Why Peer Accountability is the Secret to Scaling with EOS® for Small Business Owners

For the very small business owner with a team of three, five, or eight, the “Entrepreneurial Operating System” (EOS®) often feels like a beautiful suit that’s three sizes too big.

You read Traction. You’re inspired. You see the vision of a “Self-Running Company.” But then you look at your reality: You don’t have a full leadership team of four or five department heads. You have a handful of loyal “doers” who still need a lot of hand-holding. You are the Visionary, the Integrator, and the Head of Sales and client deliverer all at once.

When you try to self-implement EOS in this environment, it often falls apart or just simply scratches the surface. Not because the system is flawed, but because accountability is lonely at the top of a small hill.

Table of Contents

• The “Solopreneur Plus” Trap
• Why Peer Groups Succeed Where DIY Falls Short
• Here’s What Happens When Leaders Come Together
• From “Todo” Lists to Significance
• Conclusion: You Don’t Have to Do This Alone

The “Solopreneur Plus” Trap

Most entrepreneurs with fewer than 10 employees fall into what I call the “Solopreneur Plus” trap. You’ve graduated from being a one-person show, but you haven’t yet built the management layer or “core function seats” that Traction or the EOS® model lays out. 

At this stage, your business doesn’t run on processes; it runs on your personal energy. This leads to three common failure points:

1. An Infinite To-Do List: Everything feels like a priority, so nothing is. You build lists, you don’t cross off Rocks. Maybe you’re still weak on setting the right Rocks or setting them well.
2. A Delegation Dead-End: You feel you can’t rely on your team, so you “just do it yourself,” which keeps the team from growing and just stalls your progress.
3. The Echo Chamber: When you’re the only one “implementing,” there is no one to call you out when you skip your Weekly Pulse or move a Rock deadline for the third time.

Why Peer Groups Succeed Where DIY Falls short

Peer groups, particularly L10-style meetings with founders in the same boat (i.e a group of peers) help the organizational framework work smoothly again. Why?

Radical Vulnerability (Without the Risk)

When you have a team of five employees, you often feel you have to have all the answers. You can’t go into an internal meeting and say, “I have no idea how to manage our cash flow this month.” In a peer group, that vulnerability is your greatest asset. When you realize everyone else is also struggling with delegation or time management, the “loneliness” of leadership evaporates. You aren’t just learning EOS®; you’re also learning how to be a CEO, leader and manager, and a strong operator. This is hard.

The Power of the Peer L10 and Get Focused™

There is something magical about the Level 10 meeting™ format when applied to a peer group.

• The Scorecard: Reporting your numbers to peers adds a healthy layer of “positive social pressure.” It’s one thing to let yourself down; it’s another to show up to your group and admit you didn’t hit your measurables again.
• Peer IDS (Identify, Discuss, Solve): This is where the magic happens. A founder in the construction industry might have the exact solution for a marketing agency owner’s hiring headache. You get out of your industry silo and see your problems through fresh eyes.

I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs in the “messy middle” find their people and position themselves for growth. I started the Get Focused ™Peer Coaching model to make it easy for leaders to stop struggling alone, and get further, faster with their peers.

Here’s what happens when leaders come together

A successful attorney and boutique law practice is taking the leap to reduce client hours once and for all. She’s got 2-3 experts on deck, a handful of contract attorneys and she is making the decision to step out of client-work all together after 7 years of building her growing practice. 

We IDS’d, made decisions and mapped out a clear actionable plan to actually make this happen in a way that is both intentional and positive for everyone: the client, the attorney’s, the business and her. 

Also in the group is a physician, a little earlier in building his practice but ramping up to recruit and hire his first additional provider to add to the practice. His eyes perked up when this issue came up in IDS. Hiring and onboarding a new PA is one of his Rocks, but he hasn’t even been able to think about the decisions he’ll need to make regarding this new PA taking new patients and potentially transitioning some of his caseload to them. 

Hearing the group talk through his peer’s delegation plan was pure magic. He was not only learning and thinking about his own business, but he was also contributing by asking his peers additional questions on how they will handle ‘x’. It was brilliant: using the tools, practicing the disciplines and strengthening their skills as a leader, manager and operator in their business while learning and benefiting from a peer based approach. 

From “To do” Lists to Significance

The goal of peer accountability isn’t just to get more done; it’s to do the right things. Read that sentence again so it sinks in.

The entrepreneur struggling with time management doesn’t need a new calendar app. They need a coach-led peer group to look them in the eye and ask: “Is this task moving your business forward, or are you just staying busy to avoid the hard work of leading?”

When you combine the EOS framework, an easy to use EOS software platform like Strety and Peer Accountability, you stop “playing business” and start building your asset. You move from a state where you are the bottleneck to a state where your business has a predictable, repeatable pulse.

Conclusion: You Don’t Have to Do This Alone

If you have fewer than 10 employees and you’ve felt like EOS® is “too much” for you right now, you’re half right. It is too much to do alone.

But when you step into a room (or a Zoom) with other founders and small business owners who are navigating the same choppy waters, the structure of the L10 meeting and foundational tools like Rocks, Scorecards and IDSing becomes a lifeline. You gain the clarity of a veteran CEO and the support of a team, even if you’re still a “team of one” at the leadership level. It’s time to stop building lists and start building a company.