Ever feel like your business is stuck in a frustrating loop? Effectively resolving business issues is the escape hatch, and Chris Davenport’s story is your guide. He’s not your typical guru. He’s a tech enthusiast who stumbled into entrepreneurship and then hit a wall at $10 million. Instead of giving up, he discovered EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and completely transformed his company. Chris delivers real-world strategies for building high-performing teams, making tough decisions with confidence, and fostering the kind of open communication that actually gets results. If you’re ready to break free from the plateau and finally unlock the growth your business deserves, dive into this episode.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Chris Davenport – Unlocking Success: Step By Step Strategies For Resolving Business Issues

Welcome to the show where we are exploring unlocking success, step-by-step strategies for resolving business issues with none other than Chris Davenport. Known as The Wolf for his keen problem-solving skills, Chris is a renowned Executive Coach and visionary entrepreneur. His journey from spearheading 3i International to achieving staggering revenue growths and facilitating the company’s high-stakes sale has cemented his reputation as a master strategist.

Chris brings his rich experience in technology and strategic management to the forefront, mentoring CEOs and leaders to streamline their operations and drive sustainable growth. His approach combines cutting-edge technologies with the finesse of emotional intelligence and accountability. Join us as Chris shares his proven strategies and insights on transforming business challenges into success stories.

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Chris, welcome to the show.

How are you doing?

How Chris Davenport Got Into Helping Leaders

Doing great. The first thing we typically do in these conversations is dig in and have the audience learn a little bit more about you, what drives your passion, and why you serve the people you do. Do you mind telling us a little about your backstory and how you got into this business of helping leaders?

I have been a lifelong entrepreneur. I started my journey by accident. I fell into the technology space and fell in love with technology, but didn’t know much about business at the time, and this was right during my college years. As I went along and along the way, I learned several tests and failures, as you can imagine, but the neat thing was that because I worked with small and mid-size businesses, I learned a ton from the leaders of those companies, some by accident.

My ears would perk up and listen when you hear some gold that these older people are sharing, that started their businesses many years ago, and a lot of that stuck with me. I found that spending that extra time listening, I applied that to my own business, started to grow, took advice from these people. It helped me recognize how important people are in relations are in business and in your personal life.

Staying on the topic of business right now, it became so important on so many levels, knowing these people and seeing what they have gone through, and they are sharing their success and failures and how they got there. I started to put things together, grew my own company, and ended up starting a partnership with a colleague.

Him and I grew a technology company. We grew to, let’s say, twenty employees, and we got stuck. We hit the ceiling at around $10 million in revenue, and we started any problem we had. We had very fast growth. Any issue we had, it was magnified. We felt like an ant under that magnifying glass in the summertime. I used to play with them as a kid. It was not a pleasant feeling.

 

We went out to figure out what to do, and that’s when we found a system called EOS, which stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System, and it changed my life. It changed our company. It is a very simple set of tools that, when implemented properly, helps you break through the ceiling and get unstuck. We went from pulling our hair out, everybody’s going in different directions to, two years after that, everything started to align and we all started rowing in the same direction.

We continued to grow. We got to about 35 employees. I enjoyed EOS so much, I was able to step out of the business to start coaching for friends and other companies that had heard of me through word of mouth. I started helping them on their EOS journey because my passion is helping people be their best at what they do professionally. It was a great alignment with my core values.

I continued on that journey. I ended up getting an offer for the business my partner and I decided to sell, and then I started to pursue EOS and coaching full-time at that time. I still have some projects that I work on here and there, but my focus since then has been implementing for companies and helping them break through the ceiling, helping them solve problems, and trying to be a good advocate for them when they have an issue that they don’t know what to do with, I’m there for that as well.

Therein lies the root of our conversation in this episode, the techniques to help leaders break through that ceiling, ensure that they can understand a particular problem, scope it and get beyond it. I’m excited to dive into that with you. I imagine you’ll be bringing up some of the EOS toolkit and some of those details.

I look forward to jumping into it. Every business has problems. I don’t know if it’s a wive’s tale, but there are no more than 137 different issues in business, but we have all seen them all.

Overcoming Common Challenges Faced By New Entrepreneurs

Is there a particular area where new entrepreneurs get stuck? What was the first sticky place that they found themselves getting into?

There are a couple of areas that come to mind. I’m going to share the first one. They say yes to too many things, and that becomes a problem in itself. When you say yes, a lot of success breeds a lot of overhead and a little success breeds a lot of overhead and that’s in one area. Another area is they don’t find the right people to get into the boat with them. It’s tough to find the right people, and I don’t think it’s because they don’t want the right people. It’s because sometimes, when you start something, the people around you don’t continue to grow with you. Sometimes, you have to make that hard decision to find new people to help you grow. Those are issues that come up frequently with people starting up there.

Saying yes to too many things, getting outside your wheelhouse, not focusing on your niche, and things like this, it seems to be all part of that first equation. Is that right?

It is, and to go deeper into that, one problem that EOS helps entrepreneurs with is getting that focus on where they are going and how they are going to get there. As entrepreneurs, most of us see an opportunity and we are like a squirrel. We are going to run after it, and that’s not always the best thing. Squirrels find a bunch of nuts and hide them. They don’t know where they hid them out there. The other squirrels are stealing their nuts. They don’t even know what they did with them.

It’s similar to ideas entrepreneurs have that come out of their heads. They are chasing stuff all around, which causes more issues, so their focus, instead of being like a laser beam on a single point, is a small amount of energy that makes a huge difference. Versus the sun shines on the earth 8 to 10 hours a day, depending on where you are at, and you might get a little sunburn. It’s important to keep them focused and that’s something that we work on. That is one of the first tools that we work on together to get them to achieve that focus.

It's tough to find the right people, and it's not because companies don't want the right people. It's because sometimes, when you start something, the people around you don't continue to grow with you. Share on X

Identifying The Root Cause Of Business Issues

I imagine you come into situations where an entrepreneur comes your way and they are thinking, “This is too hard. Something’s wrong here. I don’t know what it is, but I’m doing something wrong. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” and they reach out for help. What is the process that is used to identify the problem, the root cause of the problem that they are experiencing?

They come to me, and they think things have gotten too hard. What I like to do in that situation is start to sift out what’s happening, and it is part of the problem-solving framework that I use naturally. Getting to the root of the issue, or it could be, in some cases, this makes it even more difficult, it’s more than one issue. A lot of times we don’t recognize that when we are in the problem. We think, “I have got a problem,” but it’s a lot harder when it’s more than one issue.

What I do is start to talk to them, and I use a mirroring approach. To get them to think I mirror back what they are saying to me. It’s a technique that Chris Voss shares in one of his books. It’s Never Split the Difference, and a great book. It helps people. When you reflect back to them the things they are saying, it helps them go deeper in those scenarios and problems to where you are getting down further towards the root of things because we are emotional beings.

We want to share with each other how we feel and how things “make us feel” when the reality is that the feelings we have are something that we have made up in our head and that we have decided, we have chosen to exert those feelings outward. It’s difficult, though, for us, even me sometimes, to recognize this in the moment. I go through a process to get them to reprocess what’s happening and share more information so we can get more data and get down to the baseline issue.

From there, we argue for both sides of it. Is there evidence to support what’s going on, what you are seeing? Is there evidence against it? After us, as humans, see that, it’s like being in a courtroom. It’s not a feeling like, “I feel this. I think this.” It’s more like, “I saw this. I’m seeing these things happen,” and that’s the evidence versus, “I feel.”

“I feel like the sales team is underperforming.” “How do you know?” “I don’t feel like they are on the same bus as I am.” “Then what are the numbers?” “I don’t know. That’s a place to start. How much are you spending on marketing?” Those questions and you start to get down to the root may, in fact, be that they are not getting enough leads, or you are in the wrong target market.

It’s taking a data-driven approach to understand what the problem is. If they are not tracking metrics, identify the correct metrics that can identify the problem or bring some clarity.

They need to be tracking those 5 to 15 metrics. This is an exercise I take them through. Imagine yourself on a deserted island, sitting there in a chair looking out at the ocean, and the waiter comes and brings you a drink. He hands you that drink, and in addition to that drink, he hands you a piece of paper. What would need to be on that piece of paper for you to know at a quick glance how good or bad your business is performing at any given time?

That’s the jumping-off part, and then I have recommendations and thoughts that I share along the way. Removing yourself from the business thinking, “I’m not there. I don’t have a phone, I don’t have a computer, what would I need to see?” Those metrics become what the focus is and those help solve problems because when you see things are on, it’s great. If they are off, then it’s treated like a fire alarm, and we need to see why and get down into that number to see what’s going on there.

Creating a dashboard of metrics that the leader can look at from, is there a particular review time? This is not an annual process. I imagine this is quarterly, monthly, or something like this. What’s the best frequency?

What I feel the best frequency and EOS recommends as well, is to have thirteen weeks at a glance. You are basically looking at a quarter. Each week, the metric is updated, and there’s one person accountable to each metric. There’s accountability, and you are looking at things at a glance a quarter back, which helps you become a better predictor and break through the ceiling in future problems. That’s what I recommend.

It’s trailing three-month averages over to forecast the future of that metric?

Yes. If I look back over three months of data, I should be in a good position to make an educated guess about what’s going to happen next week, the next two weeks, or next month.

We went through that trend analysis, identifying problems and points of concern before they become a problem.

As you have these metrics, you also have what the metrics should be. Let’s say it’s marketing leads, and we need a minimum of marketing leads of ten a week. If it’s ten or more, great. If it’s nine or less, then that’s a fire alarm. The bells go off, and then it gets you to start to go through a process called IDS, which is identifying the issue. “Our marketing lead number is off this week,” and then you discuss it. “Why do we think it’s off? Does anybody have any ideas of what to do to correct it? What is the issue here so we can start to dive in order to get to a solution and a place where we can solve the issue?”

Attracting And Retaining Top Talent In Business

Identify, discuss, and then solve ideas. You could say that most of the people who join us on this show and read this show are founders, entrepreneurs of companies and are specifically focused around creating workplaces that attract the best talent. They can retain their top performers and motivate their staff overall.

One thing that you mentioned when we talked about some of the most common problems that businesses have is that one of those is to make sure that you get the right people in the boat with you. Attracting that critical talent and retaining that talent and keeping them motivated long-term. What do you typically see in small to medium-sized companies around that? What are the typical problems that you are seeing, and what are some of the ways that you can help them solve those issues?

There was a survey that said 72% of companies are experiencing people issues. I don’t remember where that number came from, but it certainly resonated with me. People is 1 of the 6 main components of EOS. There’s a lot of tools behind that. When you see a healthy, cohesive leadership team, a leadership team that meets regularly, communicates well and leaves the planning meeting on the same page, has a unified front and communicate their vision clearly regularly to their people. When the managers of the people they lead based on the core values of the company and make sure that everyone is living up to those core values as and as best as they can.

That’s a great start because of a lot of the complaints I have, I have hired and worked with thousands of people over the years in my business and in other companies that I have worked with. When people don’t know the direction, don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, or act like they are not happy people at work.

You need to have high trust among your leaders. If there's a trust issue, someone will be afraid to share a problem or afraid to share a solution. Share on X

When you give people a direction where the company’s going, you give them something, they can be accountable for a scorecard of their own, and that’s how they are contributing to that vision. It’s like magic. It makes for happy employees. The other thing it does on the flip side is that sometimes people don’t fit culture-wise. It’s made to have those issues fall out quickly so we can get that person out of the organization, and there’s probably a great fit for them somewhere, but it’s not here.

Identify that quickly because when there’s someone working against the grain, it causes strife among everyone on their team. There’s usually a sigh of relief. I had a customer. They were in my session room. There was somebody on the leadership team and quarter after quarter, they weren’t hitting and they didn’t fit with the core values.

They ended up leaving the company, and everybody sighed with relief when that person was gone. They liked him as a person. They tried and they put all of the effort forth, but when it’s not a match, it makes everyone unhappy. To wrap it up, it helps to communicate regularly, have a unified front, and make sure people know their place, the vision, and the plan so they feel like they are part of something, which drives people. That makes for happy workers.

Clarifying Company Goals And Values For 2025

We are embarking on a new year here. How should companies clarify this message? Let’s say that we have a reader who is a leader that’s reading saying, “Here’s 2025 and we haven’t gotten around to doing some clear planning, reestablishing our values and direction for the year.” What are the first steps that leaders should do to get back on the rails there?

I would recommend EOS, but if not EOS, I’d recommend picking a system. You have to have a system to run your business on. EOS is defined in a book called Traction that Gino Wickman authored. It’s a great read. I would recommend starting there and listening to the different pieces of what is recommended to do, but getting in a room with your leaders and determining and agreeing upon where you are going this year. What market are you targeting? Why do you exist as a company? What are our core values?

As a leader, don't solve issues in a vacuum. Use your team to identify them because they may see things differently and have more credible information. Share on X

We all need to agree, “We are going to measure our people against these core values to make sure they are living up to them and help them.” When they fall below, try and help them up to live to them. Tell them why. Typically, they come around. I would recommend that they disappear for a day with your team. Do that. Do some team building exercise after to build that team trust and that will be a good start to the year for them.

Ensuring Individual Accountability In Company Goals

The company’s gone out and they have reestablished. They say, “These are our core values. This is the reason why we exist and what we are trying to achieve as an organization.” Putting together some high-level goals for the organization and for that particular year. You mentioned specifically ensuring that people are accountable for their own metric. How do we take those overall vision, their why, and the general goals for the company, and boil it down to individual accountability?

It’s best when you are working with someone that knows EOS. If it were me to help you fill out these tools and implement these different pieces, assuming you have that, what’s going to happen? It’s probably similar with non EOS systems as well. The leadership team is going to determine the different levers of the business that need to be measured in order to know when something’s turned on.

It increases profits. If something is turned off, it causes issues. Determining what those metrics are, assigning those metrics to an individual. There should be not too many per individual, and make sure that the roles and the accountability chart match the different metrics that you are assigning the people to. It makes sense.

For example, someone in procurement is not getting a marketing-related metric, making it match up properly, then communicating to the individuals throughout the organization, “We have determined as a leadership team that these are the markers that we need to measure. You are responsible for inbound leads.” Let’s say inbound Google leads. “You are responsible for managing that, and we need a minimum of ten per week,” and that’s what they are measured on. Each week, they are held accountable by measuring how they did and bringing up issues when they fall short and celebrating wins when you know when things go well.

One of the things that a lot of business owners have a problem with in goal setting is that there are a lot of goals out there that are more vanity metrics versus goals that matter. In your opinion, how does a leader define what goals matter in their business?

There’s an exercise that we take them through to determine. It’s them doing the work. I’m helping them get there. The answer is always in the room, and someone on the leadership team is going to know what the most important goal is to go after. I know what you mean by vanity goals. Some goals that you have to back into it and determine are this goal or metric and how is this going to affect the bottom line?

If it’s a vanity metric, you’ll quickly find out, “If we are doing one article a week in Forbes Magazine, does it move our numbers?” Most businesses, probably not. If you are going after private equity money, yes. That’s something you’d want to do, but you have to determine how it is going to impact what we are doing on a regular basis. How is it going to impact our output and our profit in the long run? Is it worth the investment or not?

Top Leadership Insights For Success And Growth

The main core of our conversation here is to solve problems or have leaders identify what the issues are, understand how to remove the emotion from that issue and to find ways to solve it effectively. In our conversation, we talked about many things, from goals and so forth on this. What are the top things that you want our readers to walk away with from this discussion?

I’d like to point out, again, that for the sake of solving problems, you should have an operating system for your business. It gives the space for the air for the problems to have in order to get solved. That’s step one. A lot of people don’t even take the time to meet regularly. A lot of meetings are one-sided or me sharing information with you. Let’s say if we are in a meeting, that’s one-sided versus having a true meeting where you are trying to solve problems is a collaborative effort of assuming the leadership team here, that everyone’s involved in solving the problem and bringing up problems. When you start to get strong in EOS, the problems start to fall out, and having a place for them is first.

The next is you need to have a high trust among your leaders. You need to work on trust-building. If there’s a trust issue there, somebody’s going to be afraid to share a problem or they may be afraid to share a solution. These are groundwork things that some people take for granted because they have them, but a lot of companies I see they don’t have that yet.

I am in this position. I have to meet people where they are. That’s a baseline of things you need in order to start effectively solving problems. From there, you need to do some work instead of focusing on the emotion or the feeling that you are experiencing as an individual. When you are in a problem, it’s very easy to default to that. I would encourage them to do some work at pausing and taking a second to dissect the problem and think, “My reaction is I’m angry. The numbers are off and people aren’t doing anything.” That’s probably not true.

You need to take a moment and to start to write down your thoughts and get down to, “What are the people doing? What’s the evidence against my thought? What are the people not doing? Then evidence to support my thought.” Make sure that these pieces of evidence, imagine yourself in a court and the judge is going to call you out. If it’s hearsay, if it’s made up, they are going to call you out. Treat yourself the same way. Make sure it’s real.

Once you start to do that, the real issue that you can start to focus on will come out of that. I know some of this is philosophical, but it works. It helps to get to that real issue. Once you’ve built the space, have the team trust. You can start to solve those issues together as a team. We all know 5 brains are better than 1 if you say your team has 5 people on it. The last thing I would say is make sure you are not solving these issues in a vacuum. You need to be using your team to identify that issue because they could see it differently than you and may have more credible information than you do. That’s what I would recommend.

Choosing The Right Operating System For Your Business

A lot of our readers are probably thinking, “Geez.” The first thing that you mentioned is to have an operating system. Some may say, “I went to business school, but I don’t know what operating system. We have SOPs here and there and so forth.” When we think of EOS, what types of companies are best suited for an industry size?

It’s industry agnostic. Size, anywhere from 5 to 200 employees up to around $150 million in revenue. I have seen it work for smaller startups if they know EOS and they love it already, and they are starting something new. It continues to work for larger companies that started with EOS. I know a company that’s grown to $ 500 million in revenue and they are still on EOS.

That’s the demographic. The psychographic pieces are they have to be more afraid of the status quo, and they want to be than they are of change. They have to be open to change because they are hitting the ceiling for a reason, and something needs to change. Also, willing to have uncomfortable conversations with each other and it’ll be okay.

They are willing to build a high-trust relationship with their team members and willing to be unified in going forward with what the leadership team decided. If there was one dissent, unlike the Supreme Court, that doesn’t come out. It stays in that room, and when you leave there, we are on the same page, and that’s the psychographic piece of EOS.

Thank you for that. For those who are interested in learning more about EOS and what’s involved there, what should they do?

I have a website. It’s CHD2.com. On there, I offer a free 90-minute meeting. It’s an educational meeting on EOS to see if it’s a fit for you or not. There’s also EOSWorldwide.com, which is EOS’s site. I’d highly recommend reading the book by Gino Wickman called Traction. He’s written several, but that’s the one to start with.

Thank you so much, Chris, for your time. It was great to go through this problem-solving discussion and talk about goals and everything to ensure that those leaders out there who are a bit lost find a way to get back on track. Thank you for your time.

Thanks. I enjoyed it.

To everyone, we’ll see you in the next episode. Take care, everyone.

 

Important Links

• Chris Davenport
• Never Split the Difference
• Traction
• EOS Worldwide

 

About Chris Davenport

Chris Davenport is a seasoned entrepreneur and certified EOS Implementer® based in Houston, Texas, with a passion for helping business owners navigate the complexities of starting, growing, and managing successful enterprises. With nearly three decades of experience, Chris has empowered thousands to leverage technology effectively, ensuring it serves as a tool for success rather than a source of frustration.

In 2012, Chris founded a technology company that has thrived under his leadership, providing exceptional service that demystifies technology and streamlines systems for businesses. Recognizing the critical role of structured guidance in business success, he became a certified EOS Implementer®, offering coaching and mentorship anchored in best practices to help organizations achieve their goals.

Chris’s journey has been marked by both triumphs and challenges, providing him with a profound understanding of the cyclical nature of business and the importance of resilience. He is dedicated to imparting this knowledge to others, assisting leaders in developing emotional intelligence, fostering accountable systems, and uniting teams toward common objectives.

Beyond his professional endeavors, Chris is committed to giving back to the business community, helping others avoid the pitfalls he encountered and guiding them toward a path of sustainable success.