Meet Right Seat Solutions. They were growing fast, and chaos was creeping in. Their leadership team was stuck reacting to daily fires rather than focusing on the big picture. When someone handed them a copy of Traction, they felt like they’d discovered the answer to all their problems.
“We can do this! We’ll roll out EOS ourselves and finally get control of this business.”
The team drafted a Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO), set Quarterly Rocks, and held their first Level 10 Meetings. For a while, it seemed to work. But within a few months, their excitement gave way to frustration. Issues kept resurfacing, and meetings lost focus. Slowly, the EOS Tools they once loved stopped delivering results because they weren’t being used to their full potential.
While Right Seat Solutions isn’t a real company, the fictional struggles they experience are ones we’ve seen countless businesses face when they try to self-implement EOS. Many teams that go the DIY route run into these exact same challenges. Here’s what our fictional team “learned” during their bumpy journey: 10 hard lessons that show why going it alone isn’t always the best path forward.
The DIY EOS Journey
When we talk about “DIY EOS,” we mean companies that try to roll out EOS on their own, often after reading Traction or another book in the Traction Library, downloading the free tools, or watching a few videos online. The leadership team typically starts with great intentions, thinking,
“We’re smart. We can handle this.”
And they are smart. And they can handle a lot.
But EOS isn’t just a set of levers you pull when things get tough. It’s a complete operating system that requires clarity, discipline, and a willingness to have tough conversations and have them consistently. It’s hard to spot blind spots from inside your own company, and even the most capable teams can struggle to keep the system stable and pure without outside guidance.
Why Pure Is Important
Why does “pure” matter? Because EOS is designed as a whole, connected framework, with each part functioning better when it’s supported by the others. If you only use pieces of it or tweak the process to make it easier for the team you are now, you lose the power of how it’s meant to work and the opportunity to grow into a newer, more mature version of your team. Running EOS “pure” means sticking to the process so your business can get the full benefit: clear priorities, healthier team dynamics, and steady progress.
Right Seat Solutions, like many companies, treated EOS as a project they could quickly bolt on rather than the cultural shift it truly is. Over time, their DIY journey fell into three phases:
- Early Phase: Cracks appeared as enthusiasm met the demands of daily business
- Middle Phase: Momentum and consistency slowed, and the system started to break down
- Late Phase: Confusion took over, leaving them wondering if EOS “worked” at all
Let’s take a closer look at what happened during each of these phases and the 10 lessons Right Seat Solutions learned the hard way about trying to self-implement EOS.
Early Phase: Excitement Meets Reality
When companies first discover EOS, the initial excitement is almost electric. There’s a sense of “Finally, a framework that makes sense!” The leadership team at Right Seat Solutions dove in with enthusiasm, eager to map out their V/TO and start setting Rocks. But this early phase is where many teams stumble. Without guidance, the energy and optimism can mask deeper challenges that emerge once the real heavy lifting begins. Here’s what often happens in these first few months:
1. Lack of Objectivity
In their first planning sessions, the team at Right Seat Solutions spent hours debating which priorities mattered most. Every issue seemed urgent, and personal opinions or emotions often influenced decisions instead of data or clarity. Without a neutral facilitator to bring focus, conversations turned into circular discussions that left the team drained rather than empowered. They thought they were making progress, but really they were stuck, simply rehashing the same snags week after week. An outside perspective would have cut through the noise and helped them see the root issues more clearly.
2. Avoiding Tough Conversations
The team quickly realized they had a People Issue: someone wasn’t aligned with their Core Values and wasn’t the right fit for their seat. But no one wanted to address it directly. Without a third party to guide these discussions, they avoided the hard conversations, convincing themselves that maybe it would sort itself out. This reluctance to confront painful truths slowed their progress and created tension among the leadership team. The tough conversations they avoided early on became bigger difficulties down the road that had a real impact on that person’s career, stalling growth at the company or preventing them from finding something better elsewhere.
3. Inconsistent Discipline
At first, Level 10 Meetings at Right Seat Solutions felt fresh and productive, but soon the team began skipping them when urgent issues came up. Their Rocks, which started as exhilarating goals meant to help them get to the next level, began to slide to the bottom of the priority list. Their problem-solving approach turned reactive, focusing on today’s fires instead of long-term traction. This lack of consistency left the team feeling like they were “doing EOS,” but not getting the desired outcome. Discipline is what transforms EOS from a set of ideas into a way of running the business, and that was missing.
4. Misunderstanding the Tools
The team treated the Vision/Traction Organizer like a one-time strategic planning exercise rather than a living, breathing roadmap for the business. Their Scorecard metrics were too vague to be actionable, making it hard to measure real progress. During IDS sessions, they found themselves talking in circles, more so discussing symptoms instead of solving root issues. But EOS has a method of keeping meetings on track. They were using the tools, but not in the way they were designed to create clarity and focus. Without someone to show them how to use each tool to its fullest potential, they never got the impact they were hoping for.
Middle Phase: Buried in the Details
After the first wave of enthusiasm, Right Seat Solutions found themselves in a tricky middle phase. The EOS Tools were in place, but they weren’t achieving what the team had envisioned. Leadership was caught between daily work and half-implemented processes, and it became hard to see if they were moving forward at all. This is the stage where many companies, even with the best intentions, begin to lose momentum. Here’s how things unraveled for Right Seat Solutions during this phase:
5. Cherry-Picking the Process
The leadership team enjoyed Level 10 Meetings when they were consistent enough to have them, and Quarterly Rock-setting sessions were a fun escape, but they continued to skip the tools that felt harder, like the People Analyzer or digging deep into Core Values. They told themselves they didn’t have time to tackle everything or that certain elements weren’t relevant to their business. By choosing only the pieces of EOS that felt comfortable, they weakened the overall effect of the process. By cherry-picking, Right Seat Solutions missed the deeper alignment that comes from running EOS purely with pieces that build off of each other.
6. Falling Back into Old Habits
As daily pressures mounted, departments began slipping back into their old ways of getting by. Scorecards stopped being updated, and decisions were once again made based on gut instinct rather than data. Leaders were constantly stepping into each other’s lanes, creating confusion over priorities and ownership. Core Values, once a central part of important conversations, faded into the background during hiring and performance discussions. Without someone to keep EOS front and center, they lost the structure and alignment they’d built, and the clarity they once felt began to unravel.
7. No Outside Accountability
The team at Right Seat Solutions was full of skilled, capable leaders, but no one was holding them accountable to the process. When Quarterly Rocks weren’t completed or Level 10 Meetings lost their structure, there was no outside voice to ask why. Without accountability, the tools became optional rather than essential. Their Quarterly Planning Sessions turned into tactical check-ins instead of strategic, forward-thinking meetings. An Implementer would have kept the team honest, ensuring they stuck to the process and made progress every quarter.
Late Phase: Frustration & Stalled Progress
By this point, Right Seat Solutions was losing the desire to hold onto EOS. They began to wonder, “Does EOS even work for us?” In reality, it wasn’t EOS that failed; it was the way they were running it. This phase is often when teams either give up or finally realize they need help. Here’s what they experienced during this frustrating stage:
8. Blind Spots & Bias
Leadership was convinced that sales were the root of their growth challenges, so they poured all their attention and resources into fixing it. But the real issue was a broken handoff process between operations and customer service that was costing them repeat business. Without an outside perspective, they simply couldn’t move the discussion in a productive way to find that problem. A professional EOS Implementer would have helped pinpoint blind spots quickly and keep the team focused on solving the right issues.
9. Overwhelm & Confusion
By now, the team felt like they were juggling too many parts of EOS without a clear idea of what to tackle first. They tried to roll out everything among their departments all at once—Scorecards, People Analyzer, V/TO, Rocks—and it left them feeling scattered. Department heads were trusted to lead their own L10s, but quickly realized they couldn’t teach their teams how to have these meetings right. The overwhelm was draining their confidence in the process and creating friction within the company. With expert guidance, they would have learned to master one step at a time, layering on the tools in a way that built momentum instead of chaos.
10. Treating EOS as a Quick Fix
When the big changes they wanted didn’t happen overnight, frustration set in. EOS isn’t a silver bullet; it takes time, practice, and commitment to see its full impact. But Right Seat Solutions didn’t have anyone helping them set realistic expectations and celebrate the smaller wins along the way. Again, they began to question if EOS was “working,” when the truth was they weren’t running it purely or consistently. This mindset almost caused them to abandon EOS completely until they finally recognized they needed outside help.
The Payoff of Doing EOS Right
Trying to self-implement EOS is like trying to climb a mountain by watching a few videos of hiking tips before heading out the door. You might make it through ok with some scraped knees, but a guide who knows the path and the pitfalls will get you to the summit faster, with fewer wrong turns.
If Right Seat Solutions had worked with an EOS Implementer from the start, they would have:
- Held healthier, more productive meetings
- Gotten the right people in the right seats
- Gained clarity on vision and priorities
- Helped leadership work on the business
Does this fictional company’s story sound familiar? Or is it foreshadowing for your team right now as you embark on your own DIY EOS voyage?
You don’t have to struggle through EOS on your own. An EOS Implementer can save you time, energy, and frustration while helping you get the traction your business needs.
Find an Implementer today, and build the business you’ve always wanted.
