Gino Wickman, creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS) and author of Traction, has released a new book called Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business.  Along with co-author Mark Winters and a host of other collaborators (myself included), the book explores the incredibly powerful relationship between the Visionary and Integrator. Using real life examples, it describes how getting this combination right in your business can be nothing less than Rocket Fuel for your growth.

Why Does a Visionary Need an Integrator?

For those that have not read Traction or Get a Grip, the Visionary is the big picture leader in the business, oftentimes the founding entrepreneur, but always the leader with the big ideas and big inspiration. The Integrator is a day-to-day partner to the Visionary, bringing clarity to the business, acting as the "glue that holds everything together" and making sure the company can execute on their strategy.

Truth be told, this is not a completely new concept: many Fortune 500 companies deploy both a CEO and a COO/President. The CEO is the outside person, or the figure head, while the COO or President runs the internal operations. However, what Gino has identified here is nothing short of genius. It is not intuitive for a smaller, growing company to put two leaders of such high caliber in place. A Visionary CEO or entrepreneur will often struggle for years to move things forward, due to a lack of accountability across the organization and his/her own inability to drive execution. However, for those who have recognized this and got the right combination of Visionary and Integrator, the results have been astounding.

Finding Your Perfect Integrator

Of course, if you are a Visionary without an Integrator it is not as easy as simply hiring someone to execute, both Visionaries and Integrators come in multiple flavors. First, one has to consider what type of Visionary you are, and then be honest about where the business is today, and decide where you really want to take it in the future. From there you can identify the right Integrator for your specific situation. This person may be already working in the business, or you may have to find them! This is where Rocket Fuel really shines. Just as in Traction, Rocket Fuel takes a common sense, practical approach to this challenge. Along with the narrative, the book contains worksheets and hands-on exercises to help you secure a solid Visionary/Integrator relationship.

A complete set of tools and resources to help implement the concepts in the book is available at Rocket Fuel Now.