Most companies have a vision. Few companies have clarity.
Vision without clarity is just aspiration. It lives in the founder's head, gets articulated inconsistently, and fails to align the people who are supposed to execute it.
The EOS Vision/Traction Organizer — the V/TO — solves this. It is a two-page document that captures everything your leadership team needs to understand about where the company is going and how you are going to get there. Every section is specific, every answer is shared, and the whole leadership team signs off on it together.
When a V/TO is done correctly, any member of your leadership team can speak to the company's direction with the same clarity you would. That alignment is the point.
What Is the V/TO?
The Vision/Traction Organizer is one of the foundational tools in the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), introduced by Gino Wickman in Traction. It is sometimes written as V/TO or VTO.
It is organized into two halves:
The Vision Side — Where are we going and who are we?
The Traction Side — How are we going to get there?
The document has eight sections. Here is a complete explanation of each.
Section 1: Core Values
The question it answers: What do we stand for?
Core Values are the 3-7 principles that define how your company operates — not aspirationally, but actually. They describe the behaviors you expect from every team member and the standards you hold yourself to when making decisions.
The test of a real Core Value: you would fire someone who consistently violated it, even if they were otherwise high-performing.
Good Core Values are specific and behavioral. "Integrity" is not a Core Value — every company claims it. "We do what we say we will do, without exception" is a Core Value.
How to identify yours: Think about your best employees — the ones who represent the culture you want. What traits do they have in common? Think about the people who did not work out. What behaviors were at the root of that?
Your Core Values should appear in:
- Hiring and firing decisions
- Performance reviews
- Recognition and awards
- Daily decision-making
If your Core Values are on the wall but not in your decisions, they are decoration, not culture.
Section 2: Core Focus
The question it answers: What business are we in, and why?
The Core Focus has two parts:
Your Purpose/Cause/Passion — Why does your company exist beyond making money? This is your "why." It should be inspiring, timeless, and true.
Your Niche — What do you specifically do, and for whom? This is a precise description of your business. Not "we help companies grow" — that describes every business. Something more like: "We provide EOS implementation support to manufacturing companies with 10-250 employees."
The Core Focus is your filter for every opportunity. When a new initiative or partnership comes up, the question is: does this fit our Core Focus? If not, it belongs on the Issues List for evaluation, not automatic pursuit.
Many companies lose focus because they say yes to everything that generates revenue. The V/TO Core Focus gives you permission — and a framework — to say no.
Section 3: 10-Year Target
The question it answers: What does winning look like in 10 years?
This is your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) — a single, specific, measurable target that describes where the company will be in 10 years.
The 10-Year Target is intentionally large and distant. It is not meant to be a detailed plan — it is meant to be a north star that orients every strategic decision below it.
Examples:
- "$50M ARR with 90%+ gross margins by 2035"
- "The #1 EOS platform for ADHD founders with 100,000 active companies"
- "Acquired by a strategic partner at $250M valuation"
The 10-Year Target should feel ambitious but not fictional. If you articulate it in a leadership meeting and people nod thoughtfully, you have it right. If people laugh nervously, it is too far-fetched. If people shrug and say "sure, probably," it is not ambitious enough.
Section 4: Marketing Strategy
The question it answers: Who is our target customer, and how do we reach them?
This section has four components:
Target Market / The List — A specific, describable group of people or companies you serve. The more specific, the better. "Small business owners" is not a target market. "EOS-run companies with 10-50 employees in the US" is.
Three Uniques — What three things make you different from every competitor? Not features — genuine differentiators that your target market cares about. These should be defensible, not easily copied.
Proven Process — What is the step-by-step process you take clients through to deliver your value? Naming and documenting your process makes it tangible to prospects and repeatable for your team.
Guarantee — What promise do you make to customers? A strong guarantee signals confidence and reduces purchase risk for buyers.
The Marketing Strategy section forces specificity that most companies avoid. Vague positioning feels safer. But vague positioning produces vague results.
Section 5: 3-Year Picture
The question it answers: What does the company look like in 3 years?
The 3-Year Picture is a snapshot of your company at a specific future date. It includes quantifiable metrics — revenue, headcount, number of customers, gross margin — plus descriptive statements about what the company looks, feels, and operates like.
It bridges the 10-Year Target (directional aspiration) and the 1-Year Plan (actionable commitment). The 3-Year Picture should feel just barely attainable — challenging enough to require significant growth, specific enough to make real decisions against.
Good 3-Year Picture entries include:
- "$5M ARR, 500 active companies, 85% gross margin"
- "Fully built out leadership team (Integrator, Sales, Ops)"
- "Our Proven Process is documented and 90% delivered without founder involvement"
- "We have exited two markets and doubled down on our niche"
When your leadership team reviews the 3-Year Picture in quarterly planning, they should feel a mix of excitement and productive urgency.
Section 6: 1-Year Plan
The question it answers: What are we committing to accomplish this year?
The 1-Year Plan takes the 3-Year Picture and asks: what has to be true by December 31 for us to be on track?
Like the 3-Year Picture, it includes specific measurables — revenue, key metrics, milestones — plus 3-7 business goals that are the annual equivalent of rocks.
The 1-Year Plan is the bridge between vision and execution. It forces the leadership team to commit to specific outcomes, not just direction.
The test of a good 1-Year Plan: if you showed it to a smart outsider in December, they should be able to clearly tell whether you achieved it or not. Ambiguous goals fail this test.
Section 7: Rocks
The question it answers: What are our top priorities for the next 90 days?
Rocks are the 90-day implementation of the 1-Year Plan. They are the 3-7 most important company-level priorities for the current quarter.
Each Rock should be:
- Specific and outcome-oriented
- Completable within 90 days
- Owned by one individual
- Measurable (either done or not done)
Rocks cascade from the company level to individual team members. Company Rocks set the direction. Each leadership team member then sets their own Rocks that support the company's.
See our complete guide to running rocks in your startup for full detail on setting, tracking, and completing rocks effectively.
Section 8: Issues List
The question it answers: What is in the way?
The Issues List is the final section of the V/TO — a place to capture everything that stands between where you are and where you are going.
Issues added to the V/TO-level Issues List are company-level concerns: strategic risks, structural problems, long-horizon challenges. They are typically too large or complex to solve in a single L10 meeting and require sustained attention over multiple quarters.
They are not the same as the tactical issues that appear on your weekly L10 Issues List. V/TO-level issues are things like:
- "We do not have an Integrator and our growth is constrained by it"
- "Our current technology stack will not scale past 500 customers"
- "We have a customer concentration risk — one client represents 40% of revenue"
These issues live on the V/TO until they are resolved or become a Rock that drives active work toward resolution.
How to Fill Out the V/TO
The V/TO is not a solo exercise. It is a leadership team exercise.
Step 1: Set aside a full-day offsite (or half-day minimum) with your leadership team. This is not a document you fill out at your desk and send to people to sign off on.
Step 2: Work through the sections in order, top to bottom. The Vision side first, then the Traction side. Each section informs the next.
Step 3: For contentious sections — Core Values, Core Focus, 3-Year Picture — allow real discussion. The goal is genuine alignment, not manufactured consensus. If someone on your leadership team does not actually believe in the 3-Year Picture, you will see the disconnect in their decisions throughout the year.
Step 4: Complete the V/TO in a shared, accessible format. Every leadership team member should be able to reference it at any time.
Step 5: Review and update the V/TO at minimum annually. The Vision Side (Core Values, Core Focus, 10-Year Target) should be stable. The Traction Side updates every quarter as Rocks are set and the 1-Year Plan is reassessed.
Common V/TO Mistakes
Writing it without the leadership team. A V/TO created by the founder and sent to the team for review is not a shared vision — it is a directive. Buy-in comes from co-creation.
Being vague to avoid conflict. Every section of the V/TO should be specific enough that two people reading it would interpret it the same way. Vagueness is false harmony.
Treating it as a one-time exercise. The V/TO is a living document. Companies that create it once and never revisit it watch it become irrelevant as the business evolves.
Skipping the Issues List. Many companies fill out the aspirational sections and skip the Issues List because it feels defeatist to list problems in a vision document. This is backwards. The Issues List makes the V/TO honest. It acknowledges the gap between where you are and where you are going.
TaskSpace and the V/TO
In TaskSpace, your V/TO lives alongside your rocks, scorecard, and L10 agendas — not in a separate Google Doc that nobody can find. When your Rocks are set in quarterly planning, they connect directly to the 1-Year Plan and company goals captured in the V/TO. Your scorecard metrics map to the 3-Year Picture milestones.
The V/TO is not a vision presentation. It is an operating document. TaskSpace treats it that way.
For a deeper look at how the V/TO connects to your quarterly planning process, see our dedicated guide on running effective quarterly offsites.
Align your leadership team around one shared direction. Try TaskSpace free at trytaskspace.com — V/TO, rocks, scorecards, and L10 meetings in one place, built for EOS-driven companies.