A fractional Integrator for an accountancy firm that runs on Traction.
You are the Visionary. Someone has to sit in the other seat: run the weekly leadership meeting, own the quarterly rocks, keep the scorecard honest and make the plan happen between the planning days. Optivo puts Andy in that seat, on a monthly retainer.
Visionary
The founder. Big ideas, the important client relationships, the culture, the deals, where the firm is going in ten years. Usually also the biggest fee-earner, which is the problem: every operational decision routes through the same person, and the firm slows to the speed of their inbox.
- Sets the direction and the standards
- Owns the biggest relationships
- Solves the big problems
- Does not want to run the weekly meeting
Integrator
The person who runs the firm so the Visionary can lead it. Chairs the leadership team, turns the vision into a quarterly plan, holds everyone to it, removes the obstacles and makes accounts, tax, audit, payroll and admin operate as one firm rather than five.
- Runs the weekly leadership meeting
- Owns rocks, scorecard and issues list
- Integrates the major functions
- Holds the team accountable, including the Visionary
The Visionary and Integrator seats are described in Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters’ Rocket Fuel, and the operating system they sit inside in Wickman’s Traction. Most founder-led firms have a strong Visionary and an empty Integrator seat.
What the Integrator seat runs, week by week and quarter by quarter.
Traction is a cadence more than a document. The Integrator’s job is to keep the cadence, so the plan gets done rather than agreed.
The leadership meeting
Same day, same time, run to the Level 10 format: scorecard, rocks, headlines, to-dos, then the bulk of the time on identifying, discussing and solving the issues that matter. Chaired by Andy, rated by the team, recorded in the portal.
Rocks reset
Review last quarter’s rocks honestly, refresh the one-page vision and plan, set three to seven rocks for the firm and one to three per leader, and clear the issues list. Andy prepares it, runs it and writes it up.
Annual planning
The three-year picture and the one-year plan rebuilt, the accountability chart checked against the people in the seats, and the measurables for the year agreed. The quarterly rhythm then carries it.
The components an Integrator is accountable for.
Vision
One page everyone in the leadership team has read and agreed: core values, core focus, the ten-year target, the three-year picture, the one-year plan and this quarter’s rocks.
People
An accountability chart with a seat for every function and a name in every seat, and an honest view of whether each person gets it, wants it and has the capacity for it.
Data
A weekly scorecard of five to fifteen measurables with an owner and a target each: lock-up, WIP, jobs on time, capacity, recoveries, new client wins. Numbers, not opinions.
Issues
One list, in the open, worked in priority order every week. Issues get solved and drop off, or they get scheduled, or they get killed. They do not get discussed for the fourth time.
Process
The handful of core processes, documented at the level of the twenty per cent that matters, and followed by everyone. In a practice: onboarding, job workflow, review, billing and collection, offboarding.
Traction
Rocks set and done each quarter, and the weekly meeting held and rated. This is the component the Integrator is most directly measured on.
The leadership team stops reporting to the founder and starts running the firm.
With an Integrator in the seat the weekly meeting has a chair who is not also the Visionary, so it is a working session rather than an audience. Rocks get owners who are not the founder. The scorecard gets read before the meeting, not built during it. And the issues that have been on the list for a year get solved, because someone whose job it is keeps bringing them back.
- The Visionary gets their week back for clients, culture and the next big move.
- The leaders own their seats and their numbers, and know they are held to them.
- The firm has a plan it can show a buyer, a lender or a new partner, and a track record of doing it.
Andy has run firms on this rhythm as an owner, not only advised on it.
Buzz, the accountancy group he built, runs on a weekly leadership meeting, quarterly priorities and a scorecard. Practice Group integrates acquired firms onto the same cadence. The Integrator seat is the job he already does across his own businesses, offered to yours on a retainer.
Everything the seat produces lives in the firm’s own Optivo portal: the vision and plan, the accountability chart, the rocks and scorecard, the issues list and every meeting’s notes and ratings. When the engagement ends, the firm keeps the lot.
How the seat gets filled.
Same page
A same-page session with the Visionary: what the firm is for, what is in the way, what the Integrator decides alone. Leadership team fact find, and an organisational checkup scored by every leader.
Vision and plan on a page
Core values, core focus, ten-year target, three-year picture, one-year plan, this quarter’s rocks and the issues list, drafted with the Visionary and agreed by the leadership team.
Seats and numbers
The accountability chart drawn, every seat named, and the first weekly scorecard built with an owner and a target for each measurable.
The weekly meeting, every week
Andy chairs it. Rocks reviewed, scorecard read, issues solved, to-dos done, meeting rated. At the end of the quarter, the first rocks reset.
Is the Integrator seat the right shape for your firm?
It fits a founder-led practice with a leadership team of three to eight, typically £750k to £5m in fees, that has chosen Traction or is ready to, and whose Visionary knows they are not the person to run the weekly meeting.
- You have read Traction, or run on it, and the weekly meeting keeps slipping because you chair it.
- Rocks get set each quarter and about half get done, usually the ones you owned yourself.
- The leadership team reports to you rather than running the firm with you.
- Issues come back quarter after quarter because nobody owns getting them closed.
- You want a firm that runs on a system a buyer or a successor can see, not on you.
What Visionaries ask about the seat.
What is an Integrator?
In Gino Wickman’s Traction and Rocket Fuel, the Integrator is the person who runs the business day to day so the Visionary can lead it: they chair the weekly leadership meeting, hold the leadership team to the quarterly rocks and the scorecard, work the issues list, and make the departments run as one firm. In an accountancy practice it is the seat the founding partner usually holds by default and does badly, because they are also the Visionary and the biggest fee-earner.
Do I need to be running on Traction already?
It helps, but no. If the firm already has a vision document, rocks, a scorecard and a weekly meeting, Andy steps into the seat and runs them. If it does not, the first quarter installs them: a one-page vision and plan, an accountability chart, the first rocks and measurables, and the weekly meeting. Either way the tools are the firm’s, held in the Optivo portal, and they stay when the engagement ends.
Is Optivo an EOS Implementer?
No. EOS® and Traction® are trademarks of EOS Worldwide, and Optivo is independent of it, not certified by it and not affiliated with it. An Implementer teaches the system and facilitates the quarterly and annual sessions; an Integrator sits in the seat and runs the firm between them. If you already work with an Implementer, the Integrator role complements it. If you do not, Andy runs the quarterly and annual planning as part of the retainer.
What does it cost?
£5,000 + VAT a month, six-month minimum then rolling monthly, no setup fee. Six months is two full quarters, which is the least it takes for a weekly meeting, a set of rocks and a scorecard to become how the firm runs rather than something it tries. The pricing page sets out what is included.
How is this different from the Monthly COO?
The Monthly COO builds operating systems into a firm that has never had them, on Optivo’s method. The Integrator runs a firm on a system it has already chosen, Traction, and is measured by the rhythm: the weekly meeting held and rated, rocks done on time, the scorecard on track, issues solved rather than discussed. If the firm is not on Traction and does not want to be, the Monthly COO is the right product.
How much of the Visionary’s time does it take?
The weekly leadership meeting, ninety minutes, same day and time every week. A quarterly planning day, an annual planning session, and a short same-page meeting with Andy each month. Between those, the point of the seat is to take things off the Visionary’s desk, not add to it.
EOS®, Traction® and Level 10 Meeting™ are trademarks of EOS Worldwide, LLC. Optivo is an independent operator and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or certified by EOS Worldwide. The seat names and components are used to describe the role as set out in Gino Wickman’s books.
Ready to have someone in the Integrator seat?
A confidential call to understand your firm, how it runs today and whether the seat is the right shape. If it is not, I’ll say so and point you at what is.
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