Quarterly Conversation™

EOS puts it in the People component and schedules it in the quarter, usually just after the quarterly session so the next ninety days are already clear. The manager scores the person on core values and GWC™ beforehand, then asks a couple of questions and mostly listens. Anything raised that the manager cannot fix goes onto the Issues List.

Annual reviews are too late to change anything and too formal to be honest. Four short conversations a year catch a seat problem in month three rather than month eleven, and they mean nobody is ever surprised by a performance conversation. The cost is about an hour per person per quarter, which is exactly why it gets skipped.

Worked example: A software company with twenty-eight staff started holding these in the week after each quarterly. In the first round, three people said they were unclear who to go to for a decision, and all three sat in the same department. That was a structural answer rather than three individual ones, and it changed a line on the Accountability Chart™.

Sources: How to Be a Great Boss, Gino Wickman and Rene Boer; eosworldwide.com/eos-tools