Rocks - Explained

By Andrea Jones

If you are familiar with the Entrepreneur’s Operating System (EOS), you probably have heard of Rocks. In Rocket Fuel and Traction, Gino Wickman credits the concept to Stephen Covey in his 1994 time-management book First Things First.

In the EOS world, Rocks are the “Most Important Things” that a business needs to accomplish in the next 90 days. I think of them as prioritized activities that “absolutely, positively, HAVE to get done” in the quarter. Rocks should not only be articulated as a specific activity, but also given an “As Measured By” result – a concrete means to ascertain whether or not the Rock is actually done. That way, ambiguity on Rock completion will be minimized, and owners will know exactly how they will be evaluated in regards to Rock Closure.

As I’ve now implemented Rocks in a few businesses to date, here are some of the more frequent concerns that arise in the “real world.” (Disclaimer: These are my opinions based on my actual experience, and may or may not represent what a Certified EOS expert would say!)

1.      Do Rocks need to be set to align with the company’s actual fiscal quarters, or should they just be 90 days from whenever you decide to start them?

Rocks should be aligned to your company’s fiscal year quarters – especially as they are part of the weekly L10 meetings with the Scorecard, and this is typically how companies evaluate progress (i.e. on a fiscal quarterly and annual basis). My recommendation is to create your first set of Rocks to either:

a.      Be shorter than the quarter, just ensure they are realistic for that shorter period; good idea if you have 11-5 weeks left in the quarter

b.      Stretch to the end of the next quarter; likely only a good idea if you have 4 or fewer weeks left in your quarter so that the 90-day mental cadence is maintained

c.      Use the time in the current quarter to establish L10 cadence, To-Dos, Scorecard, and V/TO values, waiting until the next fiscal quarter to actually set Rocks

2.      What about bigger projects that really just cannot be accomplished in 90 days? (i.e. ERP, major customer or supplier negotiations, implementation of a capex project, etc.)

Just like any good Milestone-based Project, these Rocks can be broken into chunks that are manageable in the next 90 days. Often, the group will have a feel for approximately how many overall quarters the project will take, and can ascertain the “As Measured By” completion point for the end of each quarter to set as Rocks.

3.      How many Rocks is “too many?”

This is the million-dollar question; and the answer is (unsatisfyingly) “It depends.” It really depends on the magnitude of the Rock and the normal workload of the Owner during that quarter. For example, I worked on an all-important tight-timeline ERP implementation project over 2 quarters. In order to ensure this project happened in addition to everyone’s “day jobs,” the ERP Core Team had only ONE Rock each – to implement the ERP to the next milestone step for their area of responsibility by the end of the quarter. That said, 3-7 is the rule of thumb in Traction, and acting as an Integrator, I’ve exercised a lot of “realistic optimism” to pressure Leadership Team members to focus on lower quantity, but more value-add Rocks for the company, to ensure that these things actually get completed.

4.      Can you set some “stretch goals” that everyone knows may not be able to get done in the quarter?

Yes… and No. In his book Measure what Matters, John Doerr describes how some companies such as Intel and Google, would set “Objectives” (highly akin to Rocks) in a way that only 70% of them were anticipated to complete in the time frame allowed. At the outset of setting the Objectives, leaders did not know *which* of the goals would not be accomplished, they only recognized that about 30% would not. This was a way to get everyone to “stretch” themselves in the period, and if they missed their goal, they would have to articulate to the Executive Team *why* they missed it, which apparently is not pleasant. My philosophy is to set challenging, yet realistic Rocks. They also should be around things that align to the company’s strategy, vision, and values – and that really truly NEED to get done in 90 days in order to continue growing / improving. 

The idea is to live constantly pushing the boundaries of the “Learning” zone, but not to jump into the “Fear” zone. 

A helpful analogy is that of a marathon. We are not Olympians, sprinting a full marathon at a 4-5-minute pace; however, we are not walking either! The team is running at a clipped, and sustainable, 8-9-minute mile pace – fast enough to get us there quickly, but not so fast that we risk burnout. If the Rocks, or high priority activities, get done well, I believe that the place for stretching the boundaries is in the numbers. Eric Kish, author of From 5 to 50 to 500: How to Build and Run Scalable Organizations, describes establishing a “Balanced Scorecard” with demarcations for “Threshold” results (below which is failure), “Target” results (up to which is expected/passable), and “Stretch” results – above which would be phenomenal. If the goal is to increase revenue, set up Rocks that represent controllable activities aimed at increasing sales, and measure it with financial thresholds in these buckets.

5.      How do you know if you are “On” or “Off” each week for sure?

Great question! If you feel that you can still get the Rock done by the end of the quarter in any given L10 meeting, you are ON! Certified EOS Implementer Eric Albertson, told me that he allows people a one sentence update on their Rocks if needed (either they want to give one, or others want to hear it); when we implemented this, the meeting felt a little more comfortable. However, as Integrator, if the sentence turned into a paragraph, or there were questions; I dropped the Rock to the IDS and allowed for a more thorough update and ensuing discussion there.

6.      What if something comes up mid-quarter that is more important than the Rock?

The first thing to do is add the “something” to the IDS list, and Issue Discuss it in the next L10 meeting. If the Solve execution is a 1-2-week action item, or few action items, then the issue will be resolved that way practically immediately. If it is bigger than that, the team needs to determine if it can wait until the next quarter or not. If so, put it on the Parking Lot so it doesn’t get lost, and make a note that it is a STRONG candidate for a next quarter Rock.  If not, then the next part of the IDS needs to be around ownership and how/what that means to the current Rock list. Ideally, people are pretty well loaded with their normal “day-to-day” activities and their current Rocks. I have found that it is helpful to leave the Leadership Team a 10-15% bandwidth in their average utilization during the quarter for the “gravel, sand, and water,” so sometimes the new “URGENT” Rock can be absorbed. However, more often than not, adding a new mid-quarter Rock means displacing another Rock that was already agreed on for execution – and my advice is to avoid this unless the whatever it is might shut down your business before the quarter ends. (Note: There are some legitimate items for Rock displacement such as Safety, a major Recall or customer compliant, bad publicity or new tariffs, vendors going out of business, etc. Use your discretion.)

7.      What if a supervisor, leadership team member, or Executive team member asks for additional work to be completed in the quarter that would take away from time spent on Rock completion?

Put it on the IDS list in the next L10 and see the previous response. Theoretically, any team member who has “Rock” accountability will be in an L10. If the L10 in question is a Departmental L10, the Manager in that L10 who also sits on the Leadership Team can escalate the concern, if it truly could affect company-wide Rocks. Hopefully, however, the issue can be resolved in the L10 for which the priority concern arises.

8.      What if the Rock does not actually get done (to the “As Measured By” objective) by the end of the quarter?

There are three options for Rocks which do not get done. 

1.      Turn into Action Item(s) if there is not much left to do (i.e. 90% done, only a few 1-2-week actions left).

2.      Reassign the Rock to a different owner and carry it over (sometimes can be the same owner, but he or she had better have a plausible plan for getting it done this quarter when he or she couldn’t last quarter; Integrator needs to play arbiter here and call BS if necessary.)

3.      Close it anyway – if it is no longer one of the most important things for the business, it should be closed. Don’t fall into the trap of finishing “for the sake of finishing.” I used to do this when reading books; even super boring books that I could barely stand to read, I tried to finish just to say I did. This is ridiculous if the book is terrible or doesn’t hold my interest; it just keeps me from reading something more valuable. Drop it if it needs to be dropped, and have the courage to admit that either the window of opportunity has passed, or the Rock is not the most important thing any more. Use it as a learning experience for next time.

9.      Should Rock completion be tied to financial compensation?

I tried searching for this one on the official EOS Blog, and could not find an answer. My personal opinion is NO. If you tie Rock Completion, as in “You have to get X% of your assigned Rocks completed each Compensation Review period or your pay (up, down, same) will be affected,” this is a recipe for disaster. It sounds good – after all, why wouldn’t you reward people for completing the most important things to do each quarter? However, my strong feeling is that this will lead to gaming in the long run. People will naturally gravitate towards setting “lob Rocks” (my term); things that they know they can accomplish easily. This is not to be confused with setting challenging, yet realistic Rocks as described before; no one wants to feel they are being set up for failure. However, there are always possibilities of “stuff” coming up outside of one’s control which may prevent Rock completion. If someone is consistently worried that his or her compensation may be negatively affected based on situations over which they have little control, they can easily lose motivation. Rather, use the People Analyzer to assess performance – this is much more flexible as it takes into account the whole picture of the business, the person’s behaviors, and his or her capacity to do the job he or she is accountable for as per the Accountability Chart. 

Do you have any other questions about Rocks? Feel free to leave a comment and I will address them in a future article!

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