EOS Made Simple with Mark O'Donnell

Mark O’Donnell is a highly successful entrepreneur, CEO, and Expert EOS Implementer™. He is the current Visionary and CEO of EOS Worldwide. Named to the 2022 and 2023 Inc. 5000 as one of America’s fastest-growing companies, as well as to the 2022 Inaugural Inc. Power Partner list, EOS Worldwide has helped thousands of entrepreneurs all over the globe get everything they want from their businesses.

Mark has also served as Head Coach for the company. He has helped more than 100 companies achieve their goals and get what they want from their businesses.

As a serial entrepreneur, Mark has founded and sold multiple successful businesses. His passion for helping people live their ideal lives led him to his current mission of assisting 1,000,000 people with tools like those found in the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®).

Mark is a lifelong learner and an alumnus of Albright College, Northeastern University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives outside Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, mother-in-law, three children, and his one-hundred-pound dog, Blue.

A Few Quotes From This Episode

• “What gets measured gets done. What gets measured and reported goes exponential.”
• “Speaking a common language is part of getting all that human energy rowing in the same direction.”
• “It’s just a very simple, proven system.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode 

• Data: Harness Your Numbers to Go from Uncertain to Unstoppable by O'Donnell & others
• People: Dare to Build an Intentional Culture by O'Donnell & others
• Issues: Remove Friction, Fast Track Your Growth, and Ignite Your Greatness by O'Donnell & others

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. 

About  Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: Practical Wisdom for Leaders
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

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Transcript

Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody, welcome to the podcast. I have Mark O'Donnell today and really excited for this conversation. We're gonna focus our time on a topic that we have not discussed on this podcast. Amazingly, and I have learned so much from this gentleman over the last year, as we have built a little bit of an online relationship on LinkedIn.

And so Mark, we are gonna hone in on EOS today. What I would love for you to do. Is just introduce yourself a little bit and then we're gonna jump into, okay, let's define EOS for folks, but let's learn a little bit about you, sir. Thank you for being here. 

Mark O'Donnell: Yeah, thanks for having me, Scott. Yeah, so I started my career as an engineer at big Pharma and at Johnson and Johnson.

And so I, that's where I learned how to be a professional and I really got to the point where I was pretty darn bored, honestly. It was very, big company bureaucratic, and I loved building big projects. But once the [00:01:00] investments started to slow down, we're going into maintenance mode. I got really bored and so my brother.

Made me start a company. He was also an engineer and he's Hey, you need to start your own entrepreneurial venture and I'm gonna join you. And so we did. So we started an engineering consulting business in 2007. 

Scott Allen: Nice. 

Mark O'Donnell: We grew that really fast from the two of us. To 23 people in six months and two years later we had about 50 employees.

This is 2008, 2009. So we did this during a recession, but we didn't really know any better. And I think entrepreneurs have this sort of, this combination of ignorance and ego, like you're dumb enough to think you can, and you have the ego to sustain you through all the hard points. So we started that company.

We caught the entrepreneurial bug and we ended up starting 23 total companies. Nine of them made it, it was okay. Success rate we made the Inc 500, [00:02:00] 5,004 times with multiple companies at. At the same time. Nice. 13 times total. And we just really loved the business, but we were succeeding in spite of ourselves.

And we came to the point where we needed to figure out a system to run these nine companies, and it was just. Total mayhem, total chaos all the time. You just couldn't make some of the stuff up that we dealt with these companies. And so we found EOS EOS is the entrepreneurial operating system.

And when I first read the book and I went to grad school I got my, I went to business school. I was just been a lifelong learner. I joined a lot of peer groups and really nothing seemed to stick. I was the famous flavor of the month person. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, 

Mark O'Donnell: I'd come in, I'd read the book, I'd come into my team and we didn't 

Scott Allen: have crucial conversations.

You all? Yeah. Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: Oh, 100%. That was probably one of 'em, the ultimate sales machine, whatever it might've been [00:03:00] Rockefeller Habits. I read the Men Who Built America and I got obsessed with. Rockefeller, I we're gonna go do everything Rockefeller did, but then my team would just roll their eyes, right?

Because then the day you all knew the next month I'd have a new book, a new concept, and I would forget about the one that I learned the previous month. And so when I and my brother actually sent me the book Traction by Gino Wickman, and I first read it and I was like, oh, this is every single book that I've read with templates.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: As an engineer you gotta love templates. You just like, why start everything from scratch? You gotta start and build off someone else's stuff. 

Scott Allen: There's a system here. I like this. Yes, 

Mark O'Donnell: there's a system, right? It's an en engineering kind of approach to running a business. I started self implementing those tools into my companies and I wanted to know more.

I'm, again, just voracious learner, dug into the community that powers EOS and went to what? EOS calls bootcamp. And so that is to train, to become an [00:04:00] EOS implementer. But I didn't know it at the time. I just thought they were gonna teach me more about EOS, I, so I just said, let's go do this.

And I fell in love with the community, the culture, the core values. I've never really experienced a place that just, for lack of a better term, reeks of culture, reeks of core values. It was just so consistent, 

Scott Allen: yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: Across the board. And they were really living it out in the world. So I just fell in love with it.

I decided I would use those tools to exit the day-to-day of my nine companies. And so over the course of a year, I ended up exiting the day-to-day of those businesses and I became an EOS implementer full-time. 

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Mark O'Donnell: Helping entrepreneurial leadership teams get everything they want from their business.

All the stuff that I got from my experience I wanted to share with the world. And from there. I decided to sell the companies and so we sold in 2018 to private equity. So [00:05:00] we sold those companies. One of 'em was a marketing company, so it didn't go along with the rest of them. 'Cause it was like one of these things does not look like the other.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: So we sold those businesses. I continued on as an EOS implementer working with about a hundred companies. Wow. And then I became head coach at ES worldwide helping other EOS implementers build their practices. And then in 2020 became visionary, CEO at EOS worldwide and have been in the seat ever since.

So that is the, that's the story. 

Scott Allen: That's the story. Tell us about EOS worldwide please. 

Mark O'Donnell: Sure. So EOS Worldwide was founded in 2000 by Gino Wickman, and he was a young entrepreneur. And he took over his family business, found that he was in the midst of a turnaround and he just really wanted to figure out the art and the science of running a truly great company.

Yeah. So he became obsessed with E-Myth by Michael [00:06:00] Gerber and all the different types of. Thought leaders, Jim Collins in Good To Great, and he started to cobble together a system to turn around his own business, which he did. And then ultimately he sold, but then he was one of the founding members of the Entrepreneurs Organization, the Detroit chapter, and he started helping other.

Other entrepreneurs in his community, they were getting great results. And in 2007, he decides to put it in the book Traction. 

Scott Allen: Okay. 

Mark O'Donnell: And so since then it's sold over a few million copies. We have the Traction Library, which is three and a half million copies sold. There's about 370,000 companies who are using our tools.

So they've downloaded the tools and they. Self implementing, if you will. Yeah. And then about 32,000 companies have hired an EOS implementer. Okay. EOS implementers, they come from the community of entrepreneurs because they follow that same. Passion, right? They're just like, oh I [00:07:00] can, I want to help people.

They see the impact and of course there's a business model behind that and we've got about 900 EOS implementers today, and we do business in about 172 countries. 

Scott Allen: Wow. Wow. Wow. I had no clue of kind of the size and the scope of this. And so give us some of the basics, if you would. Sure. What are some of the basics when you're talking with someone about adopting the system?

Walk me through that a little bit. 

Mark O'Donnell: Yeah. So ultimately what we do is, and what the system does is it helps an entrepreneur get everything they want from their business, from their entrepreneurial venture, whatever that might be. Yep. So it might be a revenue increases, it might be profit increase. It might be just going from working 80 hours a week down to.

A normal 40 or showing up to their kids' soccer [00:08:00] games and plays and concerts and things like that, that normal entrepreneurs often miss. I miss more than I am, proud to admit. Like I just, it's terrible. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: And so whatever they want. And so we help them implement this complete system with real world practical tools that ultimately help them do three things that we call vision, traction, and healthy.

Scott Allen: Okay. 

Mark O'Donnell: Vision is all about getting the entrepreneur and their leadership team 100% on the same page with their vision, where they're going and how they're gonna get there. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And then Traction is all about creating the discipline, the accountability, all the habits that are necessary to execute on every aspect of that vision.

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: Then finally is healthy, is creating really healthy, cohesive, and functional leadership teams, because let's face [00:09:00] it, leadership teams and teams in general, they don't get along very well all the time. So we really just get to the point where the entire team, it's usually three to eight people who are running a business that we focused, are focused on, which is a company of 10 to 250 employees.

That's our sweet spot. 

Scott Allen: Okay. 

Mark O'Donnell: Some are smaller, some are bigger. And we just get to the point where if they've got 30 people in their company, 20 people in their company, they're all seeing the same thing. They're all wanting the same thing. They've really mastered execution to make that vision a reality.

And they're moving forward as a really healthy, cohesive, fun-loving team, just loving each other and moving forward. So that's really what we do. In a nutshell, but there's a lot of tools in order for them to experience vision, traction, and healthy that we employ to help get them there, which we can go through.

Scott Allen: Yeah, and let's talk about that because there's a whole kind of language associated with this. There's, there is. There's [00:10:00] rocks and other stuff, right? Yeah. So talk a little bit about the language and how, because I, what I really love is in my consulting work, the organizations who have adopted this system and live this system, it just it seems to me it's almost as if there's a lot of gray.

And it makes it a little more black and white. It just makes things clearer and the clarity that this produces for those organizations and I think it can be taken to an extreme where it's extremely rigid, but I think in some ways that discipline to follow this system adds that clarity and just reduces the noise and helps us focus on the signal, is my impression.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Mark O'Donnell: That's exactly right. Gino, as he was designing this, he worked with, spent over a thousand session days with clients, testing all [00:11:00] the tools, and he's just pulling the levers to figure out. What makes that entrepreneurial leadership team smile and what makes them frown?

Yeah, really just pulling the levers and figuring out, and then simplifying and figuring out how to take, never thinking about what can I add, but what can I take away? And so it's just a very simple, proven system. I like to say that it's built on first principles where it's just like physics.

It just works. Every single time, no matter what company you're in, industry size, really, it doesn't, it does work at any size, but it's easier when there's fewer of you it's more fun for the implementer. But you know that, that is, it's just such a simple system. And part of that.

Building a truly great leadership team is you're speaking the same language. 

Oftentimes we go into companies and there's acronyms, there's ways of talking about things. Simple things like do we call it revenue generation or do we call it [00:12:00] sales? Do we call it business development? Do we call it lead?

Demand gen or, so like people talk about things in all sorts of different ways. And so if you can visualize what we're doing is you have, all the humans in the business are a bunch of balls of energy, right? Yep. And they're arrows, they're pointing in a some direction and usually all the arrows are pointing in lots of different directions.

Yeah. So our job is to get all the arrows pointing in one direction. And so speaking a common language. Is part of getting all that human energy rowing in the same direction. Because when you can do that, you become a really powerful organization and you can get a lot done. And so that, that's what we're doing there and speaking the common language is really part of that.

And we can go into the six key components of what a truly great organization looks like, if you like. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, let's do that. 

Mark O'Donnell: So EOS really stems from a discovery, and the discovery [00:13:00] is that entrepreneurial organizations and truly any organization, whether it's a nonprofit, we work with churches, we work with state and local governments and governor's, mansions.

Anytime that there is a group of people who are coming together to accomplish some. Goal, some objective. These tools work because again, they're based in first principles, so the discovery was that these teams struggle with 136 issues in the day in the life of a business. In other words, there's just a ton going on.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: And. To the degree then that we can simplify those 136 things and strengthen the six key components of the business. Those things start to melt away. Those issues start to just disappear, and you don't have to worry about them. You just mentioned signal versus noise, right? Yep. So what's the signal?

And so those six things are a weakness in vision. So they [00:14:00] don't have their vision documented. They don't have it shared by everyone in the organization. They don't have the right people in the right seats. 

Scott Allen: Little Collins there, 

Mark O'Donnell: little Collins there. And then they don't have really good data where they're not measuring metrics, they're not measuring by scorecards.

Everyone in the business doesn't necessarily have a number that they're accountable to deliver to the business. Each week. They don't know how to solve their issues at the root, so they go away forever. And so they end up. Being emotional. They and everything is personal and they don't really have the discipline to solve issues at the root.

So they go away forever. And oftentimes they don't even have the open and honest culture that allows them to just put every issue on a list and deal with them one at a time. So they're hidden. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: They don't have their processes documented and followed by all. And so every new project, every time they do something is like the first time they've ever [00:15:00] done it.

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And so it's not consistent, it's not efficient. And so then the last is they don't gain traction. We see the stats that 96% of all strategic plans go unexecuted, and that's really because they don't have the. Discipline of execution. And so you do that. They don't have great meetings. They don't set rocks, 90 day priorities.

And if they do have 90 day priorities, they have 40 of 'em. And of course then none of 'em get done. And so we just systematically through the tools, strengthen that vision component. We answer eight questions, what are your core values? What is your core focus? What is your 10 year target? What is your marketing strategy?

What is your three year picture? What is your one year plan? What are your quarterly rocks? And then what are your long term issues? And then we get. That shared by everyone in the business, right? So we'll use a 20 person where we can ask the person who, if you're a plumbing company, the.

[00:16:00] Plumbers helper, what are our core values? And he or she can just rattle them off and they know them, top to bottom, 20 out of 20. And then with those right people, they're the people who share your core values, you're building that culture with intent, and they're in the right seat. They get want and have the capacity to do those jobs really well.

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: You've got a scorecard at the leadership team and every person has a number. You have a clear issues list and you have the discipline of what we call IDS to identify, discuss, and solve those issues at the root, so they go away forever. And then all of their core processes, the 2080 rule, the 20% that produce 80% are documented.

And they're followed by all. So everyone is doing it your way, the right and best way each and every time. And then everyone is in a great meeting every week. You're reviewing your priorities, you're making sure your numbers are on track, you're making sure your people are happy. You've got accountability with a seven day to-do list, and you are [00:17:00] solving those issues at the root, and that's where you spend half your time is getting the off track things on track.

You know what a concept. And then having those rocks with 90 day priorities, three to seven things that the entire business is focused on for the quarter, which of course is feeding into that one year plan, to that three year picture, to that 10 year target. And so there's lots of, there's a few other tools, but really that's the core tool.

That's 80% of the battle when we're working with these companies to install and implement these habits and disciplines so they can ultimately get where they want to go. 

Scott Allen: Love it. A couple things stand out. Have you ever done that activity live with a group of humans where you ask everyone in the room to point north.

Mark O'Donnell: That, when you ask that it's gonna be the human energy model before you know they're aligned. 

Scott Allen: It is so beautiful. Mark, so never forget this. Just go in the room. Use your watch or your phone to figure out what direction North is. Go [00:18:00] ahead and ask, as I open up, I'll oftentimes say, okay, everyone go ahead and just go ahead and close your eyes and point North.

And of course the whole room is pointing different directions. Some people are pointing straight up and it's just hilarious. And you just have them open their eyes. And I'll often say, doesn't that often feel like organizational life?

Mark O'Donnell: Oh, for sure. 

Scott Allen: And then we love it.

I say, and everyone laughs. It's a great little intro. And we actually I, I say, look, I'm gonna try and get us pointing north on a couple things today. So it's hilarious because then you do it at the end and you've told them which direction North is, I, after that first little point.

You say, okay, everyone close your eyes point north and it's so hilarious. 'cause 98% of the folks in the room are point in the right direction. But there's always one person who's still just pointing in the ion. And I always walk over to that person and I say. We're not gonna get everyone. 

Mark O'Donnell: Oh, that's amazing.

That is a great facilitation. Love 

Scott Allen: that. Yeah. Yeah it's a great activity and it always makes a really nice point. So a couple things that I'd like [00:19:00] to just dive a little bit deeper on this. Everyone has a number. I really like this because I think so often in organizational life for so many different just interesting psychological reasons, we don't clarify.

What that number is. I see it happening with boards who are overseeing a nonprofit, and I've witnessed executive directors exist for years by never really pinning that down, never really making that clear, always presenting some other version of kind of what the data is showing and just it's smoke and mirrors and it's fascinating to watch.

So this whole notion of everyone has a number, would you talk a little bit about that? 

Mark O'Donnell: Yeah, sure. And oftentimes we some are, some people are obvious, right? And yeah. And most of this, if you think about. We call it the accountability chart. Others call it an organizational chart, but this is the org chart on steroids where we've identified all the seats in the [00:20:00] business.

We've got five bullet points or so that describe what we expect and what that person is accountable for. And so when we think about that, if we did that in our fictional 20 person company and we have all these seats, everyone understands what it is they're accountable for. That's really the first step because everyone has a number not knowing what you're accountable for.

That doesn't really work very well, right? Yep. So we start there and then we say, okay, so out of these five bullet points or so, how can we measure the output? And oftentimes we'll hear I don't know how do I measure a forklift driver? 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: If you can't measure them, then they clearly aren't needed.

They're, they don't need to be here. 

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Mark O'Donnell: And then all of a sudden they're like, oh I guess let's start with, they need to be, they need to show up to work. Yep. Cool. We can measure that, right? They're here or they're not. That's a, one or a zero, if you will. And then if they only moved one pallet for the whole day is that good?

No, that would be terrible. Okay. Then you start to [00:21:00] work your way back. Okay. So they need to show up, they need to work an entire shift, and they need to ultimately have everything where it belongs by the end of the day. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So can we measure that? Sure, because everything's dropped off on the dock, and when the dock is clear, they're good.

Okay? So their number is nothing on the dock, zero pallets on the dock. Okay? We can measure that. And so if you think through that, what happens is it becomes a little bit of a game. And people start to be competitive with themselves. And so if it's a sales call organization, they make a bunch of sales calls, maybe their quota for the day is eight and they keep hitting eight.

They're like, I bet I could do 10. All right, then they start doing 10. And so you end up having this self competitive. Team, competitive team to team competitive, and ultimately the business starts to grow and take the benefit [00:22:00] and everyone is benefiting, of course, from that activity. And so it's really important.

You can measure just about anything. And if you come to the conclusion that there's nothing I need this person to do for me. Then you've just overhired or the business shifted and so that person's not gonna be happy in a seat that they can't be measured on and win. Everybody wants to win.

And so that's really how we think about that. We reverse engineering their. Accountability and what we expect of them. And then we put those numbers on a weekly scorecard because what gets measured gets done. I think everybody agrees to that mostly. And then what gets measured and reported goes exponential.

Scott Allen: Yep. There's 

Mark O'Donnell: lots of great stories with, Bethlehem Steel with running heats from shift to shift. And, they would have these com, these competitive games between the shifts and it just works. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. Yeah. As we [00:23:00] begin to wind down our time together today. Sure. I want you to talk about the people side of all of this.

I love the fact that we have the system and we have the structure talk about people in this whole talk about leadership in this whole conversation. I think listeners will be interested in that side of the conversation as well. 

Mark O'Donnell: Yeah. And a few years ago I wrote the book called People.

Yeah. Dare To Build An Intentional Culture, and it really says it most in the subtitle, right? Dare to Build. Why did I say Dare to Build an Intentional Culture? When we wrote that book, it was really about the observation that in order to. Build a great company with people who love working there, who you're building this culture that you just want, are excited to go into work every day and that everyone else is too, is it takes a tremendous amount of courage.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: We [00:24:00] see leaders really ignoring the tough conversations. You mentioned crucial conversations, those types of very difficult leadership activities. These aren't moments that you get taught in school. I went to a lot of school and I think you did too. And it's one thing to understand the theoretical nature of the burden of leadership, but then to experience that burden, it's a heavy lift.

And sometimes we just want to ignore the people issues. We want to bury them. Oh it won't do much of an impact. Like I know they can't do the job. I know that they don't fit our culture perfectly in some cases. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And so you've gotta make those hard choices as fast as you possibly can. When we do this work, we see the two major people issues.

There's four total. One is you have the right person, they share your core values, but they're in the wrong seat. You just love them. Yep. But they can't do the job. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And [00:25:00] so ultimately. You have other seats in the organization, so maybe you can move them around to find a great fit for them where they can flourish.

And then the other issue you get is someone who crushes their numbers. They're just such a high performer, but they don't share your culture and they become very toxic. There's this cancer in your organization. They're the sinkhole of negative energy. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And. I'll convince you that you've gotta do everyone around you will be happier.

And ultimately, I've never seen the overall net performance decrease when you get a toxic high performer out. 

Scott Allen: Wow, 

Mark O'Donnell: I've never seen it. And the team always steps up. Everybody's happier. And steve is 

Scott Allen: gone. 

Mark O'Donnell: Steve is gone. Amen. Hallelujah. Like we can actually be ourselves. We can like each other.

Again, we don't have to hear gossip and negativity or whatever it might be. That's true. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. So

Mark O'Donnell: those are the two core issues that you gotta [00:26:00] solve. The other two is you got the wrong person in the wrong seat. And then of course, the right person in the right seat can also create an issue where the seat that they're in is too small for them and it needs to grow over time.

And so ultimately they will become someone who doesn't get. Want and have the capacity to do the job because they're bored outta their mind because they've mastered the thing, right? Yep. They just know how to do it, and so that they need a bigger challenge. 

Scott Allen: Nice. 

Mark O'Donnell: So that's how we think about the people component.

It is 80% of the battle, honestly, when we look at issues in, in businesses, we've got lots and lots of data on. What issues the entrepreneurial business world deals with and about 82% of all issues has a human face at the end of it, someone somewhere does not get one and have the capacity to do their job really well.

Scott Allen: When I've been doing some of these episodes on artificial intelligence, ai, how that's going to impact the [00:27:00] labor force in the coming years, and it really is. When you share a number like that, it.

It's interesting because I can see. The vast majority of organizations, anytime I speak with the CEO, it's the same thing. Yeah. The people is the hardest part. So if we can automate that, if we can eliminate that, if we no longer have to hire, fire, keep the plant at a certain temperature, keep the lights on.

And, the robots don't have to go on an employee assistance program and they don't need to have healthcare. And so it's just so interesting. As we move into the future the ramifications of where we're headed. It's just it's gonna be interesting. Of course, you have your dystopian and you have your utopian folks out there who are talking about the different outcomes.

But it's interesting. It's really interesting to see where we're headed. How do you think about that? 

Mark O'Donnell: Yeah. I've done a lot of research on transitions [00:28:00] from technologies to, from one technology to the other. Yeah. And the earliest moment I could find. Where someone was complaining about a new technology and how their life was going to be over was 600 bc.

Can you guess what the invention was? 

Scott Allen: The wheel? 

Mark O'Donnell: It was the sundial. 

Scott Allen: Okay. 

Mark O'Donnell: Pretty close. The Sundial, the author just basically wrote Their life is over. Now they have to be at lunch at the right time and, this is terrible and it's gonna put, the fruit stands out that are, out of business.

'cause they're out at the wrong time. Yeah. And we've been dealing with this forever is really, interesting. And so when I think about where we are today I do think that AI is on the lines of, steam powered engines or electricity or the automobile, I think it is on that line.

The transitions in the middle are always messy, right? Yep. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: If we think about New York City with the introduction [00:29:00] of the automobile, at that time, horse manure was piled up two feet high in the streets the brownstones. Do you ever wonder why a brownstone is multiple stairs up to the 

Scott Allen: No, I didn't.

Mark O'Donnell: Or, 

Scott Allen: yeah, 

Mark O'Donnell: it's because when those were built, the amount of horse manure that were in the streets. Were piled up so high, they had to put stairs in. So when it rained, the manure didn't flow into their house. 

Scott Allen: Oh, wow.

Mark O'Donnell: And also why they became brownstones. But you had delivery unions were protesting in the streets that the automobile was gonna put us out of work.

And, here these people were shoveling manure and the jobs was obviously terrible. There was carcasses all over the city. Three years later, we've got clean streets. You know the livery you ever see on the license plate that says livery in New York City? 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: That's why, right? Because they were the same folks that were horse and carriage started driving taxis around and limos around, and their life was just all, all measurably better.

But the transition was messy. [00:30:00] Right? 

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Mark O'Donnell: So when I think about all those things and all those transitions. AI specifically and how it relates to that people component is there's a lot of things that we do that are mechanical, that are illogical, and there's a lot of things that we do that are psycho logical.

And AI can't do the psychological piece. Humans are not a hundred percent rational all the time, and the result of those things are sometimes miraculous, right? Who would think that people would behave in this particular way? AI was never gonna get those things. And so when I think about all of that.

I think what will most likely happen is that the people who get want and have the capacity to do their jobs and they share your core values, armed with AI, will become 10 x 100 x more productive. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Mark O'Donnell: They'll just be able to do a ton more. And then we see the people who don't get one and have the capacity to do their jobs.

They're usually not [00:31:00] curious, they're in a state of anxiety and fear, and so their prefrontal cortex is shut down and they're not. Able to fully perform. And so they're not gonna be curious. They're not gonna use AI tools to do their job because it's just not interesting to them. So I think the separation between the right people in the right seats and the wrong people in the wrong seats is gonna be very obvious, very fast.

Scott Allen: Wow. 

Mark O'Donnell: That would be my overall hypothesis of where this all goes. And. We're gonna end up generally in the same type of logical versus psychological thing where the economies will shift people. It'll be messy in the middle, and we'll settle into doing whatever the future holds for us in terms of living out purpose and making an impact and earning a living, and all those types of things.

Scott Allen: I love it. Mark I'm so appreciative for your time today just to Sure. Dip our toes in this [00:32:00] topic. What would you say is the practical wisdom in this whole conversation as you think about listeners, what would you leave them with there? What's the practical wisdom here?

Mark O'Donnell: Have a absolutely clear vision. Know what it is that you want, and it's okay if it changes. Over time you learn you become better, faster than you were before, and so that's okay if your vision continuously grows and shifts a little bit. Create the disciplines and habits to execute on that, and in some cases, develop those disciplines first.

Otherwise, it's just a dream. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Mark O'Donnell: And ensure that you're super healthy, right? That you both physically and mentally, and with your team members. Be open and honest, be vulnerable. Have that vulnerable base, trust at the end, and you ultimately get what you want. 

Scott Allen: Okay. For listeners, a good source document here is the book Traction, and I think I would highly recommend that you check that [00:33:00] book out.

As a way to begin, there's a bunch of links in the show notes so that you can discover EOS worldwide. You can follow Mark on LinkedIn. He posts every day. It's incredible content, so I would highly recommend doing that. And sir, happy 2026. Thank you so much for being with 2026 today. Yeah, 

Mark O'Donnell: I appreciate it.

Scott Allen: Okay, 

Mark O'Donnell: thank

Scott Allen: You.