I realized we function best when we have 90-day Rocks. People have short attention spans. When you go longer, things just fall off, and you think you are going to get it done, but you never do.
—THERESA DENARO, accounting, CMEEC
In Chapter 3, we explained the concept of Rocks—the 3–7 most important things that your company must get done in the next 90 days. There, we only talked about company Rocks. Now it is time to talk about your Rocks—the most important things that you must get done in the next 90 days.
How will Rocks apply to you? How will they help you do your job better? How will they help increase accountability throughout your organization?
The term “Rocks” comes from a simple science experiment made popular by Dr. Stephen R. Covey in his book First Things First. It works like this—imagine you have a small pile of rocks, some pebbles, and some sand. Your objective is to get them all to fit in a glass jar. If you put the sand in first and then the pebbles, the rocks don’t fit (see the jar on the left side of the picture).
However, if you put the rocks in first and then the pebbles (which filter down between the rocks) and finally the sand (which filters down between the rocks and the pebbles), it all fits in the same size jar (as shown in the jar on the right).
The jar represents all the time you have in a day. The rocks represent the most important things you must get done, the pebbles represent your day-to-day responsibilities, and the sand represents all the interruptions during the day. The point is, if you don’t prioritize your Rocks—and work on the most important things first—you will not get them done.
As Kevin Polachowski, scheduler at Burkard Industries, stated, “Before we had Rocks, projects were often talked about, but we always had problems getting them done in a timely manner, if at all. After we started setting Rocks, most projects are now completed on time. We’ve broken everything down into a 90-Day World.”
That leads us to the next point. Why set Rocks every 90 days? We’ve learned that the human mind tends to lose focus and become distracted after about 90 days into any project. Rock setting gets everyone refocused right on the 90th day as the unraveling begins, maximizing everyone’s efforts.
How does it work in practice? Every 90 days you will get together with your team and review the previous Rocks you set to assure they were accomplished. Then you will set new Rocks for the next 90 days. This is called creating a “90-Day World.”
In your 90-Day World, you and your team will be focused only on the most important priorities (Rocks) necessary to move the company forward. Everything else—the things that you might like to get done but don’t have the capacity or that are just not most important—is pushed to the next 90-day period, minimizing wasted effort, distractions, and taking on too much.
“Before EOS, I would work on a project for a few weeks, and then all of a sudden, my manager would tell me it wasn’t a priority anymore, and she would give me a new project. It was very frustrating,” said an employee at a paper company in Chicago. “Once we put EOS in place, we keep our priorities for 90 days. All new ideas go on a list for us to talk about when setting our next Rocks.”
Each individual employee should have 1–3 Rocks every 90 days. Your Rocks should be aligned with your company’s or manager’s Rocks. For example, if one of your manager’s Rocks is “Purchase 4 new trucks,” your Rock could be “Find 10 potential trucks to buy that match the company’s truck specifications” or “Create a standard equipment and inventory list for the new trucks.”
A common misunderstanding is that your Rocks are above and beyond your day-to-day responsibilities; that is, they are extra work. That is not at all the case. Rocks are a crucial part of your job. In addition, sometimes your Rocks will be tied directly to your day-to-day responsibilities. For instance, if you are a salesperson and one of your responsibilities is to schedule sales appointments, one of your Rocks might be “Schedule 20 sales appointments.”
At other times, your Rocks won’t be tied directly to your day-to-day responsibilities at all; they may have more to do with personal development. For instance, you might have a Rock to take a class, read a book on time management, or help complete a big company project. As long as your Rocks are the most important priorities that you must get done in the next 90 days to help your company or department achieve its vision, you have the right Rocks.
Another thing about Rocks is that they need to be SMART, which stands for:
• Specific—Is it clear enough so everyone will know when it is completed?
• Measurable—Can you measure (typically with a number) the completion of your Rock?
• Attainable—Can you achieve the measurable objective?
• Realistic—Can you complete the Rock in 90 days?
• Timely—Is it critical that you complete this Rock in the next 90 days? Is this the right time?
Here are some examples of SMART Rocks and those same Rocks not written in a SMART way:
The problem with the not SMART Rocks is that they are open to interpretation and/or don’t have a specific outcome. This will lead to very murky and frustrating conversations when your Rock review is held at the end of the 90 days, which leads to diminished accountability.
For example, take the not SMART Rock “Online class.” This could mean you registered for a class, you started taking a class, or even that you completed a specific course. However, your manager might interpret this Rock as you having completed an entire semester on marketing. As you can see, making Rocks SMART is essential for creating crystal-clear communication and for setting the right expectations between you and your team.
While Rocks are set every 90 days, you will check in with the team during your weekly meetings. You’ll report the status of your rocks by publicly stating to your team if they are “on track” or “off track” (more on this in the next chapter). Your team members will do the same, so you know the status of their Rocks.
Joel Talley of Nexus Health Systems sums up his experience this way: “With Rocks, it is a lot easier to ask people if they got something done. People don’t feel called out. Before EOS, it was hard to hold my boss and coworkers accountable. Now I have a way, a language, to hold them accountable—and they don’t take it personally or get mad at me when I ask if they got something done. We’re all holding each other to a higher level of accountability.”
A final note to avoid any potential confusion. In Chapter 2, we mentioned the concept of Measurables—numbers for which you are accountable—and we will discuss this more in Chapter 7. We used examples like number of customer sales meetings, units produced, the days to close the books, on-time shipping, or utilization.
We often are asked, “Can my Rock also be one of my Measurables?” The short answer is yes, provided it is not a gimme. If you have a Measurable that is not consistently being met, it can absolutely be a Rock. Just like the earlier example of the salesperson with the “schedule 20 sales-appointments” Rock, if that person is not hitting their goal, then their Measurable should be a Rock.
Another example of a Measurable becoming a Rock is from Gayco Healthcare, a pharmacy that serves long-term care facilities (e.g., a nursing home). They fill and deliver over 1,000 prescriptions a day. As a result, they need all prescriptions filled by 6:30 PM so they can be delivered on time. The deadline is a Measurable for the team. However, it was consistently not being met, so the Rock for the COO was “all prescriptions filled by 6:30 PM every day.”
On the subject of measuring, you should also realize that the minimum standard for a team’s Rock completion is 80%. Expecting 100% Rock completion is perfectionist thinking and dangerous. Why? Perfectionist thinking can lead to teams feeling defeated or being chastised by perfectionist leaders who are only satisfied by achieving perfection (100%). This can also lead to people setting easy rocks so that they can get 100% of them completed.
The objective has then changed from completing the most important objectives to getting all your Rocks done—and this is not the point of Rocks. If you and your team are setting the right Rocks (most important) and then consistently completing a minimum of 80% of them every 90 days, you are doing a great job and outproducing most teams in business.
When you have successfully created a 90-Day World by setting and completing Rocks every 90 days, you will become more focused, get more accomplished, and have a higher level of accountability.
By making sure your Rocks are SMART, you will have objectives that are specific and measurable so you’ll know when they are done. As you complete more and more Rocks, you will experience improved communication, increased self-satisfaction, and more overall enjoyment at work.
As Emmy Georgeson, in recruitment and development at ImageOne, exclaimed, “It’s very cool! Just think, we all have about 2 rocks every quarter. Multiply that by 50 team members and then by 4 quarters per year. That’s 400 Rocks we accomplish in a year. Those Rocks have helped us move forward in 400 small, manageable steps toward achieving our Vision. Productivity and pride in our work have definitely increased.”
Your role is to identify your 1–3 Rocks each quarter, to work with your manager and your team to make sure they are the right Rocks for the next 90 days, and to complete them on time. To help with that, ask your manager the following 3 questions.
1. When will we start setting Rocks (if you’re currently not setting Rocks)?
2. Do you believe my Rocks are the right ones for me?
3. What are your Rocks, and how can I help with them?