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Scott Vejdani
Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business - by Gino Wickman & Mark C. Winters

Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business - by Gino Wickman & Mark C. Winters

Date read: 2022-08-01
How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
(See my list of 150+ books, for more.)

Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.

From the authors of the EOS system, the book focuses on the difference between Visionaries and Integrators and how you need both roles in a company to succeed. Geared towards companies with annual revenue between $1-250 million this book provides a step by step process on how to find and implement these two roles.

Contents:

  1. THE VISIONARY
  2. THE INTEGRATOR
  3. THE VISIONARY & INTEGRATOR RELATIONSHIP
  4. HOW TO IMPLEMENT
  5. THE 5 RULES
  6. VISIONARIES SEEKING INTEGRATORS

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My Notes

There are two distinct types of leaders in all small businesses: the "Visionary" and the "Integrator." One sees the future, and the other makes it happen.


THE VISIONARY
If you match up on 80% of the traits outlined in this section, you are a Visionary.

The Idea Generator - As a Visionary, you have lots of ideas. You typically have ten new ideas a week.

The Big Picture - You are really best at the high-level stuff: big ideas and solving big problems. The smaller and more detailed things become, the less they interest you.

Seeing the Future - As a Visionary, you are great with Research and Development (more "R" than "D") for new products and services.

A Hunter Mentality - You are always in "hunting" mode. Your type of hunting is for ideas, deals, opportunities, and solutions to big problems.

The role of the Visionary: Who you are as the Visionary: Common problms as the Visionary:

Staying Focused - You get bored easily. As a result, you start creating a little chaos, just to spice things up a bit.

Too Many Ideas - Your new idea can actually sabotage your best idea. This may be your Achilles’ heel as a Visionary.

Whiplash - Another trait we see often is what we refer to as "organizational whiplash." In this case, the organization is so tuned in to the Visionary and your ideas that whenever you turn your head to the right to pursue a new idea, it forces the whole organization to the right. Then, following your natural Visionary instincts, you turn your head in the other direction, toward another idea—and WHIP! The organization tries to snap to the new direction, but it can’t keep up with the pace of the head turns.

Sweating the Details - You aren’t good at managing and holding people accountable, typically don’t like details, don’t like running the day-to-day of the business on a long-term basis, and aren’t good at following through.

Developing Talent - You haven’t really needed to leverage the capabilities of others, so it isn’t surprising that you’ve spent little time thinking about how to develop such resources.

Common challenges of the Visionary: Why didn’t they initially see themselves as a true Visionary, or maximize this potential? Three reasons most frequently appear:
  1. Role Awareness. You aren’t aware that a stand-alone Visionary role exists in an organization. This problem is common in companies that have started from scratch. You have just done everything that was needed—until everything became too much.

  2. Ability Awareness. You aren’t fully aware of your own natural gifts as a Visionary. Building a company is hard work.

  3. Letting Go. Your need for control, or a lack of trust, is keeping you from letting go enough to embrace the Visionary role.
You’re suffering from what we call the Five Frustrations:
  1. Lack of Control. You started this business so you could have more control over your time, money, and freedom—your future. Once you reach a certain point of growth, however, you realize that somehow you actually have less control over these things than you’ve ever had before.

  2. Lack of Profit. Quite simply, you don’t have enough. It’s a frustrating feeling to look at the monthly P&L (or daily cash flow) and realize that no matter how hard you work, the numbers just don’t add up.

  3. People. Nobody (employees, partners, vendors) seems to understand you or do things your way. You’re just not on the same page.

  4. Hitting the Ceiling. Growth has stopped. The business is more complex, and you can’t figure out exactly why it isn’t working.

  5. Nothing Is Working. You’ve tried several remedies, consulted books, and instituted quick fixes. None of these have worked for long. Your employees have become numb to new initiatives.
"Vision without execution is just hallucination." In other words, you need someone to help you execute your vision. The idea isn’t enough: it must be implemented to have value.



THE INTEGRATOR
An Integrator’s role and skills are quite unique. For an organization, they are the glue, the Visionary’s right hand; they beat the drum and make sure the trains run on time. You may hear them referred to as #2, inside man, president, COO, general manager, or chief of staff.

Running the Day-to-Day - In contrast to Visionaries, Integrators are typically very good at leading, managing, and holding people accountable. They love running the day-to-day aspects of the business. When a major initiative is undertaken, the Integrator will foresee the ripple of implications that will move across the organization as a result.

The Steady Force - An Integrator is the type of person who is obsessed about organizational clarity. They are great at making sure people are communicating within the organization.

The Voice of Reason - The Integrator also filters all of the Visionary’s ideas, which helps to eliminate hurdles, stumbling blocks, and barriers for the leadership team.

The role of the Integrator: Who you are as the Integrator: Common problems as the Integrator:

No Glory - For one, Integrators are the unsung heroes. Not much is written about them, and they have to be okay with that.

Being the Pessimist - Integrators are often deemed as "glass is half empty" kind of people. This accusation most often comes from your Visionary, by the way. A good Integrator is able to poke holes in ideas, opportunities, and potential solutions.

Discipline and Accountability - You are the one who delivers the bad news to employees. You’re in charge of the dirty work that needs to be done. Many times you are the one making the tough personnel decisions and delivering the news, whether that’s firing a long-term employee, demoting someone who can’t keep up, or having a last-straw conversation with a problematic team member.

Going Slow to Go Fast - You are often accused of moving too slowly by your Visionary. Therefore, you are constantly wrestling with balancing the speed at which the Visionary wants to move new initiatives through the organization against the limited resources available to execute them.

Lack of Appreciation - The toughest one of all is that your job can be downright lonely. As an Integrator you are in a position that doesn’t allow for a lot of pats on the back, small talk, and friendships. Oftentimes, the better you are at doing your job, the less you are noticed.

Not Superman - You see what needs to get done, and you wish it could all be done right now. You really want to bring order to the chaos. Lots of others are counting on you, and it hurts to think about letting them down.

Common challenges of the Integrator: We most commonly see three scenarios when an Integrator role is not fully functioning:
  1. Ineffectiveness - You currently have an Integrator, but it isn’t working. The lines of responsibility are crossed, and the relationship is not as productive as it should be.

  2. Lack of Awareness - You may have an Integrator in your organization, but you just don’t know it yet. Someone on your team may already have precisely the set of capabilities you need for your Integrator. You’ve just been so busy making things happen that you simply haven’t noticed.

  3. Nonexistence - You don’t have one in your organization. Therefore, you will need to go outside to find one.

THE VISIONARY & INTEGRATOR RELATIONSHIP
Typically, the Visionary and Integrator relationships emerge along one of four paths:
  1. They are co-founders. In this partnership, two people start a company, and most of the time, one partner is naturally the Visionary and the other is the Integrator.

  2. They are partners. In situations where a company has more than two partners—either because more than two people founded the company or because additional partners were added later (e.g., mergers, acquisitions, new investors)—it is important to understand that only two of these partners can become the V/ I duo.

  3. An existing internal team member becomes the Integrator.

  4. The Integrator is hired from the outside.
The polar differences between Visionaries and Integrators mean they are always driving each other a little bit crazy.

The Visionary and Integrator are our two-piece puzzle, and the shape of their connecting edge is determined by their complementary degree of certain shared traits. It is important for you to understand that the shape of these two pieces is always moving over time. Sometimes the fit is nearly perfect; sometimes it is not.

In the high-tech industry, a company needs a Visionary to be working, indeed, obsessing every minute of every day—because the industry changes so fast.

A company wanting only 5% annual growth is going to require a lot less Visionary innovation than one seeking 100% annual growth.

A company that needs to remain constantly on its toes will require a much more Visionary leader than companies in markets that are stagnant or below the radar of their competition and government.

If you are a Visionary without an Integrator, how do you know when you are ready for one? We consistently see four factors that drive such readiness:
  1. Financial readiness (affordability)

  2. Psychological readiness (ready to let go of some control)

  3. Lifestyle readiness (ready for fewer hours, or the same hours with a different focus and less frustration)

  4. Unique Ability ® readiness (ready to be 100% you)
The most common triggers we see are:

HOW TO IMPLEMENT
To illustrate the three major functions, picture three boxes side by side. In the box on the left, you have the first major function: Sales and Marketing. In the middle box is the second: Operations. In the box on the right, you have the third: Finance and Administration. You may call them by different names, but those are the three major functions of any company. Sales and Marketing generates business. Operations provides the service or manufactures the product and takes care of the customer. Finance and Administration manages the monies flowing in and out, as well as the infrastructure.

In order to maintain accountability, only one person can ultimately be in charge of any major function within your organization—and it must be transparent to all.

The people heading up the major functions report to the Integrator.

No two companies’ Accountability Charts are the same. You must customize it to suit your company’s needs, size, growth trajectory, type, and direction, in order to create the right structure for advancing to the next level.

Depending on the size and state of your organization, you will end up with anywhere from three to seven major functions on that front line. As long as you stay focused on the essential first question of deciding what the right structure is for moving your organization forward, the right number will come.

The Visionary shows up directly above the Integrator function. It is important to stress that the Integrator reports to the Visionary.

As an example, the Visionary function’s five roles might be as follows (these are the most common): The Integrator function’s five roles might be as follows (these are the most common): Whether a Visionary or an Integrator, most individuals only bring about 80% of all the classic traits described in the previous chapters. The V/ I relationship balances out to fill those other gaps that make up the remaining 20%.

Most Visionaries and Integrators face four common issues that need to be smoked out and ultimately solved:
  1. Not Letting Go - The Visionary often wants to hang on to a particular seat or role (most commonly, the Finance seat or some of its roles) through a direct relationship. This is not necessary.

  2. Sitting in Multiple Seats - The Integrator often sits in the Operations Leader seat. Occasionally, a Visionary will also sit in the Sales Leader seat. This is fine as long as two conditions are met. First, the role should be consistent with their Unique Ability ®—something they really want to do and are good at. Second, they will report to the Integrator in that specific function. In the usual reporting structure, the Integrator reports to the Visionary. Yet if the Visionary sits in a major function (often Sales or Marketing), they must report to the Integrator for that role.

  3. Wearing Multiple Hats - If a Visionary or Integrator is sitting in multiple seats, they must remember which hat they are wearing at any given time.

  4. Having to Sit in Both the Visionary and the Integrator Seats - It’s common for an entrepreneurial company to initially have a Visionary alone—but no separate Integrator. In effect, the Integrator seat is left empty. This causes a real struggle, because the Visionary is constantly frustrated with their lack of traction.

THE 5 RULES
  1. Stay on the same page - The Same Page Meeting is a scheduled monthly meeting between only the Visionary and the Integrator. Allow two to four hours for the meeting, and always meet somewhere outside the office.

    Same Page Agenda:
    • Check In (How are you doing? State of mind? Business and personal stuff?).
    • Build Issues List (bring issues to the meeting).
    • IDS (Identify, Discuss, and Solve issues).

  2. No end runs - An end run happens when an employee goes around a manager to complain or get a better/ different answer to his problem. Unproductive complaining occurs when someone is sharing an issue not to solve it, but is instead politicking, backstabbing, and/ or positioning.

    So, what’s "the question" that you need to ask at the end of an end run, or after unproductive complaining? It’s simply this: "Are you going to tell ’em, or am I going to tell ’em? Because one of us needs to tell ’em."

  3. The Integrator is the tie breaker - On a healthy team, eight out of ten times, everyone will agree with the solution. However, two out of ten times they won’t, and the Integrator needs to make the final decision. Should the Visionary ever trump a decision by the Integrator? The short answer is yes, although extremely rarely. Those decisions should get moved to the Same Page Meeting issues list.

  4. You are an employee when working "in" the business.
As Owners (only applicable for Partnerships):
  1. Hold formal quarterly Owner meetings.

  2. Have monthly Same Page Meetings.

  3. Communicate in a straight line—no being vague.

  4. Engage in 50/ 50 dialogue, listen/ let them talk, hear each other.

  5. Present a united front "in" the business.

  6. Solve issues before bringing them "in" the business; all company issues are fair game.
As Employees:
  1. Present a united front in the presence of others, and don’t expect any special entitlements as an Owner.

  2. Integrator makes final decisions "in" the business, and any disagreements are handled in V/I Same Page or Owners Box meeting.

  3. Don’t engage in politics or pull end runs with other people.

  4. Have complete accountability for the role/ seat; play by the rules; you must be the right person in the right seat.

  5. You can be fired.

  6. Maintain mutual respect - Regardless of equity interests, the Visionary should genuinely treat the Integrator as a partner—not as a minion. You should never make a negative comment about your V/I counterpart to anyone in the organization—ever.

VISIONARIES SEEKING INTEGRATORS
Visionary clients spend a scheduled two hours of quiet thinking time to create a "wish list" of what an Integrator would do for them. What freedoms, accountabilities, and responsibilities do they want? How could their life be different/ better? How could their business be healthier and smarter? Once these questions are answered, incorporate these items into the design of your Integrator’s seat.

One great way to help you satisfy the financial readiness factor is to study your Issues List and note any issue that could be solved by adding the right Integrator. Now assign a financial impact to solving each of those issues—how much money and time would you save/ make if each issue was resolved? Finally, total those amounts. How much is your number? If you are like most of our clients, that simple exercise makes a pretty clear case for the financial impact and return on investment your Integrator can bring.

An experienced recruiter suggests you hire an on-boarding coach for the first few months. This coach will act as a sounding board for both you and the new Integrator and will ensure everyone is clear on what success looks like.

One of our clients had their new Integrator spend their entire first 90 days just observing every aspect of the company. In weekly meetings, the new Integrator would sit quietly—for 13 straight weeks. On the 90th day, the Visionary turned the reins over to the Integrator. He found this modus operandi to be very effective.

On average, expect a full year to elapse before your V/I relationship really hits full stride.

Being a great Integrator depends more on the ability to manage human energy than being an industry expert.