen, and you simply think it. You think about the biz, think about the business, think about the biggest challenge you're facing, and you just start writing. And it's amazing what kind of solutions, ideas, next actions come to us when we have that clarity of mind. When we have time to get gain perspective, to take a step out of the fray, all of the noise, and just simply think. There's fewer things more valuable than high quality, pure thought, just simple thinking time. So that that is a mindset best practice, I would say, and and I encourage leaders to do it at a minimum of once a week, 3060, 90 minutes. Get a legal pad. Now, there's another book out there called The The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. That's lessons from the the chairman of the board, and he that book is a book full of questions that leaders should be asking themselves about the business. You could use those as prompts, or just again get quiet and think about the business right now. And I promise you, you'll start writing, and the thoughts will just flow, and you'll write the whole time and come up with such clarity and such perspective that allows you to re reengage, reenter the business with confidence as to what needs to happen, what are our next steps, and that's so important because that confidence is a precious commodity for leaders. You have to protect your confidence, and the confidence comes from clarity, and the clarity comes from taking time away from the business to simply sit and think.

Michael Hingson

One of the things that I think all too often we individually and collectively don't do is to just stop and think about life, think about things, do more internal introspection, and that's kind of what you're talking about. And the reality is, if we would do more of that, and if we would listen to our own mind, we would discover so many things that would help us along the way. My favorite example is Trivial Pursuit, where I ask people regularly when you're playing Trivial Pursuit, and somebody asks, and somebody reads a question from a card. Immediately, you think of an answer, but you went, "Oh, that came too quickly. That can't be it. And so you think again and come up with another answer. But that first answer invariably was the right answer. But that's not what we listen to. We're teaching ourselves not to be so introspective and to sit back or to sit down and think about whatever it is that we need to think about, and as you point out, writing things down.

Speaker 1

Yes, so valuable and and hard to do, frankly, in our age of distraction. Our phone is so distracting, and so so many other options, so many other things that hit the dopamine, get the dopamine flowing, that challenge our our ability to, or our sitting down and making time to do simple thinking time.

Michael Hingson

Yeah. Well, if a leadership team today wanted to have one practical step about how they would work together this quarter. What would you advise? How would you advise them to start? In addition to reaching out

Speaker 1

to you, which I'm

Michael Hingson

all in favor of, but that's another story.

Speaker 1

You know, there is a tool out there that I would point them to. It's called the organizational checkup. It's free. It's online. It's put out by EOS. There's no obligation, no strings attached, or anything like that. But I think that tool. It's a set of 20 questions, and you rate each question on a scale of one to five, five being best. And that tool would really shine the light on where the most pain is being felt across the organization. When the leaders, first of all, just give an honest assessment of those 20 questions, they'll be able to put their finger right on the priority of what they need should should fix first. And I think that would just that exercise alone would get them all on the same page of what problem to tackle first, and I think that would be the very valuable for them.

Michael Hingson

And what is that called again?

Speaker 1

It's called the organizational checkup. If you were to Google EOS organizational checkup, there'll be a link there, and it's just 20 questions.

Michael Hingson

Great. Well, if people want to reach out to you and learn from you, or interact with you, and maybe use your services and so on, how best can they do that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn is great. Also, if you just did a search for EOS Will Watrous, my name, it'll come up. I've got lots of content out there. The EOS website has my listing and contact information on there as well.

Michael Hingson

And what are what's your LinkedIn name or handle? Will

Speaker 1

Watchers. Yep, Wils.

Michael Hingson

Okay. Well, I hope people will reach out. This clearly has been instructive in so many ways and lots of great ideas. So I want to thank you for being here and being a part of this. And I want to thank all of you who are paying attention to us today, wherever you're listening and/or watching. If you'd like to reach out to me, and I'd love to hear what you think, please email me at [email protected] at speaker at m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com wherever you are with us in the podcast please give us a five star rating but more important give us a review we love reviews and people who are interested in looking at podcasts love to see the reviews that others have thought about podcasts, and so hopefully you'll say nice things about us. But either way, please give us a review. If you know someone who ought to be a guest on our our podcast, Will, including you, please introduce us. We're always looking for people to come and tell their stories. and And with that, again, I want to thank you for being here, Will. This has been absolutely fun. It's been hours gone by without without any any time seeming like it passed. So thank you very much for being here.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Mike. What a pleasure to speak with you, and looking forward to your podcast success.

Michael Hingson

Thank you for being here with me on Unstoppable Mindset. I hope today's conversation left you with a fresh perspective, a new insight, or at least something worth thinking about. If you're ready to go deeper into the ideas that shape how we see ourselves and others, I have a free gift for you. Head over to michaelhingson.com and download my free ebook, Blinded by Fear. It explores the invisible beliefs that hold us back, and shows you how to reframe them so you can move forward with clarity and confidence. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share this show with someone who can use a reminder that growth starts with mindset. When people think differently, we all move forward together. Thanks again for listening. Keep learning, keep questioning, and keep choosing to live with an unstoppable mindset.

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