Delegate, Elevate, Transform: Unlocking EOS® With Kevin Hundal

Kevin Hundal is a Certified EOS Implementer® with a rich background in entrepreneurship spanning over 20 years. He has built, scaled, and pivoted multiple companies, encountering unique challenges in areas such as people management, process optimization, cash flow, and leadership. Since 2009, Kevin has been employing the Entrepreneurial Operating System in his various ventures, gaining critical insights into the advantages and challenges of running a business with and without EOS®.

Beyond his business acumen, Kevin has a talent for energizing teams and fostering a culture of collaboration. He specializes in breaking through operational ceilings by creating a unified team environment where each member can contribute in a meaningful way. With experience mentoring over 60 companies to achieve the $1 million mark and boasting an average client growth rate exceeding 15% year-over-year, Kevin focuses on instilling a blend of vision, traction, and health within businesses, irrespective of their size or industry.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [03:14] Kevin Hundal shares why he joined EO and how he became a Certified EOS Implementer®
• [05:30] How Kevin implemented EOS® in his manufacturing business
• [08:08] The value of having an accountability chart
• [09:44] The benefits of bringing in a Certified EOS Implementer®
• [12:35] What are the six key components of EOS®?
• [15:39] The process of implementing the EOS® model
• [21:01] How Kevin helps multigenerational businesses
• [25:09] Resolving internal issues in family-run businesses
• [27:17] How to turn friction points into breakthroughs
• [31:13] Kevin on how he navigated an 18-partner organization

In this episode…

Are you tired of seeing wasted potential in your organization? Ever wonder how to unlock the true capabilities of your team members while accelerating business growth? If so, this episode is your key to transformation.

Implementing the concept of playing to your strengths in a business setting requires a systematic approach. According to leading EOS® expert Kevin Hundal, strategically aligning team members with roles tailored to their strengths and passions not only fuels individual performance but also acts as a catalyst for organizational success.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Certified EOS Implementer® Kevin Hundal to discuss how you can delegate, elevate, and transform your organization using the Entrepreneurial Operating System. They explore effective ways to manage human energy, how to identify tasks that should be outsourced or automated, and why focusing on your team’s unique abilities can lead to rapid growth. Tune in to learn practical strategies for maximizing your organization’s potential.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kevin Hundal on LinkedIn
• EOS Worldwide | Kevin Hundal

Special Mention(s):

• Entrepreneurial Operating System
• Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
• Atrend
• Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters
• Rafi Arbel on LinkedIn
• John Fairclough on LinkedIn

Related episode(s):

• “Leading with Passion with Gino Wickman Founder of EOS Worldwide” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[One Question] Closing A Promising Startup with Mark C. Winters of RocketFuelNow.com” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “EO Atlanta | You Can Have It All With Ethan King, Co-Founder of Zeus’ Closet” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “How to Sell More And Save Time with Robert Hartline of Absolute Wireless” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “We need a system to run and manage our business.”
• “You can’t achieve your vision without identifying and solving your issues.”
• “Vision without traction is hallucination.”

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01 

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22 

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspiredinsider.com where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I’ve Kevin Hundal. And we’re gonna go through Kevin exactly what you do. He’s run successful businesses. He does EOS implementation for businesses. And so we’re gonna get deep into that. And before I formally introduce you, Kevin, I like to always point out other episodes, people should check out the podcast and since we’re gonna be talking all things EOS. I think people can check out the interview I did with Gino Wickman it was really good. He wrote Traction. That was a really good episode. Mark Winters who authored Rocketfuel, who co-authored that with Gino Wickman. That’s a good episode. Also, Kevin has been the EOS or in the EO sphere for a long time, over almost over 15 years. And so we’ve had some awesome EO people on Ethan King, co-founder of Zeus’ Closet, Robert Hartline, founder of Call Proof. And also just a big thank you to Tom Ranas, who we would not be on this call, maybe we would, because we’ve actually met in different circles, but he really introduced us to make sure that this happened and you shared your expertise on here. So we’ll talk about that too. But before I formally introduce Kevin, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships and partnerships. And how do we do that we actually help you run your podcast. We are an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast, we do the strategy, the accountability and the full execution. So Kevin, we kind of call ourselves the magic elves that are running in the background and make it look easy for the host in the company. For me, the number one thing in my life is relationships. And I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships. And I found no better way over the past decade to profile the people and companies I most admire on this planet and share what they’re working on. And I saw it actually Kevin speak like a YPO EO event. Kevin and then Tom introduced us on like, done deal. He’s amazing, so if you can have him speak to your group, ask him, he just deliver so much value. So without further ado, Kevin Hundal’s an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience building scaling, pivoting multiple companies. And since 2009, Kevin has been using EOS in his various companies, which has given him really valuable insights and about the benefits of running a business on EOS, and the challenges of running one without EOS. And Kevin helps his clients achieve their goals by fostering a culture of collaboration and growth, and ultimately creating kind of a unified team where each team member can contribute in a meaningful way. And he’s gonna dig deeper into that and helping them break through ceilings and increase collaboration. So Kevin, thanks for joining me.

Kevin Hundal 3:14 

Yeah, Jeremy. I appreciate and thank you for having me. Number one is always have been inspired by podcasts and folks running podcasts when I came across your business. Like you mentioned, we’ve met several times, but didn’t really know what you didn’t tell Tom introduced us and I jumped in and saw the site and truly inspired by that gift of allowing people to tell their stories. So thank you for having me on here today. I really appreciate that from my heart. I’ll kind of go back to my journey and kind of how I gotten to where I am today. Naturally common playground for both of us is EO which is Entrepreneurs Organization of Chicago. And I actually joined that organization in 2007. Through the program called accelerator, which accelerator is essentially the feeder program that allows you to get the tools you need and the network and the connections, you need to scale your business to a million dollars to join EO. So that’s kind of where my journey with EO started in 2009. I remember joining the organization, I was blown away by the intelligence by the open-mindedness of people, and the willingness to help one another. And I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out my business. I was about five years into my manufacturing distribution company Atrend at that time, and not knowing what to do, right? Cash flow was a problem. It felt like we were being choked, because there’s no oxygen because of that profitability was an issue. And it was just chaotic. And I’m saying this to an EO member, and they go, hey, have you heard of Gino Wickman before? I’m like, no, I don’t know who’s Gino Wickman is. They’re like, oh, he’s an EO member in Detroit. And he wrote this book called Traction, dude, I think you should read it and he handed me the book. A friend of mine at that time I read the book. I ate it up. I just fell in love with it. And really the evolution of what has brought me to where I’m at today and really allowed me to kind of scale my business grow my business, which is also a family business, the manufacturing distribution company, and get really healthy and what we were trying to do. And due to that I became an EOS implementer. Right. So there’s this whole journey of how that came to light. But really, it’s EO that gave me that gift, which is, you and I have intersecting paths here, as I think back on it, that’s where it all started for me.

Jeremy Weisz 5:30 

Talk about, we can kind of talk about this parallel journey, your EOS journey and your entrepreneur journey. Talk a little bit about you implementing EOS into your manufacturing business. And we can walk through some of the challenges you had of implementing and some of the high points too.

Kevin Hundal 5:50 

Yeah. So, you know, what it would seem to always be is that we are having to work so hard to get the results that we needed in our business. So it’s like, we’re working 10 times harder than we needed. And I felt that and I knew it, and you had concepts, right? It’s kind of like, you go to an EO venue to hear some speakers speak. And you come back with all these tools, and you throw them on the table and your team be like, okay, what is all this about now? It’s like, what’s the next flavor of the month Kevin’s gonna bring after a deal event, you probably know some of those feelings, right? We hear these great stories from these inspirational people. And I kept doing that. But what kept happening is we bring something in, it wouldn’t stick, it would die off. And then I’d go to another EO event and I’d bring something else in wouldn’t stick and die off. And EOS, when I read the book, Traction, I was like, wow, this is a system. Like this is what I’ve needed, like an operating system on my computer, we need a system to run and manage our business. And at that time, as I mentioned, my brothers who now run the company, were in the company with me, and it was just defragmented. Right, we were doing so much and not getting the results that we needed in EOS and reading Traction really brought three things to life for me, which we call vision, traction and healthy. Vision number one, we were able to get all the human energy driving in the same direction, which we never did, right, the vision was in my head. And in the other folks on leadership teams had their own eyes on the vision it looked different than mine and theirs and we had to get connected. To really get on the same page, I kind of use the analogy of like, if you’re on a canoe, there’s one canoe going left, there’s one going round, the other one’s like tipped over and like screaming for help. That was kind of us because we didn’t have a clear vision. But reading Traction allowed us to get a vision on paper in a simplified way, which then allowed us to gain traction, right, and traction was all about actually setting up priorities and goals, setting disciplines and accountability to ensure that we would execute on those goals and then celebrating the successes that we had. So we were able to bring traction in and then healthy, which was really about getting a culture that’s collaborative, that people love to come to the office, and they enjoy the work that we do together and I you know all bringing all three of those together allowed us to implement the system of EOS. And in that journey, in EOS we call it the accountability chart, which you can consider as the org chart on steroids, right. It’s an accountability chart that’s internal for an organization. We’re all wearing multiple hats, and one of the first things that we’re able to do as we brought the system into the business is get really clear on our accountability chart and who was responsible for what right as you can imagine, business is hard enough, you’re not alone family businesses even actually present more dynamics of the emotion and the relationship factor that comes in, but piercing through who was responsible for providing getting each of us in our unique ability was just a gift for everyone. Because we could actually take a sigh of relief and say, while I’m doing the things I love to do, I’m great at and I can maximize on it. And so we self-implemented EOS, in our business we bought in an implementer in 2015 that helped us and what I recognize there was it’s hard to be in a system and see the system clearly right EOS talks about this concept of we’re in the system, we’re very emotional and bound by our businesses, it’s hard to see it till you bring an outside person in that helps you kind of clarify things. And that was really the start of our journey, which allowed me to essentially now exit the business and really solely focus on my EOS practice.

Jeremy Weisz 9:27 

What were some of the challenges you faced, self-implementing, obviously, eventually, you brought in someone in 2015. I love to hear about some challenges, but also what made you decide to bring someone else in? Right because you’ve probably been self-implementing for a while.

Kevin Hundal 9:44 

Yeah, we’re self-implementing for about five and a half, six years. And it’s just like I liken it to being on the front stage of the opera, right like you’re on the front stage in front of the curtain. We just see the front stage and what’s going on, but we don’t know all the stuff that’s going on behind this to age simultaneously at the same time, and getting into the books and understanding and we’re able to get, I would say about 35 or 40%, strong in the six key components of EOS. And you would read blogs and talk to others. And it was like, all right, well, you can be 35% or 40%, strong, but really get 80% or 100%, strong. In the six key components, you need a professional as actually the toolbox behind the curtain to open up that for you. And our struggles with it was is number one, we self-taught the tools to ourselves. So we only knew what we knew from reading the books and reading blogs. So number one is we never knew the depth of what the tool can give us. Number two was its accountability, right? Things get busy, meetings get canceled, things get changed. And it’s no different than having a trainer with the gym. Right? You got to show up on time you got to do the reps, you got to be there every week. There’s nothing like external accountability. Yeah, so the external accountability with an implementer coming in, I think it changes the mindset, right? The minute we had to write a check to get somebody to hold us accountable. It’s like, all right, we got to show up now. So I think those are two big things for us. Right? It just allowed the onus to get removed off of me and be a contributor in the system as opposed to a person trying to run it coach and facilitator for my team.

Jeremy Weisz 11:24 

Yeah, I want you to talk a little about the six key components. I do want to give a shout-out to Rafi R. Bell, who is also an EO. A market JD, you talk about accountability. I was like, wanting to work out yesterday, and I’m like, I think I’m gonna fall off the wagon. So I called Rafi I’m like, you want to work out with me? He’s like, sure. I probably he doesn’t know like this, but I probably wouldn’t have worked on like, I just need you there. Plus, it was fun to do with someone else but so you helped hold me accountable to working out yesterday. But market JD for helps lawyer so.

Kevin Hundal 12:01 

You guys hit the gym together? What was the workout?

Jeremy Weisz 12:04 

Exactly? We just did, like a circuit training of five different exercises and sweat a little bit and talk business a little bit. So it was great.

Kevin Hundal 12:14 

Rafi, he’s a great guy. And as I’ve gotten to know him actually much more the last six months than anytime he was in EOS. I don’t even know how long he’s been there. The last six months, we’ve crossed pads quite a bit and really insightful and fun, fun, fun person.

Jeremy Weisz 12:28 

Totally. So the six key components of EOS just for people just give them a little crash course.

Kevin Hundal 12:35 

Yeah. So the thought and Gino Wickman book, right. And Gino came up with the whole Traction concept and the operating system. It’s really that every business is really, circulated around these six key components, right. And the components are number one, the vision component, which is about getting everyone rowing in the same direction, right? What’s our simple Strategic Plan getting everybody rowing in the same direction? The second is people and in the people component is really understanding what right people look like for our organizations, because every organization is different. And then understanding how to get them in the right seat, right, kind of to our previous conversation of how do we get folks into their unique ability? Right? So that’s the people component, which is number two. The third is the data component. And the data component is all about running a business on numbers. I always say to teams I work with, we weren’t born to be great managers, like none of us were born to be great managers, because we have emotions were human. Right? How do we run a business just with data and numbers. And that’s all about the scorecard and the data component. And the fourth is the issues component, which is probably one of the ones that’s the most impactful when you’re able to create a culture around people raising their hands and calling out issues, and calling out opportunities, and collaborating and prioritizing those issues to make them go away forever. Right? So you think about it. Jeremy, it’s you can’t achieve your vision without really identifying and solving your issues. Right? And that’s in direct correlation of your ability to outdo your competition. So it’s really, how do we set the same right issues up? And how do we solve them? And that’s the fourth key component. And the fifth is our process component. How do we build our franchisable models? So we can do things consistently, in an effective manner, day in day out quarter in, quarter out, right? And the last is Traction component. And here on the screen as you got it, we say vision without traction is hallucination, right? Because you can have the vision, but if you don’t have that six key component, which is all about the accountabilities and the discipline, it’s no good than just being on the whiteboard. Right? So the thought is how do you strengthen these six key components through the tools of the eyes?