Many struggling (and even successful) businesses have something in common: they have difficulty prioritizing. While it sounds simple to a direction for your business, goal setting comes with a range of challenges. Specifically, prioritizing across departments and executive teams can get a little murky. If different teams are working toward different goals, it can cause your whole organization to get out of sync.

Luckily, we can turn to EOS® for some guidance on goal prioritization, and we have a beautiful analogy to understand how it works from Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Picture an empty quart mason jar that you are going to fill with stones of all different sizes. If you pour in sand and pebbles first, you won’t have room for the larger rocks.

But if you start with the big rocks, you can fill in the smaller ones around them. In this analogy, the large rocks are your company’s most important goals and the mason jar is the next 90 days. By taking the EOS® Rocks framework, your company picks just a few priority goals to focus on each quarter. Here, we give some EOS® Rocks examples and explain how to set and prioritize them.

What Are Quarterly Rocks?

Rocks are an essential part of The Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) and your company's growth. They are the 3-7 most important goals your company wants to achieve in the current quarter. Rocks help you and your leadership team properly prioritize and focus on what's most important to keep the business moving forward. Quarterly Rocks are determined by the individuals on your leadership team and take priority over any other goals for the next 90-day period.

Often, an organization will set three different levels of Rocks: organizational, departmental, and individual. The individual Rocks should synergistically achieve the departmental Rocks that feed the corporate Rocks. Here’s a bit more detail on these three types with EOS® Rocks examples.

Organizational Rocks

These are the highest priority for your company for the next quarter. They will impact more than one department, but they might not be relevant for everyone. When Rocks are determined properly and realistically, quality over quantity is the name of the game. Pick just a few goals to focus on. They should be the most important directives for your company in this moment. Each organizational Rock should be owned by a member of your executive team.

Organizational Rock Example: Increase ROI by 8% by bolstering revenue streams by expanding the target audience with new marketing directives.

Departmental Rocks

Departmental Rocks are the goals for individual teams (e.g. marketing, sales, HR, etc…). Often, they will feed into the organizational Rocks. These goals provide direction for each department for the upcoming quarter.

Departmental Rock Example: Increase new leads by 5% by implementing a new email marketing campaign with powerful lead forms.

Individual Rocks

Individual Rocks are also crucial in achieving goals but are not as directly tied to the company's quarterly goals as they are to a specific person to enhance their role or department. Individual Rocks are set for individuals to complete to improve their skills or knowledge. While Individual Rocks are more personal and on a micro-level than Quarterly Rocks, they still help individuals and teams improve their skills and knowledge, indirectly leading to the company's success and goal-reaching. Even if an individual has their own Rocks, they will likely also be responsible for owning some of the departmental or organizational Rocks.

Individual Rock Example: Complete an applicable certification that will expand your knowledge and capacity in your current role.

Specifically for the leadership team, an individual should have anywhere between three to five rocks self-assigned. Once Quarterly Rocks have been determined, it is the individual's responsibility to remain accountable and report on the progress of those Rocks at weekly L10 meetings. Each person on the Executive team is responsible for completing his or her Quarterly Rocks. No exceptions.

Setting Effective EOS® SMART Rocks

To ensure all Quarterly Rocks assigned are realistic 90-day priorities that will help the organization grow and inspire your team, they must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART Rocks). So, what exactly does that mean? Here we break down the nuances of writing quarterly rocks that follow the SMART goal format.

Specific: Quarterly Rocks should always be crystal clear. Make your Rocks so understandable that someone from outside your organization could read the Rock and explain the intended result.
Measurable: All quarterly Rocks need to be quantifiable. It can be tempting to discuss quarterly goals in vague terms, but steer clear! Each goal should be traceable over the 90-day period. You should be able to hit a number (e.g. ROI percentage, revenue increase, prospective customers reached…) that tells you when you achieved your goal.
Attainable: It’s easy to set goals that may be unattainable and just hope for the best. But the only way to ensure the completion of quarterly rocks, and, in turn, the growth of your business is to set rocks that can be accomplished.
Relevant: Your Rocks should be clearly connected to your company’s vision. The goals you set each quarter should directly feed into your long-term direction.
Timely: When setting quarterly Rocks, it’s crucial to ensure they will be helpful within the 90-day timeframe. If it isn’t something that will make sense or help you grow by the end of the quarter, reevaluating is best.

EOS® Rocks Examples

Once you get your leadership team together, you start picking your Rocks. But how do you decide what to focus on? They won’t come out of nowhere. They should be strategically boiled down from your ten-year plan. Think about where you want your company to be in ten years. To get there, think of the milestones you need to achieve at five years and three years. Then, identify what needs to get done in the next year to get you on track for that long-term goal. From this annual vision, you can create quarterly priorities that become your Rocks. Consider the following topics to inspire your Rocks:

Core Values and Vision: EOS® Rocks aid in the development and clarification of your company's Core Values and Vision Statement, providing a solid foundation for growth.
Strategic Focus: They help identify and define Strategic Focus Areas, guiding your organization toward its most critical objectives.
Prioritization: EOS® Rocks assist in prioritizing and concentrating on what truly matters in your business, ensuring that everyone is aligned with your key goals.
Accountability: By assigning Rocks, you create a mechanism for holding individuals accountable for achieving their objectives, fostering a culture of responsibility and achievement.

EOS® Rocks won’t be the same for every business. In fact, because of the SMART goal format, your Rocks should be incredibly specific to your organization’s needs. However, to give you a better understanding of the role EOS® Rocks play in business growth and development, we’ve included a few detailed quarterly rocks examples.

Example 1: Deploy Email Marketing Software

Over the next 90 days, our Rock is to deploy our new email marketing software and execute two strategic campaigns, one of which will be a bi-monthly newsletter. We'll measure success by tracking engagement metrics and conversion rates, aiming for a 20% increase in click-through rates by the end of the quarter.

Example 2: Launch a New Product or Service

Our Rock for this quarter is to launch a new product or service, diversifying our portfolio to attract a fresh demographic. We'll measure success by setting a target of acquiring 500 new customers within the quarter for this new offering, while also tracking customer feedback and satisfaction to ensure its long-term viability.

Example 3: Increase Revenue

We will increase profit in the current quarter by 10% by increasing pricing and cutting costs. We will focus in on our new target audience by marketing to the Mountain West. This will be measured by seeing a 10% increase in our net profit at the end of the quarter.

Example 4: Reduce Customer Turnover

To reduce customer turnover by 5%, we will implement new Customer Service surveys and touchpoints over the next 90 days. Our success will be measured by monitoring the quarterly churn rate, aiming to achieve a 5% or greater reduction and an overall improvement in customer satisfaction scores.

Why Does Your Company Need Quarterly Rocks

Quarterly Rocks empower your leadership team to manage top priorities effectively while enabling individual accountability for these objectives. This approach saves time, enhances efficiency, and ensures that you meet your goals every quarter.
In the broader context of the EOS® methodology, Quarterly Rocks are just one tool to guide your company toward longevity and success. These examples of quarterly Rocks should be used as a tool to inspire your business and serve as a template for setting effective SMART goals. By implementing EOS® Rocks, you establish a simple yet effective mechanism to drive your organization’s growth. GCE provides Fractional Integrator services to help you set clear goals, objectives, and rocks. Get started.

How Your Business Can Benefit from EOS® Quarterly Rocks