This is one of the reasons we have embraced the EOS method at Crown Caregivers.
EOS challenges leaders to look beyond the immediate mistake and ask whether we have the right people in the right seats, whether expectations are clearly defined, and whether the employee truly gets it, wants it, and has the capacity to do it.
Before deciding that someone is simply a poor employee, leadership has to examine the system.
Was the responsibility clear on the Accountability Chart?
Was the expected result measurable on a Scorecard?
Was the process documented, trained, and followed?
Was the issue identified and discussed honestly before moving toward discipline?
When standards remain only in the owner’s head, employees are forced to guess. That is not accountability. It is ambiguity.
At the same time, EOS also makes it harder to avoid a genuine people issue. Once the standard is clear, the process is documented, the person has been trained, and the same problem continues, leadership has to determine whether the individual is still the right person for that seat.
For us, the order is:
Clarify the seat.
Define the measurable.
Document the process.
Train and coach.
Inspect the results.
Identify, Discuss, and Solve the issue.
Then make the appropriate personnel decision.
For any entrepreneur struggling to move expectations out of their head and into a repeatable operating system, I strongly recommend reading Traction by Gino Wickman. We are not being paid to promote it… it has simply given our leadership team a practical framework for creating clarity, accountability, and consistency as Crown Caregivers grows.
Clear expectations protect the employee, the customer, and the company. Accountability works best when everyone knows exactly what winning looks like.
This is a really solid framework.
I like the “gets it, wants it, capacity to do it” filter because it separates a few different issues that can look the same from the outside.
Someone may understand the role but not want it.
Someone may want the role but not have the capacity.
Someone may have capacity but never had the standard clearly defined.
Those are different problems, and they need different decisions.
I haven’t fully implemented EOS in my business, but I like the idea of moving expectations out of the owner’s head and into something measurable. That’s the part a lot of small service businesses skip for too long.
