Glossary
Rocket Fuel®
Rocket Fuel is the 2015 book by Gino Wickman and Mark Winters about the pairing of a Visionary™ with an Integrator™, and the shorthand for it. The argument is that most successful companies have both seats filled, that almost nobody can hold both, and that the pairing fails in predictable ways when nobody names it.
01
What Rocket Fuel adds to EOS®
EOS uses the idea to settle the most common structural question in a growing company, which is who actually runs the place. The book supplies the language for the two seats, an assessment for working out which one you are, and the format for the same page meeting the pair are expected to hold. It sits alongside Traction rather than replacing it.
The pattern is specific enough to be useful. A founder full of ideas paired with somebody who finishes things is a familiar combination, and so is the way it curdles when the founder overrules the operator in front of the team. Naming both seats gives the pair a way to argue about the boundary without it becoming personal.
Worked example: Two co-owners of a fifteen-year-old print business had been sharing the top job by splitting departments, sales and marketing to one, production and finance to the other. Reading the two seats out loud made it obvious that neither owned the whole, and that any decision crossing the line took weeks. One took the operating seat and the other went to sales.
Sources: Rocket Fuel, Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters (2015)
Visionary
The Visionary is the person who generates the ideas, holds the big relationships, protects the culture and sees round corners.
02Integrator
The Integrator is the person who runs the company day to day, holding the leadership team accountable and settling arguments between departments.
03Same Page Meeting
A Same Page Meeting is a private session between the Visionary and the Integrator, usually monthly, where the two of them settle disagreements early.
Start with a real question
Not sure which of these you actually need?
Tell us what the leadership team is arguing about. A person replies within one business day with a straight answer, whether that is a book, a tool or an implementer.
A person reads every one.