Our CEO Brian Dosal read Traction in 2016 and self-implemented EOS at BrightGauge through the company’s exit. He kept self-implementing when he started Strety. That’s roughly a decade of running on EOS with no outside facilitator in the room.
Earlier this year, he hired one — our Implementer Lisa González.
We sat them both down for a live conversation about that decision — what self-implementing got right, what quietly slipped through the cracks for ten years, and what’s changed since Lisa joined the room 👇
Table of Contents
- Watch the conversation
- What self-implementing EOS got right
- What slipped through the cracks anyway
- What Brian would tell his younger self
- So should you hire an Implementer?
- Watch the full conversation
Watch the conversation
A 38-minute live session — short enough to put on over lunch — recorded May 13, 2026 with:
- Brian Dosal — CEO and co-founder of Strety, self-implemented EOS at BrightGauge and Strety for 10+ years
- Lisa González — EOS Implementer based in Denver, co-author of Process!, and Strety’s Implementer
- Samantha Ngo — (me!) host, Head of Marketing at Strety
We cover what self-implementing got right at both companies, where it broke down, and what’s changed since Lisa came into the room.
Below is the short version of what stood out — but the full conversation is worth the lunch break.
What self-implementing actually got right
Brian is the first to say self-implementation can work. He pointed to three things he and his teams nailed without an Implementer:
- Right people, right seats. Hiring against shared core values and using GWC as a real filter, not a poster on the wall.
- Sacred L10s. Same day, same time, every week. No skipping. No rescheduling around it.
- Team health. Honest conversations during IDS. Issues got named, not danced around.
If those three things are in place, you can get a long way self-implementing. Brian and his teams did.
What slipped through the cracks anyway
The interesting part of the conversation is everything Brian missed without realizing it.
He couldn’t fully participate in his own meetings. As the integrator, he was running quarterlies and annuals while also trying to be a participant. With Lisa facilitating, he gets to actually be in the room. His words: “I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.”
Long-range tools got skipped. The V/TO three-year picture and the accountability chart as a vision document — both got glossed over in startup mode for ten years. The team had been so heads-down on the next quarter that “what does this look like in three years” felt unanswerable. Working with Lisa forced the question. Brian described the result as a kind of calmness he hadn’t felt before, even at the previous company.
The Process Component was the biggest gap. Most self-implementers underestimate this one. Lisa, who co-authored Process!, has seen it across hundreds of teams — documenting processes feels like the work, but documentation is roughly 5% of the journey. The other 95% is simplifying, training, and getting the process into people’s hands so they actually use it.
A third party catches what you can’t. In one quarterly, Lisa flagged that the team was sitting in too many one-on-ones. Brian had been quietly aware of it for months. After that single conversation, two team members cut three one-on-ones each per week — six hours back, every week, indefinitely. That’s real money, surfaced by someone with no skin in the day-to-day.
What Brian would tell his younger self
Two things came up:
- Stop chasing EOS purity. Worrying about whether something is technically a Rock vs. an Issue vs. a Scorecard item is wasted mental energy. Get it down and move on.
- Use more of the tools, sooner. Clarity Breaks, Delegate and Elevate, the peripheral tools you skim past in the book — they earn their keep when you actually use them.
So should you hire an Implementer?
Lisa’s honest answer in the video: if you have the budget and the complexity (roughly 10-250 employees), yes — it’s worth investigating. If you don’t, Gino Wickman literally designed EOS so it could be self-implemented. You can do it. The EOS Academy, books, podcasts, and operator communities will get you a long way. And many Implementers will do a one- or two-day annual session if a full engagement isn’t in the budget yet.
We built Strety for both camps — operators self-implementing today, and teams working with an Implementer. The software gives you the structure and rhythm regardless of which path you’re on. Time for some marketing here 🙂 — if you want to try it, start a free 30-day trial (no credit card).
And if you’re weighing the decision more seriously, our deeper guide on self-implementing vs working with an Implementer walks through it in more detail.
Watch the full conversation
Brian and Lisa get into all of this above, plus a live Q&A on running L10s when you’re self-facilitating and building an accountability chart four years into EOS. 38 minutes — worth the lunch break.