How Running on EOS Helps You Lead Through Market Uncertainty

Uncertainty isn't new — it's just more frequent and faster-moving than ever. From geopolitical disruptions to rapidly evolving customer expectations, leaders today are asked to make decisions with imperfect data, tight timelines, and often conflicting opinions. What separates thriving companies from stagnant ones isn’t just a sharper strategy, but a stronger system.

The Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) is a simple, proven business operating system designed to help leaders navigate complexity with confidence. At its core, EOS is about helping growth-minded organizations clarify their Vision, get the Right People in the Right Seats, and build Traction® through consistent execution. Whether you’re responding to declining sales, a new competitor, or supply chain disruptions, the EOS Model® gives you a framework to maintain focus when the world feels chaotic.

How Does EOS Create Clarity in an Uncertain Market?
Market shifts expose weaknesses in strategy, alignment, and execution. EOS counteracts that by helping leadership teams operate in a 90-Day World®, setting Rocks (quarterly goals), reviewing performance in structured Level 10 Meetings™, and solving Issues with the IDS® tool (Identify, Discuss, Solve). Recently, I was coaching a client for their second quarterly and they had an Issue titled Recession. When we eventually got to the Issue section of the agenda, it was interesting to see that the Issue wasn’t really a Recession, it was the lack of alignment, clarity and confidence in their existing Annual Plan. One of my favorite responses in moments like this is to say, “the answers we need are in your EOS tools.”  

This creates something rare in uncertain times: clarity. The EOS Vision/Traction Organizer® (V/TO®) distills your strategy into two pages, aligning everyone around what matters most. No more long, complicated business plans collecting digital dust. Just having that living document helps your team decide what initiatives to say “yes” to and, more importantly, what items to say “no” to. 

Maintaining Accountability Through Disruption

Every growth organization hits a ceiling. Sometimes they are self-inflicted and sometimes they are market based or legislative items like tariffs. When we professionally implement EOS with leadership teams we begin by discussing normalizing the concept of Hitting the Ceiling. We don’t want to stay at the ceiling but we also can’t fear volatility. EOS equips leadership teams with tools like The Accountability Chart™ and the People Analyzer™ to build a culture of accountability that’s role-based, data-driven, and agreement-focused.

Instead of defaulting to heroics or getting stuck in bottlenecks, teams that run on EOS know who’s responsible for what by using Scorecards to measure whether critical activities are on track. This allows leaders to delegate with confidence and spend more time building the business.

Here are key strategies and tools leaders can use to maintain and elevate accountability:

• Use the Accountability Chart™ Instead of an Org Chart: Shift from vague titles to clearly defined “seats” with 5 key roles per seat. This makes it obvious who owns what, even if someone is wearing multiple hats.
• Create Weekly Scorecards: Every leadership team should track 5–15 weekly Measurables. These are not KPIs for the sake of reporting. They’re activity-based numbers that tell you whether critical work is getting done. If a number goes off track, drop it down to the Issues List and IDS it immediately.
• Implement the People Analyzer™: During uncertain times, it’s easy to hold onto misaligned team members out of fear. Use the People Analyzer to evaluate every person against your Core Values and whether they GWC™ their seat (Get it, Want it, Capacity to do it). This gives you an objective lens for making tough calls.
• Lead with Agreements, Not Expectations: At Ninety, we use “agreements-based leadership.” Most accountability failures aren’t about effort, they’re about unclear expectations. Ensure every commitment is crystal clear, documented, and mutually agreed upon. Then manage those agreements, not assumptions.

By using these EOS tools and habits, leaders replace ambiguity with alignment and create a culture where even amid uncertainty, people know what’s expected of them, feel supported, and are held to a high standard of follow-through.

Using Meetings to Create Alignment and Clarity

In a shifting market, meetings aren’t just a calendar item, but a lifeline. For leadership teams navigating these challenges, the right meeting cadence can be the difference between reactive chaos and proactive alignment. Great leaders use meetings to step out of the whirlwind and ensure the entire team is focused on what truly matters. The EOS® Level 10 Meeting™ is a prime example: a 90-minute weekly meeting with a proven agenda that keeps teams aligned, focused, and accountable.

Here are some strategies to help build an effective EOS® Level 10 Meeting™:

• Follow a Consistent Agenda: Use the proven Level 10 Meeting™ agenda every week. It keeps the team aligned on performance, priorities, and problems to solve — in that order. Repetition builds rhythm, and rhythm builds trust.
• Start with a Segue, End with a Rating: Start with a quick personal and professional check-in to build connection. End by rating the meeting (1–10) to drive continuous improvement and accountability for how time is spent.
• Use the Scorecard to Ground in Reality: Don’t guess how you’re doing. Use 5–15 key Measurables on your EOS Scorecard™ to get aligned on what’s working and what’s off track. Numbers cut through opinions and emotions.
• IDS the Real Issues: Spend most of the meeting solving the most pressing Issues. Use the IDS® process: Identify the root cause, Discuss it openly, and Solve it with clear To-Dos. This turns meetings from talk sessions into traction sessions.

When done well, meetings become a place where fear is replaced by clarity, distractions give way to priorities, and everyone leaves knowing what’s most important now. This is a critical advantage in any market, but especially during volatile times.

Creating an Effective Business Plan Despite Uncertainty

Traditional business plans are often too long, too rigid, and too slow to adapt, especially in times of market uncertainty. What leaders need instead is a clear, flexible, and actionable plan that aligns their team and provides focus. That’s exactly what the Vision/Traction Organizer® (V/TO®) delivers inside the EOS® framework.

The V/TO simplifies your business plan into a two-page document, guiding your leadership team to answer 8 critical questions that shape both long-term vision and short-term traction. These include defining your Core Values, Core Focus™, 10-Year Target™, Marketing Strategy, 3-Year Picture™, 1-Year Plan, Quarterly Rocks, and Issues List. Each section acts as a filter, helping you make better decisions faster, especially when the ground is shifting beneath you.

Tips for Building an Adaptive Business Plan with EOS:

• Start with Core Values and Core Focus™: These don’t change when the market does. They serve as your anchor and filter when deciding what to pursue and what to say no to.
• Get Real About Your 1-Year Plan: In uncertain times, keep it sharp and simple. Identify 3–7 clear, measurable goals. Then validate whether they’re still achievable or need to pivot based on recent data.
• Use Quarterly Rocks to Drive Agility: Don’t let annual plans collect dust. Break them into 90-day Rocks that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). This lets your team stay focused while remaining nimble.
• Update the Issues List Weekly: This becomes your backlog of strategic conversations. Use it to capture market signals, customer feedback, and emerging risks. Then IDS™ the most urgent ones in your Level 10 Meetings™.
• Involve the Right People: Your leadership team should own this plan together. When everyone contributes, you build buy-in, alignment, and resilience.

By building your business plan on EOS principles and housing it in a platform like Ninety, you ensure your team always knows where you’re going and what to do next. And in times of market uncertainty, that kind of clarity is your competitive advantage.

How Ninety Helps You Navigate Through Market Uncertainty

When uncertainty hits, most teams default to reaction mode, rushing to fix symptoms without ever solving root issues. That’s when the cracks start to show: plans stall, accountability gets fuzzy, and meetings turn into noise.

Ninety helps teams break that cycle.

This isn’t another app that adds complexity. Ninety brings your EOS tools to life in one place, so your team has fewer excuses, more clarity, and a shared rhythm to drive the business forward.

• Your Vision doesn’t just live in a slide deck, it lives in the day-to-day using the V/TO in Ninety.
• Scorecards don’t just measure progress, they call out the drift before it becomes a derailment.
• Rocks aren’t buried in notebooks, they’re tracked, visible, and done every 90 days.
• Meetings aren’t a time sink, they’re structured to solve real issues that are holding you back.