Reading list
The EOS books, in the order to read them
EOS® runs on thirteen books: six core titles that lay out the system, four Mastery books that go deep on one component each, and three adjacent reads for specific situations. Start with Traction, work down the list, and you'll cover the whole system for about two hundred dollars.
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01
The reading order
Read the core six in order: Traction, then Get a Grip, What the Heck is EOS?, Rocket Fuel® (the Visionary™ and Integrator™ split), How to Be a Great Boss and The EOS Life. Once the system is running, the four Mastery titles dig into one component each. The three adjacent books suit specific situations rather than every reader, so pick from those as they come up.
Core
Read these six, in order, before anything else.
Traction Core
Gino Wickman
The book that lays out all six components of EOS® in one pass: vision, people, data, issues, process and traction. Every other title on this list assumes you've read this one first.
Read this before anything else, whether you're a founder, an Integrator or someone who just got handed a Scorecard.
Get a Grip Core
Gino Wickman, Mike Paton
The same system told as a story about a struggling company that adopts EOS over two quarters. It shows the tools in use rather than defining them in the abstract.
Read this if Traction's structure didn't stick, or hand it to a team member who won't get through a how-to book.
What the Heck is EOS? Core
Gino Wickman, Tom Bouwer
A short, plain-language explainer aimed at employees who aren't in the room when the leadership team decides to run on EOS. It covers the six components in under a hundred pages.
Hand this to a supervisor or new hire who needs the shared vocabulary without the leadership-level detail.
Rocket Fuel Core
Gino Wickman, Mark C. Winters
A deep look at the Visionary and Integrator pairing that sits at the top of an EOS Accountability Chart™, and what goes wrong when a company tries to run without both roles filled.
Read this once you've picked, or are trying to pick, who plays Visionary and who plays Integrator on your team.
How to Be a Great Boss Core
Gino Wickman, René Boer
A set of five leadership practices and five management practices, distilled to the habits that make a manager worth working for. It's shorter and more tactical than most leadership titles.
Read this if your job title changed to "manager" faster than your management skills did.
The EOS Life Core
Gino Wickman
An argument that the point of running a disciplined business isn't the business itself, it's the life that a well-run business buys back for its owner. It's part reflection, part checklist.
Read this if you've built a company that works but a life that doesn't, or you're not sure why you're still building.
Mastery series
One book per component, for once the basics are running.
People Mastery
Mark O'Donnell, Kelly Knight, CJ DuBe'
A full-length treatment of the people component: getting the right people in the right seats, using the Accountability Chart and the People Analyzer® without turning them into paperwork.
Read this once the basics are running and hiring or seat-fit keeps coming up as the recurring issue.
Data Mastery
Mark O'Donnell, Angela Kalemis, Mark Stanley
The Scorecard, expanded: how to pick measurables that actually predict a result, assign one owner per row, and use the weekly number to drive the meeting instead of decorate it.
Read this if your Scorecard is full of numbers nobody argues about, which usually means nobody's using them.
Issues Mastery
Mark O'Donnell, Sue Hawkes, Jill Young
A book-length walk through IDS®: identify, discuss, solve. It covers why leadership teams avoid naming the real issue and how to keep a Level 10 Meeting™ from turning into a status update.
Read this if your team's issues list keeps growing longer instead of shorter every quarter.
Process! Mastery
Mike Paton, Lisa González
How to document the handful of processes that actually run a company, at the level of detail that gets followed rather than the level that gets filed away. Built around the Three-Step Process Documenter™.
Read this once you're tired of the same mistake happening because three people each do the job differently.
Adjacent
Not required reading; pick these up as the situation calls for them.
Entrepreneurial Leap Adjacent
Gino Wickman
A six-trait self-assessment for anyone deciding whether to start a company at all, written before EOS enters the picture. It's aimed at the decision, not the operating system.
Read this before you start a company, or hand it to someone who keeps talking about starting one.
Shine Adjacent
Gino Wickman, Rob Dube
A short guide to keeping people engaged once EOS is running and the initial momentum has worn off. It's aimed at retention and morale rather than structure.
Read this if the system is working but engagement is quietly slipping a year or two in.
Visionary Adjacent
Mark C. Winters
A companion to Rocket Fuel written specifically for the Visionary half of that pairing: what the role is for, what it isn't, and how to let go of the parts that belong to an Integrator.
Read this if you're the Visionary and Rocket Fuel left you wanting more on your half of the role.
02
Which book first?
Give Traction to anyone new to the system, no exceptions. Hand a supervisor or new hire What the Heck is EOS? instead, since it skips the leadership-level detail they don't need yet. Visionaries and Integrators get more from Rocket Fuel once the basics have clicked, and a founder weighing whether to keep building at all should start with The EOS Life.
New to EOS
Traction first, always. It's the one book every title on this page assumes you've read.
Visionary or Integrator
Rocket Fuel, once Traction is done, to work out whether you're playing Visionary or Integrator on your team.
Supervisors and new hires
What the Heck is EOS? gives the shared vocabulary in under a hundred pages.
Founders questioning fit
The EOS Life asks whether the business you're building is buying back the life you actually want.
03
Buying for a team
Buying a copy of Traction for the whole leadership team is the cheapest test of fit there is: if three people finish it and want to start, that's your answer. EOS Worldwide sells its own titles at a bulk discount once you're past the first few copies, which is worth checking before you order thirteen separate copies through the ordinary retail links on this page.
EOS Worldwide offers roughly 50% off list price on orders of 20 or more copies of the same title, sold through its own store rather than Amazon. See eosworldwide.com/books for current bulk pricing.
Start with a real question
Still not sure which book fits your role?
Tell us where you sit on the team and what you're trying to fix. We'll point you at the two or three books worth reading first.
A person reads every one.