It is no secret that a major key to running a successful business is having the right people in the right seats. Numerous pundits have written volumes on this topic. Basically, these are folks who sync up with your vision and check every box regarding the key accountabilities necessary to take your company to the next level.

I have spoken ad nauseam about the importance of people when explaining how businesses are succeeding with the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®). And I am very bullish when it comes to verifying whether a prospective new hire and/or current employee is a fit with a company’s vision, including their core values and core focus. However, the missing link, to me, is how to quantify whether a prospective new hire or current employee truly gets a position, wants the role and has the capacity to get the job done. Of course, it is very important to get the leadership team’s buy-in at the gut check level, but having hard data to predict a high level of success helps with the decision-making process.

Working with cross-industry companies, I have found that the processes and procedures for finding and hiring the right people for the right seats — as well as placing existing employees in their “best” seats — are not hitting the mark. Companies waste significant resources every day by operating with a lack of focus and discipline in these areas.

As part of a recent EOS® implementation process with a company that had a significant outside sales organization, we utilized the EOS® People AnalyzerTM tool to determine the “gut feel” fit of each salesperson, made the appropriate organizational changes, then fine tuned the process by creating a success score that each salesperson would be benchmarked against. The success score was, in effect, a top performer benchmark that predicted the probability of sales success. It combined attributes that included key drivers for success (the why), key behaviors for success (the how) and core competencies that were necessary for success (the required skills/experience). Each attribute was then weighted to create a baseline probability of success. After assessment, if the salesperson did not have an acceptable success score and improvement could not be acquired through training, coaching or creating accountability, it was an easy decision: The salesperson did not have a seat on the bus.

This is cool stuff. Not only did it meet the subjective test, it also satisfied the quantifiable need that many of us strive for. Best of all, the leadership team had less stress, the organization saved countless hours of time running on hopes, dreams and wishes, and it saved tens of thousands of wasted HR dollars. Increased performance in top-line revenue was achieved because, finally, the right salespeople were in the right sales seats. Does double digit growth grab your attention?

People issues are at least 80 percent of what entrepreneurial leaders constantly deal with. My assertion is that most of the 80 percent is self-inflicted; heck, my businesses suffered from this problem and it drove me nuts. I tell people that you must run your business on just one operating system. In my opinion, EOS® is the best available because of its proven simplicity and immediate impact. I also believe that you must integrate the use of predictive business science, especially in an area that has such a profound impact on your success, meaning your people. Getting the people component right, I have found, can be an absolute game changer for your business.