Meet Walt Brown – Master Business Operating System Mechanic

With over 190 EOS® implementations and 2,000+ leadership team sessions under his belt, Walt Brown isn’t just experienced—he’s battle-tested. After decades helping organizations install the Entrepreneurial Operating System and other business frameworks, Walt now focuses on what most overlook: – the tune-up!

Because installing the system is only the beginning. The real value comes when your operating system runs clean, smooth, and powerful—aligned with your culture, trusted by your people, and actually delivering the cash flow it promised.

Through his BOS Garage approach, Walt diagnoses the hidden cultural and structural friction that undermines traction. Using tools like the BITE7 Framework and the Seven Critical Needs, he helps leadership teams recalibrate how EOS is working throughout the company—not just in the leadership team.

Walt brings a unique mix of street-smart clarity, data-backed diagnostics, and a no-nonsense mechanic’s mindset. Whether your EOS is stalling, sputtering, or simply underperforming, Walt helps you pull it into the garage, pop the hood, and get it back to peak performance – FAST.

He doesn’t just help you run on EOS. He helps you win with it.

Poor Decisions

Wasting Your Cash

Using the Seven Critical Needs™ Survey and the BITE Index™ Walt is able to audit and baseline the effectiveness of your EOS® / Business Operating System implementation. Then he helps you execute and take action to improve it – using the tools you already have! No new tools required.

Below:  Below is a line graph showing how Walt helps companies tune-up or reinstall EOS to optimize and accelerate their EOS / BOS implementations. These implementations drive more cash flow and breaks through ceilings faster.

Orange Line – a basic EOS implementation

Blue Line – Using the Flower Power Structure plugin, we dramatically accelerate traction by quickly creating deep structural clarity.

Green Line – Then, we flip the script — re-rolling out EOS with a “for you” employee message instead of a “to you” message—built around the Seven Critical Needs and the book “Attract or Repel”.

Green Line to Infinity – Then, we elevate your leadership team’s strategic thinking with STATE, described in Walt’s book “Seeing The Invisible“.

Together, these tools help build a strong, aligned culture that drives dependable cash flow.

Together, we define, measure and build the culture of your dreams, a culture that drives cash flow.

Walt’s Common Sense Coaching and Facilitation Services

• Operating Systems.  BOS / EOS Tune-ups, reboots, refinements. Yes, I still do fresh implementations. EOS® is the baseline system.
• Deep Organizational structure and design refinements. Flower Power™ is the structure model he will teach you to use.
• Installation of permanent, measurable Buy-in, Trust and Engagement systems. The Seven Critical Needs™, the book “The Attract or Repel”, and the BITE Index™ are the Frameworks he will teach you..
• Multi-day team health and strategic planning retreats.  Walt will teach you and your team how to think strategically, he will teach you how to turn strategic thinking into a process. “Seeing The Invisible” is the book.  S.T.A.T.E. is the model.

* – Yes, it is not uncommon for me to come along after an EOS Implementer, a Pinnacle Guide or a Scaling-up Coach.   These clients are interested in what’s next, who are saying to themselves. “There has to be more, I can feel it.”

Books: Org Operations = Traction – Gino Wickman. Structural Clarity = Flower Power – Walt Brown. Intentional Culture Attract or Repel – Walt Brown. Strategic Thinking Seeing The Invisible – Walt Brown.

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The Self-Managing Company Pyramid – Walt thinks and teaches through models.

THE FOUR AREAS AND MODELS WHERE I FIND MYSELF WORKING WITH CLIENTS 

When you have been blessed with the number of client sets and reps that I have enjoyed, it is hard to not pick up on patterns.  While the most important pattern is around Attract or Repel, BITE / Intentional Culture and Organizational Operating Systems I find type A clients are asking for two other models – Strategic Thinking and Organizational Structure.

Above is the model I call the Self-Managing Company Pyramid – Clients need to understand each facet of the pyramid in order to run a self managing company and get to 10x and The EOS Life™.

The Facets:

The foundation – each organization must have an organizational operating systsem – this can be home grown or bought turnkey, like Scaling Up or EOS etc.

Defined Culture – Each company needs to take control of who they are and recruit people into their properly defined intentional culture – Attract or Repel Framework. BITE7.

Super Clear Organizatioanal Structure – The root of all company evil is when Jobs and Roles are not clearly defined and then mapped. OCOG™ The Flower Power™ approach gets to the depth employees want and need.

Strategic Thinking – Each company needs to get super clear on how it thinks strategically and what the words it uses as part of this strategic thinking – STATE – Seeing the Invisible

A great BOS like EOS is basically a promise making and promise keeping system that builds trust.  Keep an eye out for the video to post at TED.

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Walt is a: Coach | Teacher | Implementer | Student  | Author |  Fun Hog

“Walt is The Self-Managing Company Guru”. Bryon Bunker – client

Over the past 17 years, I have had the honor of helping over 192 companies implement EOS®.

But, there is more, a whole lot more.

From this experience I have learned that there are three primary scalability traps / sinkholes that snare companies as they attempt to scale, even when they have installed EOS. 1. Is the unclear accountability and responsibility trap that gets more complex as companies grow and 2. Is the loss of your intentional culture, the sinkhole that develops when your culture is never truly defined leaving it unmeasurable. It must be defined so it can be measured, maintained and  improved as your scale. 3. Is the lack of understanding Strategic Thinking as a Process.

To address trap number 1, I have written books on and developed facilitations and software to support a model I call Roles-based Organizational Cognizance®. The two books are Flower Power a Handbook, and Death of the Org Chart. The two software solutions are https://flowerpower.software and https://ograph.io.

To address trap number 2, I have written books on and developed facilitations and survey software to support The Seven Critical Needs from Attract or Repel. The two books are Attract or Repel – BenBella Books and The Patient Organization – Forbesbooks. The facilitation and survey software are at https://BITE7.com.

To address trap number 2. I have writting Seeing the Invisible and teach a model called S.T.A.T.E. –  Strategic Thinking And Tactical Execution. Strategic Thinking as a Process.

I help you create a scalable Self-Managing Company that will last. And we will do it FAST!

We will be able to measure your progress through your financial results and your BITE Index™.

Your Self Managing Company will be full of people who are bought in, feel included, demonstrate high levels of trust and are engaged. We can measure this, and when we can measure something, we can take action to improve the results.

Your team will become masters of Culture, Strategy, Structure and Operational Execution. Mastery means they can teach it to everyone who follows – you do not become reliant on Walt, I will give you systems and models to think through and teach through. I am leaving behind tools that you can leverage forever.

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Book – Attract or Repel – 2025

Intentional  Culture

“Walt has written a great book on how to measure organizational courage, trust and employee engagement. If measurable organizational health is important to you, then this is the book to read.”

Gino Wickman: Creator of EOS®, Author of Traction and The EOS Life.

“I choose to publish Attract or Repel because there is a gap on every CEO’s bookshelf between Gino Wickman’s work and Patrick Lencioni’s work, Walt’s book fills and spans that gap.

Glen Yeffeth – CEO and Publisher BenBella Books – Publisher of the EOS® Traction Libary and Patrick Lencioni’s “The 6 Types of Working Genius.”

ATTRACT or REPEL 

BenBella Books – March 2025

“When everyone knows how and why we are measuring something, we can work on it, improve it together. Now we have a way to measure trust, courage, and engagement—aka organizational heath—and we can work on it.”

—Alex Freytag, co-author of Profit Works, Expert EOS Implementer®, creator of the EOS Users Conference

Book Summary

As an employee, have you rolled your eyes when completing the latest employee engagement survey and thought to yourself, Well, this is going nowhere, just like the many that came before it.

As an executive, are you in love with one or more of such beautiful organizational health schools of thought as Patrick Lencioni’s Trust Pyramid, Stephen R. Covey’s Speed of Trust, Gallup’s Employee Engagement, Brene’ Brown’s Courageous Leadership, Google and Amy Edmondson’s Psychological Safety? Have you ever thought to yourself, I want this for my organization but how? How do I bring the 20,000-foot theory to the ground? How do I make it real for each individual contributor?

As an employer, are you looking to the future and wondering how you’re going to solve the Millennial/Zillennial engagement problem? How do you approach and engage this workforce generation? How do you stop the millennial peer-pods from leaving? How do you prevent the “quiet quitting” attributed to this generation? What is the message you send and the message you need to send to keep and to attract and retain this important population?

As an owner, have you invested a significant amount of money, senior leadership time, and organizational effort into a popular turn-key “organizational operating system” (OOS) like the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), Scaling up, Pinnacle, or 4Dx? Are you left wondering, Is this all there is? How do I actually measure the impact of my investment or the effectiveness of our implementation? How do I make it more valuable? How do I keep it alive?”

These are not my questions. These are your questions and they were the same questions my 200 clients were asking while helping me discover and develop the unique BITE7 Framework presented in this book. Whether you’re using a popular turn-key OOS like EOS or have developed your own system, the BITE7 Framework will employ the tools of your OOS and guide you towards building a healthy organization that attracts the right people and repels those who are not the right people. By prioritizing such elements as Buy-in, Inclusion, Trust, and Engagement (BITE), you’ll create an environment where individuals thrive and contribute to the success of your organization.

While my book is written as OOS-agnostic, it has been approved by EOS Worldwide and endorsed by Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS. Moreover, it has its roots in, and the fingerprints of EOS throughout. I don’t know how much you know about the EOS client journey, but the end goal is high levels of team trust, open and honest conversation, and a healthy organization. Clients get to the end of their prescribed journey, feel good, and quickly become students of the organizational health game, often leaning deeply into the works of Patrick Lencioni, Brene’ Brown, Gallup/Clifton, and Google’s Psychological Safety. This is where EOS leaves off and Attract or Repel picks up, going into these schools of thought and relating the concepts back to your OOS. It is a natural progression and, I think, a missing link.

Through insightful guidance, I take you on a transformative journey, helping you navigate the complexities of organizational health dynamics. You’ll gain the tools and knowledge to measure and enhance organizational health, resulting in improved teamwork, effective leadership, empowered individuals, and a more profitable and purpose-driven organization.

One of the big secrets I reveal in the book is how “you flip the script” and make these efforts for your employees, not to them by turning the 7 Questions into 7 Promises.   Unfortunately, most employees’ first reaction is to see this sort of effort as being done to them not for them, this is why most of these efforts fail.  In Attract or Repel we outline a proven method based on the power of promises to reverse this reaction, turning a negative into a positive.   This is a very big, when employees see this as being done for them and not to them, they embrace it, pick up the standard, and as time goes on are the ones who drive it and help you keep your promises. Promises are very powerful things when made and kept.

Attract or Repel is your essential companion on the path to building a healthy and thriving organization that attracts the right people, fosters collaboration, and drives sustainable success. Embrace the power of organizational health and unleash the full potential of your OOS, your teams, your people, and your company.

What makes me uniquely qualified to write this book and share this natural progression and missing link?

I am lucky because I have a “laboratory” of over 200 deep senior leadership team relationships, not only with individual CEOs but with entire C-Suite teams. For the past fourteen years, I have had the honor of spending 140+/- days a year, huddled offsite, with these senior leadership teams doing the gutsy work of working on their business. Together, we discover issues, see consistent patterns, and test solutions. In the lab, the four questions I asked at the beginning of this Book Summary kept surfacing and together we developed and established a proven framework that stopped employees from rolling their eyes at the latest survey, gave executives a path to actualize their favorite school of thought, enabled employers to solve the Zillennial/Millennial riddle for good, and empowered owners with a way to measure how well their organizations were embracing their OOSs to keep them alive and make them more valuable.

That solution is the BITE7™ Framework, composed of one simple Seven Question survey and the BITE Index™ (Buy-in, Inclusion, Trust, Engagement), a planning protocol that uses the existing tools of your OOS and a way to communicate that solves the four questions and makes them go away forever. This book offers the theory and science behind BITE7 and then brings it out of the clouds, to the ground with actionable steps you can take today.

The reason implementations of Organizational Operating Systems (EOS is an OOS) fail out right, or, fail to produce the ROI you hoped for is simple. Your people are seeing the EOS system as something you are doing To them v. For them. When you can flip this script and answer their question “What’s in it for me?”, then you will get the buy-in and ROI you are looking for.

The way you flip the script is to measure and communicate.  Attract or Repel describes why and how you do this using 7 Questions.

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Book – Flower Power.  Structural Clarity.

Roles-based Organizational Cognizance® Model and Software Handbook

2024

This is a facilitation and software application Handbook: It teaches you how to inventory all of the roles that are part of your Accountability Chart or Org Chart using the Flower Power method.

Written by Walt Brown – Walt has done this work across over 200 companies. His sets and reps give him deep insight into why your stuff is working and why it is not working. Creating a solid accountably chart or org chart with clearly defined Roles is the secret. How you do the work is in the is book.

“The most unexpected reward was how empowering this approach has been for our people. How quickly they bought in was a huge bonus, almost effortless 10 minutes in. The Flower Power facilitations were straight forward, people picked it up and then readily filled out the Roles and Job forms. The team approach spurred healthy debate and our work product is strong. We have documentation at a fine level, from the frontlines where the work is really happening. Powerful for the company and powerful for our people. What you can get done in a half day with this framework that motivates people is nothing short of amazing.” Betsy R – CEO Clinical Research Organization

Amazon

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Book – Seeing The Invisible 

Strategic Thinking as a Process – 2023

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.” Henry Ford

Sailboat Racing and Two Must-Have Strategic Thinking Models

What if the secrets to building a successful business were found not in boardrooms or MBA programs, but on the open water? For me, nothing has shaped my understanding of business strategy more profoundly than the lessons learned from competitive sailboat racing.

This might sound surprising. After all, I’ve spent years auditing for a global firm like Ernst & Young®, launched and sold four companies, and devoted decades to coaching leadership teams in organizations large and small. I’ve immersed myself in academic research, certifications, business theory, and big-name books. Yet, nothing has honed my perspective on strategy and leadership quite like the exhilarating challenges of the racecourse.

And I’m not alone in this. From Sir Thomas Lipton to Ted Turner, from Patrizio Bertelli (Prada) to Hasso Plattner (SAP) and Larry Ellison (Oracle), many of the world’s most successful business leaders share a passion for sailing. Why the overlap? Because at the heart of both business and sailing lies Strategic Thinking.

In sailboat racing, everything revolves around the “campaign,” which begins with a Vision — the ultimate goal. From there, sailors work backward, crafting a strategy that aligns resources, logistics, and teamwork to achieve that vision. It’s the same principle that drives business success.

A winning campaign isn’t just about having the best boat or crew; it’s about having a clear plan. Every sailor on the team knows their precise Role, how it fits into the broader strategy, and how their actions interconnect with others’. This level of coordination transforms a crew into a seamless, unified organism — much like a high-performing business team.

One critical lesson sailing teaches is the distinction between Strategy and Tactics. Strategy is the overarching plan — the ideal route to success if everything goes perfectly. Tactics, on the other hand, are the adjustments and decisions made in real time, navigating unforeseen challenges like wind shifts, weather changes, or competitors’ moves.

Paul Elvstrom, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the greatest sailors in history, captured this beautifully:
“The good sailors all know how to race very well, but the champions have won the regatta before the racing begins.”

Elvstrom’s insight underscores the importance of starting with a well-conceived vision and working backward to map out every detail before setting sail. Champions, whether in sailing or business, don’t leave success to chance. They plan for it, anticipate obstacles, and execute with precision.

This book isn’t just about sailboat racing or business; it’s about how the two intersect in profound and unexpected ways. By delving into two essential models of Strategic Thinking drawn from the racecourse, you’ll discover a fresh perspective on how to lead, plan, and execute in a way that drives extraordinary results. Whether you’re steering a boat or a business, the principles remain the same: Vision, Strategy, Tactics, and a unified team working together toward a common goal.

Let’s set sail.

Amazon

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Book – The Patient Organization – ForbesBooks – 2017

WHY SYSTEMS LIKE EOS, TRACTION, SCALING UP, ETC. WORK AND FAIL TO WORK.

The reason implementations of Organizational Operating Systems (EOS is an OOS) fail out right, or, fail to produce the ROI you hoped for is simple. Your people are seeing the EOS system as something you are doing To them v. For them. When you can flip this script and answer their question “What’s in it for me?”, then you will get the buy-in and ROI you are looking for.

The way you flip the script is to measure and communicate.  The Patient Organization describes why and how you do this using 7 Questions.

Example: Why does the EOS work we do with our clients drive a significant ROI? Two reasons, 1. we measure, and 2. we communicate. We measure EOS’s effectiveness to upgrade your culture, engagement, accountability and retention using the 7 Questions Culture and Engagement Survey as the baseline and foundation of your Why, and, we use the 7 Questions as 7 Promises to communicate clearly: to describe to our folks Why we are doing EOS.

Once our people see that we are doing EOS For them and not To them we get buy-in and are able to create one single organization with a great culture, high engagement, accountability and retention.

Note: I execute very pure* and direct EOS Implementations – I do not add any new tools, or change the EOS Implementation method, we only add a way to measure and communicate via the 7 Questions and 7 Promises I outline in my book. 

(* “pure” is a term of art in the EOS community, it is referring to sticking to the script, teaching the tools in the EOS way.)

I am often criticized by my peers because I don’t milk my client engagements for longer periods. I ask: “Why should I!?” If I focus on teaching the material purely and teach the “why” beneath the material, and, don’t become a crutch, then my clients will master the EOS material faster, gain confidence and they will graduate as masters!

More:

The “Why” beneath EOS is captured in my book The Patient Organization, it holds the 7 keys to unlocking the power inside your Organizational Operating System (OOS). Whether it is Rockefeller Habits, Scaling Up, Holocracy, The Advantage, 4DX, Traction, EOS®, or a self-developed system. It will answer why does EOS work? Why does Traction work? Why does Scaling Up work? and how does EOS work? how does Traction work, and how does Scaling Up work etc. etc.?

The Patient Organization and the 7 Questions will make your system come alive for your employees.

I believe my clients deserve a robust ROI from their EOS investment. An ROI that comes from a great culture, engaged employees, robust cash flow and dependable predictable profit.  We link our ROI expectations to the statistics from Gallup.  Gallup points out that companies who enjoy top quartile engagement and culture enjoy 21% more profit, 20% fast growth, 10% better customer loyalty, 56% fewer safety incidents.  These are they baselines we are pushing for in the EOS Implementations we do together.

Amazon

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Book – Death of the Org Chart, Rise of the Organizational Graph.  2019

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY HAS OUTGROWN GRANDADDY’S ORG CHART 

My clients and I wrote this book based on 200+ organizational structure and redesign engagements where the goal was to determine and record exactly who is doing what and why. Org charts can no longer capture the complexity inherent in modern tech-enabled organizations.

What we discovered was current approaches were not up to the task of capturing the complexities in modern day organizations – so – along with client input, we created a modern day approach called the Organizational Cognizance Model™ and the 14 Point Checklist™.

Death outlines the model and shares detailed facilitations and how-to you can use in your company to remove organizational confusion and dysfunction.

I run a company that trains and certifies coaches to teach the Organizational Cognizance model that is described in the book.

I am also a practicing OCOG Coach myself, honing the approach in the real world every day.

Amazon

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Software – Flower Power – Founder – Facilitation and capture software for Roles-based organizational structure clarity.  2025

The primary cornerstone of my AI Roadmap practice.

Flowerpower.software feeds the ontology we capture in ograph.

Flower Power™ Software automates the facilitation, capture, and sharing of real time organizational structure information at a fine level. Driving profitability by connecting all relevant job and role related details, making them accessible, visible and reviewable in real time.

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Software – OGraph.io Co-founder – Knowledge Graph Software 2020

State of the Art Org Charting & Org Graphing Software 

OGraph is the secondary cornerstone of my AI Roadmapping practice.

This is the future of organizational Structure and Design

The fact is modern day organizations are more complex than the old organizational design and structure models can handle. It was time to create a new perspective, time to create a model that is flexible, relevant and real.

THE ORGANIZATIONAL COGNIZANCE® MODEL VISUALIZED WITH OGRAPH

I am dedicated to the employee who suffers under the yoke of organizational confusion and dysfunction. To smash this confusion and dysfunction, we developed the Organizational Cognizance Model  (OCog) and the 14 Point Checklist. OGraph organizational chart software is anchored in the OCog Model. OCog is the result of 12 years of focus, and more than 15,000 hours helping 100s of organizations eliminate confusion and dysfunction by insuring everyone can answer the root questions: Who is doing what, why, and what am I doing, and why?

Is your Business Operating System  Implementation stuck? (EOS®, Pinnacle, System and Soul, 4DX…)

Do you feel there is more?

Fact: Your business operating system implementation will hit a ceiling, it will become stuck. The video below will explain what is going on.

Measruable Buy-in, Inclusion, Trust and Employee Engagement – BITE – is the key to getting unstuck, and creating the self managing company you always dreamed of.

As the third EOS® Implementer with over 184 graduated clients, (the most ever) Walt has had a front row seat to this phenomenon.  He saw this and created a way to measure what is stuck and how to take action to break free – the solution is in the BITE Framework the book is Attract or Repel.

You must break through this ceiling in order to 10x and live The EOS Life.

The BITE7 approach works with any business / organizational operating system: Pinnacle, Scaling Up, 4Dx, System and Soul, EOS, Traction and your homegrown system.

Below is a quick video describing the ceilings and the opportunity between you and 10x.

Unfortunately, many BOS / EOS implementations get stuck, often at the Sr. Leadership Level or in the home office, never making it to the field or into the frontline, never out across the Entire organization where the bottom line action happens.

It is time to double down with Brown.

There is significant opportunity gap that you can fill for improved EOS ROI, if you know how. 

Aligning everyone around your operating system, top to bottom, is where the magic happens.

Where did you go wrong? You did not empower your employees.

I ask for permission to share my experiance as the third EOS Implementer, across 1,300+ EOS session days and 180+ client implementations with you. 

This story applies to every BOS system.

It is Simple. You did not “flip the script”, you were not taught or told how to roll EOS out and when you did try rolling it out, it felt like a steamroller to your employees, not as empowering, and this set up three huge barriers to any future success.

1. You were not able to explain the “why” of EOS that your employees could see,  feel, and measure.

You were not able to paint a picture where they saw themselves in a better place because of Traction.

You were not able to tune them into their favorite radio station WIIFM and your were not able to directly answer their question: What’s In It For Me?

2. Because of number 1, your employees saw EOS as being done to them and not for them, and they dug their heels in or folded their arms and adopted the infamous “This too shall pass.” attitude. = Normal.

3. Because of 1 and 2, you were not able to empower your people to use EOS for thier own good. When they see it as something that is for them, they embrace the tools and use the system for their own good, creating well, Traction.

You can reboot.

Sure, you missed the first shot to get it right,  you got it wrong and now you feel EOS is “sort of working”, but, you know in your gut that there is another level, that it can be better.

To make EOS® really take hold, you must flip the script and help your people  see  EOS as something you are doing for them and not to them.

In my latest book ATTRACT OR REPEL I share my simple proven recipe that I am happy to share with anyone, that is why I wrote the book. 

To find out more just ping me and I will send you an advance copy or let’s “go verbal” and I will share the secret sauce. walt@waltbrown.co 

It is very powerful.