Mark stared at the Brady Bunch grid of faces on his screen, trying to run his company’s weekly Level 10 meeting. Half his leadership team was in the conference room, half were joining from home offices across three time zones. The energy that used to drive their in-person meetings had evaporated. People talked over each other due to audio delays. Side conversations happened in private chats. The accountability that made their meetings powerful seemed to dissolve through the WiFi connection.
This scene repeats in thousands of companies attempting to maintain their EOS discipline in a distributed world. The shift to remote and hybrid work has fundamentally changed how teams collaborate, communicate, and hold each other accountable. Many leadership teams wonder: Can EOS really work when your team isn’t in the same room? The answer is an emphatic yes—but it requires thoughtful adaptation.
This comprehensive guide explores how to successfully implement and maintain EOS in remote and hybrid environments. We’ll address the unique challenges, share proven solutions from companies thriving with distributed EOS, and provide practical frameworks for making your virtual implementation as powerful as any in-person version.
The New Reality: Why Traditional EOS Needs Evolution
The Entrepreneurial Operating System was developed in a predominantly in-person business world. Gino Wickman’s “Traction” assumes leadership teams gather around conference tables, use whiteboards for issue solving, and build culture through physical proximity. These assumptions weren’t wrong—they simply reflected the business reality when EOS was created.
Today’s workplace looks radically different. According to Gallup, 45% of full-time employees work partially or fully remote. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index shows that 73% of employees want flexible remote work options to continue. This isn’t a temporary pandemic adjustment—it’s a permanent shift in how work happens.
For companies running on EOS, this creates unique challenges. The energy of in-person Level 10 meetings doesn’t automatically translate through video calls. Accountability feels different when you can’t walk down the hall to check on a Rock’s progress. Building and maintaining culture becomes exponentially harder when team members might never meet in person. Yet companies successfully running EOS remotely prove that distance doesn’t diminish the system’s power—it simply requires intentional adaptation.
Core Challenge #1: Running Effective Virtual Level 10 Meetings
The Virtual Meeting Energy Drain
The Level 10 meeting is EOS’s heartbeat—90 minutes of focused, energetic problem-solving that drives weekly progress. In person, energy builds naturally through eye contact, body language, and spontaneous interaction. Virtually, that same meeting can feel like a death march through agenda items, with participants multitasking behind muted microphones.
Research from Microsoft shows that virtual meeting fatigue is real. Brain scans reveal that back-to-back video calls create cumulative stress, with brain wave patterns suggesting people struggle to focus and engage. For a meeting format that depends on high engagement and creative problem-solving, this presents a fundamental challenge.
Solutions for Virtual L10 Excellence
Pre-Meeting Preparation: Virtual L10s require more preparation than in-person versions. Send scorecard updates 24 hours in advance so the meeting focuses on exceptions, not data entry. Populate the issues list throughout the week using shared documents. This preparation saves precious synchronous time for what matters most: solving issues.
Camera Discipline: Establish a cameras-on culture for L10 meetings. Yes, Zoom fatigue is real, but accountability requires visual connection. One distributed company found that mandatory cameras increased their meeting ratings from 6 to 9 simply because people couldn’t multitask invisibly.
Enhanced Facilitation: Virtual meetings require stronger facilitation. The meeting leader must:
- Call on people by name to prevent awkward silence
- Use visual cues like raised hands for speaking order
- Explicitly transition between agenda sections
- Monitor energy levels and call breaks when needed
- Ensure equal participation between remote and in-office attendees
Shorter Segments: Consider breaking the traditional 90-minute L10 into two 45-minute sessions or adding a 5-minute break at the 45-minute mark. Microsoft’s research shows that even small breaks between meetings allow brains to reset, improving focus and engagement.
Interactive Tools: Replace physical whiteboards with digital collaboration tools. Use virtual sticky notes for IDS sessions. Create digital parking lots for off-topic issues. The key is making virtual collaboration as visceral as moving physical objects around a whiteboard.
The Hybrid Meeting Challenge
Hybrid meetings—where some participants are in-person and others remote—present the greatest challenge. The natural tendency is for in-room participants to dominate while remote attendees become second-class citizens. Combat this with:
- Individual Screens: Even in-person attendees should join from individual laptops
- Remote-First Mindset: Design the meeting experience for remote participants
- Dedicated Remote Advocate: Assign someone in the room to monitor remote engagement
- Rotation Policy: Periodically have everyone join remotely to maintain empathy
Core Challenge #2: Maintaining Accountability Across Distance
The Proximity Problem
In traditional offices, accountability happens through proximity. You see if someone’s working on their Rock. Casual conversations surface issues early. Energy and urgency transmit through physical presence. Remote work eliminates these natural accountability mechanisms, requiring intentional replacement systems.
Studies show that remote workers often feel less accountable to their teams, not because they’re less committed, but because they lack visibility into collective efforts. When you can’t see your colleagues grinding toward quarterly Rocks, it’s easier to let your own slip.
Building Remote Accountability Systems
Daily Stand-ups: While not part of traditional EOS, many remote teams add brief daily check-ins. These 15-minute meetings create rhythm and visibility between weekly L10s. Each person shares: What I accomplished yesterday, what I’m doing today, and any obstacles. This maintains momentum and surfaces issues quickly.
Async Rock Updates: Create a weekly async Rock update rhythm. Every Monday, Rock owners post progress updates in a shared channel. This creates peer accountability without meeting overhead. One tech company found that public async updates increased Rock completion rates by 35%.
Accountability Partnerships: Pair team members as accountability partners for their Rocks. Weekly 15-minute check-ins between partners create peer support and early warning systems for off-track Rocks. This distributed approach prevents the leader from becoming the sole accountability enforcer.
Visual Progress Tracking: Make Rock progress visible through digital dashboards. When everyone can see real-time progress, social accountability naturally emerges. The key is making progress—or lack thereof—impossible to hide.
Core Challenge #3: Building and Maintaining Culture Remotely
Culture in the Physical Office
Traditional culture-building happens through proximity. Overhearing conversations, grabbing coffee together, celebrating wins in person—these micro-interactions build the cultural fabric that makes core values real. EOS depends on strong culture to make tools like the People Analyzer work effectively.
Remote work eliminates most spontaneous cultural interactions. Without intentional effort, remote teams drift toward transactional relationships. Core values become posters on home office walls rather than lived behaviors. This cultural drift undermines everything else in EOS.
Intentional Remote Culture Building
Virtual Culture Rituals: Replace spontaneous interactions with planned rituals:
- Start meetings with core value shout-outs
- Create dedicated Slack channels for wins and recognition
- Host monthly virtual coffee chats with rotating partners
- Celebrate personal milestones visibly
- Share “work from home” photos to humanize the experience
Core Values in Action: Make core values more explicit in remote settings. During IDS sessions, reference core values when making decisions. In Rock planning, connect each Rock to core values. In performance discussions, use specific remote examples of living the values.
Onboarding Investment: Remote onboarding requires 2x the investment of in-person onboarding. Create comprehensive video libraries explaining your culture. Assign culture buddies for new hires. Schedule extra one-on-ones in the first 90 days. The upfront investment prevents long-term cultural dilution.
Periodic In-Person Gatherings: While fully remote is possible, periodic in-person gatherings accelerate culture building. Quarterly planning sessions, annual planning meetings, or dedicated culture retreats create relationship capital that sustains remote work. Budget for these gatherings as essential infrastructure, not optional perks.
Core Challenge #4: Issue Identification and Resolution
The Hidden Issue Problem
In physical offices, issues surface through observation and casual conversation. You notice tension between departments. You overhear customer complaints. You see process breakdowns in real-time. Remote work hides these signals, allowing issues to fester unseen until they explode.
The IDS process—EOS’s issue-solving methodology—depends on getting real issues on the table. When team members work in isolation, they might not even recognize systemic issues, instead assuming problems are personal failures. This leads to incomplete Issues Lists and superficial problem-solving.
Surfacing Issues in Distributed Teams
Proactive Issue Mining: Don’t wait for issues to surface naturally. Proactively mine for them:
- Weekly one-on-ones with direct reports specifically asking about obstacles
- Monthly skip-level meetings to understand deeper organizational issues
- Quarterly anonymous surveys about process breakdowns
- Regular customer feedback loops shared with the entire team
Digital Issues List: Maintain a persistent, accessible Issues List that team members can populate anytime. Email-based or meeting-based issue capture loses 50% of potential issues. A always-available digital list captures issues when they’re fresh.
Issue Ownership Clarity: Remote issue-solving requires clearer ownership. In-person, someone naturally takes charge. Virtually, issues can ping-pong endlessly without resolution. Assign issue owners during IDS who are responsible for driving resolution, not just reporting status.
Async Issue Development: Before bringing complex issues to L10 meetings, develop them asynchronously. Create issue briefs with background, data, and potential solutions. This preparation makes synchronous IDS time more effective and prevents rambling issue descriptions.
Core Challenge #5: Managing Rocks Across Time Zones
The Coordination Complexity
When your team spans time zones, coordinating quarterly Rock planning and weekly check-ins becomes complex. A Rock requiring collaboration between team members in New York and Singapore faces natural friction. Dependencies multiply when you can’t have quick clarifying conversations.
Time zone differences also create fairness issues. If L10 meetings always favor U.S. time zones, international team members bear the burden of very early or very late calls. This implicit inequality undermines team cohesion and can lead to geographic silos.
Time Zone Solutions
Rotation Schedules: Rotate meeting times quarterly so everyone shares the burden of off-hours meetings. One quarter might favor U.S. zones, the next European, the next Asian. This demonstrates respect for all team members’ personal time.
Regional Cascading: For very distributed teams, consider regional L10s that cascade to a global leadership session. Regional teams solve local issues while escalating cross-regional challenges. This reduces the number of people needing to attend inconvenient meeting times.
Async Rock Planning: Conduct portions of quarterly planning asynchronously. Pre-work, Rock brainstorming, and initial prioritization can happen over several days. Reserve synchronous time for final decisions and commitment. This approach often leads to better-thought-out Rocks.
Clear Handoff Protocols: When Rocks require cross-timezone collaboration, establish clear handoff protocols. Document what needs to be communicated at each transition. Use project management tools that track progress visibly. The goal is making collaboration feel seamless despite the time delay.
Technology as the Great Enabler
While EOS principles remain constant, the tools for remote implementation must evolve. Technology bridges the gaps created by distance, but choosing the right tools matters. The goal isn’t to replicate in-person experiences—it’s to create equally effective distributed experiences.
Essential Remote EOS Technology Stack
Video Conferencing: High-quality, reliable video is non-negotiable. Invest in good cameras, microphones, and internet connections. Poor audio/video creates friction that undermines meeting effectiveness. Consider platforms with features like breakout rooms for small group IDS sessions.
Digital Collaboration: Replace whiteboards with digital equivalents. Tools like Miro, Mural, or even simple Google Docs can facilitate visual thinking. The key is everyone being able to contribute simultaneously, not watching one person write.
Persistent Documentation: Remote teams need better documentation. Meeting notes, Rock definitions, process documents—everything needs to be accessible asynchronously. Create a single source of truth that doesn’t depend on asking colleagues for information.
Progress Tracking: Visual progress tracking becomes critical when you can’t see colleagues working. Whether through project management tools or specialized platforms, make Rock and Scorecard progress visible to maintain accountability.
The Power of Purpose-Built Solutions
While general-purpose tools can work, purpose-built EOS platforms offer significant advantages for remote teams. When your V/TO, Rocks, Scorecard, and Issues List live in one accessible system, remote coordination friction disappears. Team members can check progress, add issues, and prepare for meetings from anywhere.
EOS One, designed specifically for EOS implementation, becomes particularly valuable for distributed teams. The platform solves common remote challenges: meeting preparation happens automatically as team members update their metrics and Rocks throughout the week. The Level 10 meeting timer keeps virtual meetings on track. Issues added asynchronously appear instantly for everyone. Progress tracking provides the visibility that physical proximity used to offer.
For remote teams, this integration eliminates the tool-switching that fragments attention and loses information. When a team member in London updates their Rock progress, the team member in Los Angeles sees it immediately. When someone adds an issue at 2 AM their time, it’s waiting for the next L10 meeting. This persistent, accessible system creates the connective tissue that remote teams need.
The platform’s meeting features particularly shine in virtual settings. Screen sharing one dashboard that everyone can see and interact with creates shared focus. Built-in timers prevent virtual meetings from meandering. Automatic capture of decisions and to-dos ensures nothing falls through the cracks when you can’t clarify in the hallway after the meeting.
Success Stories: Remote EOS in Practice
Case Study 1: Fully Distributed Tech Company
A 150-person SaaS company went fully remote in 2020. Initially, their EOS discipline crumbled. L10 meetings became status updates. Rocks completion dropped to 40%. Culture diluted as new remote hires never absorbed core values.
Their transformation included:
- Investing in async Rock updates that created peer pressure
- Adding daily stand-ups to maintain momentum between L10s
- Creating virtual culture rituals including weekly core value awards
- Using digital dashboards that made all progress visible
Result: Rock completion rose to 85%, employee engagement scores increased 30%, and revenue grew 40% annually despite being fully distributed.
Case Study 2: Hybrid Manufacturing Company
A manufacturing company with office staff working remotely and production staff on-site faced unique challenges. The two groups began developing separate cultures. L10 meetings favored office staff who could join virtually while production managers struggled to participate.
Solutions implemented:
- Equipped production floor with video conferencing stations
- Rotated L10 meeting leadership between office and production staff
- Created digital scoreboards visible both virtually and on production floor
- Instituted monthly all-hands virtual meetings to maintain one culture
The hybrid approach required more intentional effort but resulted in stronger cross-functional collaboration than they’d had when fully in-person.
Remote EOS Implementation Roadmap
Ready to implement or improve EOS for your remote team? Follow this progression:
Phase 1: Foundation (Weeks 1-4)
- Assess current state: What’s working and what’s breaking in your remote environment?
- Technology audit: Do you have the tools needed for effective remote EOS?
- Team survey: Understand specific remote work challenges your team faces
- Communication charter: Establish norms for remote communication and collaboration
Phase 2: Core Implementation (Weeks 5-12)
- Virtual V/TO session: Conduct strategic planning with remote-first design
- L10 meeting optimization: Implement enhanced facilitation and engagement techniques
- Accountability systems: Establish daily/weekly rhythms beyond L10 meetings
- Digital workspace setup: Create accessible homes for all EOS tools
Phase 3: Culture and Refinement (Weeks 13-26)
- Culture ritual implementation: Build systematic culture-building practices
- Onboarding enhancement: Create robust remote onboarding for EOS and culture
- Issue mining processes: Establish proactive issue identification systems
- Quarterly review and adjustment: Refine based on what’s working
Phase 4: Optimization (Ongoing)
- Regular pulse surveys on remote EOS effectiveness
- Quarterly experimentation with new practices
- Annual in-person gathering for relationship building
- Continuous tool and process optimization
Common Remote EOS Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Pitfall 1: Assuming In-Person Practices Transfer Directly
The biggest mistake is trying to recreate in-person experiences virtually. Instead, reimagine practices for the remote environment. A virtual L10 isn’t an in-person L10 on video—it’s a fundamentally different experience requiring different approaches.
Pitfall 2: Under-Communicating
Remote work requires 2-3x more intentional communication. What happens naturally in offices must be explicitly designed remotely. Err on the side of over-communication until you find the right balance.
Pitfall 3: Allowing Energy Drain
Virtual meetings drain energy faster than in-person ones. Combat this with shorter segments, more breaks, varied facilitation techniques, and higher participant involvement. Monitor and address energy actively.
Pitfall 4: Creating Two-Tier Teams
In hybrid environments, remote workers often become second-class citizens. Combat this by designing for remote-first, even when some people are co-located. Equal access and participation must be non-negotiable.
Pitfall 5: Neglecting Relationship Building
EOS works because teams trust each other. Remote work can become purely transactional without intentional relationship building. Invest time in virtual coffee chats, team building, and periodic in-person gatherings.
Practical Next Steps
Transform your remote EOS implementation starting today:
- Audit Your Current State: Where is remote work undermining your EOS discipline?
- Pick One Practice to Improve: Start with L10 meetings or Rock accountability
- Invest in Tools: Ensure your technology stack supports remote collaboration
- Create New Rituals: Design intentional practices for culture and accountability
- Experiment Weekly: Try new approaches and keep what works
- Measure and Adjust: Track meeting ratings and Rock completion to gauge progress
- Share Learnings: Build a culture of continuous improvement around remote work
- Stay Connected: Join remote EOS communities to learn from others’ experiences
Conclusion: The Future Is Distributed
Remember Mark from our opening, struggling to run his hybrid L10 meeting? Six months later, his team’s virtual L10s rate higher than their in-person meetings ever did. They’ve discovered that remote work, rather than hindering EOS, forced them to be more intentional about every aspect of implementation. Their documentation improved. Their accountability strengthened. Their culture, built through deliberate action rather than proximity, became more inclusive.
The shift to remote and hybrid work isn’t a temporary disruption—it’s the new normal. Companies that adapt their EOS implementation for distributed teams don’t just survive; they often discover that the intentionality required for remote success makes their entire system stronger.
EOS principles—vision, traction, healthy teams—remain constant regardless of where people work. The tools and practices must evolve, but the core system proves remarkably resilient. In fact, many teams find that remote implementation forces them to finally use EOS as designed rather than taking shortcuts enabled by physical proximity.
The future belongs to organizations that can execute effectively regardless of geography. By adapting EOS for remote and hybrid environments, you’re not just solving today’s challenges—you’re building the organizational capabilities needed for tomorrow’s opportunities. The question isn’t whether EOS works remotely; it’s whether you’re ready to make it work for your distributed team.
Start today. Pick one remote EOS challenge and address it this week. Your team—wherever they’re located—is counting on you to lead the way.
