Meghan Hickman has spent over three years as our EOS implementer at Poe Group Advisors, and this conversation is one we have been looking forward to sharing. Meghan works with entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them build structure, create accountability, and scale with intention. She has helped over 40 organizations do exactly that, including ours.
Meghan’s path to this work started in the unlikeliest of places: politics. She served as a press secretary in the US Senate, a role she once considered a dream but ultimately realized was bringing out the worst in her. That experience gave her a deep understanding of what she calls effective self versus destructive self activity, and it shaped everything about how she helps leaders today. When she discovered EOS through the book Traction, it gave her the language to understand what had been missing, and she has been teaching those tools ever since.
In this conversation, Meghan walks through two of the most powerful EOS tools: the Accountability Chart and the Vision Traction Organizer. She explains the “right person, right seat” framework that helps firm owners evaluate whether team members truly get it, want it, and have the capacity to thrive. She also shares a perspective on burnout that firm owners need to hear: the difference between when your head knows it’s time for a change and when your heart knows. Those are two very different signals with two very different prescriptions.
The conversation covers:
- How a career in politics taught Meghan to recognize when your work is bringing out the worst in you
- Why the “right person, right seat” framework gives leaders language for decisions they already sense but can’t articulate
- How the Accountability Chart reveals the structure a firm actually needs vs. the one it has outgrown
- Why the Vision Traction Organizer works where traditional strategic plans fail, because it evolves every 90 days
- How to distinguish between head signals and heart signals when deciding whether to restructure or exit
- Why the companies that scale fastest are the ones willing to run toward hard problems and simplify relentlessly
- How vulnerability-based trust separates teams that break through from teams that stay stuck
Meghan’s core message is one that applies whether you are five years into building a firm or five years from selling one: life is too precious to spend the gifts you have been given in the wrong place. Whether that means changing your seat, changing your structure, or changing your chapter entirely, the first step is having the courage to recognize the signal.
This episode is for firm owners wondering whether their frustration is a sign to restructure or a sign to exit, leaders curious about how EOS creates accountability and clarity as a firm grows, practitioners ready to evaluate whether their team and structure match where the business is headed, and anyone who believes that building a great firm starts with building a great team.
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
The Five Minute Journal by Intelligent Change
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Brannon Poe intro and podcast welcome
00:14 – Introducing Meghan Hickman, EOS implementer for Poe Group Advisors
00:36 – Meghan’s background: from US Senate press secretary to entrepreneur 01:26 – How a copy of “Traction” in 2014 changed the direction of Meghan’s career
01:52 – Growing an EOS company by 62% in five years and launching her own practice
02:22 – How does a career in politics transfer to entrepreneurship?
03:12 – Starting in the least entrepreneurial environment possible: bureaucracy vs. the private sector
04:32 – The muscle to lead change and why the private sector was the right place to use it
04:43 – The moment Meghan knew it was time to leave: the night Osama bin Laden was captured
06:09 – Sending out resumes at 1:00 in the morning and the one that changed everything
06:55 – What politics taught her about the power of young leaders and trusting her own value
07:48 – Effective self vs. destructive self activity: the exercise that explained everything
08:33 – Why waste, indecision, and lack of control are what brought out her worst in DC
09:28 – What working in the private sector revealed about her unique abilities
10:09 – The EOS “right person, right seat” framework and why it matters for CPA firm owners
11:14 – Core value alignment: using values to attract the right people like a magnet
12:15 – The three EOS questions: do they get it, do they want it, do they have the capacity?
13:04 – Why the press secretary seat was the wrong one and what EOS language helped her understand
TRANSCRIPT
Brannon: I’m Brannon Poe, and this is The Accountant’s Flight Plan podcast, where you can enjoy engaging conversations about mergers and acquisitions and accounting practice management. Listen in on strategies to build a more fun and valuable accounting firm.
Welcome to The Accountant’s Flight Plan podcast. I really do have a special guest today. Meghan Hickman is here. Meghan is our EOS implementer and has been implementing for our company for over three years now.
Let me tell you a little bit about Meghan. Her entrepreneurial journey started in the unlikeliest of places: politics. Early in her career, she served as a press secretary in the US Senate, a role she once considered a dream but found herself miserable in. It brought out the worst in her. She left that role and promised herself she would never let that happen again. Her next chapter landed her in business ownership, and she found work she genuinely loved. In 2014, she and her business partner were struggling with people issues and complexity and got a hold of a copy of “Traction,” which is the gold standard text for EOS. She went on to serve as a leader in an EOS-run company for seven years and grew it by 62% in the first five. Every tool she teaches is one she has worked through personally. She has helped over 40 entrepreneurial organizations, including ours. I am so glad to share this conversation with our audience because she has been such an integral part of our company’s journey over the last three-plus years.
Meghan: We are getting into something good here, Brannon.
Brannon: I want to get back to your start, because I don’t personally know much about that political chapter. Tell us a little about it. How does politics transfer to entrepreneurship?
Meghan: The short answer is it doesn’t. I joke when I’m talking to entrepreneurial leadership teams that I started my career in the least entrepreneurial environment possible. You look up the opposite of entrepreneurial, and it’s bureaucracy. That’s where I started. I had a heart and a passion for politics from the time I was in middle school. I was the student government kid all the way through college. My heart was absolutely in love with the idea of public service, and finding my way into the political landscape, whether on the campaign side or the official side, was all I could see. Working my way to Washington, DC was the goal, and so many of the choices I made in college and immediately after were in pursuit of that.
I would not trade it for anything. The lessons and experiences I had at a really young age were remarkable. What I learned through that journey is that I had a muscle to lead change, but the best way to make that sustainable was in the private sector. That is ultimately what I came to realize.
Brannon: At what point did you know you were in the wrong spot?
Meghan: I managed my time in politics for about six years. I told myself at the start that if there was ever a day walking to work when I looked at the US Capitol and it didn’t give me that warm feeling, it was probably time to leave. I can still recall the specific moment when I knew it was time. I was in the role as press secretary, and it was the night all the news stations broke the story that Osama bin Laden had been captured and killed. I worked for a US senator who was heavily involved in defense policy and the war on terror. My phone went nuts from producers wanting to get him on the air. It became a day that ran from 6:00 in the morning until midnight, interview after interview.
I got home at 1:00 in the morning and realized that the joy and spark that work once gave me was gone. The parts of the job that used to bring out the best in me were now the parts I resented. I was not having fun anymore. I sat down at my computer and started sending out resumes just to feel some sense of control. One of those resumes is what started my journey into the private sector.
Brannon: What lessons did you take from politics? How does that time impact how you lead and make decisions today?
Meghan: One of the most interesting lessons is that our country is largely run by people in their twenties and thirties, because they are the only ones with the energy to survive the pace of working in politics. That experience taught me, despite often being the youngest person in a room, to trust what I had to offer and the value I could bring. That lesson has stayed with me.
I also learned a lot about what I call effective self versus destructive self activity. The things that bring out the best in you versus the things that bring out the worst. It was actually an exercise I did within the last few years that helped me connect the dots. I was listing my destructive self activities, and the list included waste, indecision, and lack of control. And I thought, well, that sounds exactly like Washington, DC. I had never put those pieces together before. I was looking at that list and thinking: no wonder I was miserable. Those are the things that bring out the worst in me.
Getting into the private sector, working in public relations and public affairs, eventually becoming a partner in a genuinely entrepreneurial firm, that is when I discovered the things that bring out the best in me. I would not have truly appreciated those unique abilities if I hadn’t lived through the contrast. That time in DC gave me a rich, deep sense of self, a clear understanding of what I love and what I am great at, and a commitment that life is too short to spend it doing things that don’t allow you to live at your best.
Brannon: Steve Jobs had a quote that the best thing life can do is bring about its opposites. You knew what you didn’t want, and when you found what you did want, it lit you up.
Meghan: Exactly.
Brannon: You mentioned wrong seat, which is a term that comes up a lot in our workshops. For those who don’t know how EOS operates, Meghan spends five full days a year with our team: a two-day annual and three quarterlies. She has quite a bit of insight into how our company operates and the people in it. Can you go into the right person, right seat concept?
Meghan: It’s huge. And in those early days of my career, I knew something didn’t feel right and that I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t have the language to articulate it. EOS gave me that language, and I am forever grateful for it.
In EOS, we talk about strengthening the people element of your business. It’s about getting the right people on the bus and making sure they are sitting in the right seat. Right people means core value alignment. That connective tissue that defines who you are as an organization. You have to know what your values are, what the non-negotiable elements that define your company are, and use those to attract people to you like a magnet. Once you find those people, you have to make sure they are sitting in seats where they can thrive.
We use three questions to evaluate right people in right seats. First: do they get it? Do they have the instincts, the natural abilities? Is it just in their bones? Second: do they want it? Do they actually wake up excited to do this work in this company? Third: do they have the capacity? The learned skills, the mental, physical, emotional capacity to be successful in this seat?
I am so grateful that EOS gave me the language to understand what was happening in that press secretary role. It was a combination of not wanting it anymore and, honestly, not getting it. I’m an open book. Holding information closely, which is a core requirement for a press secretary, did not come naturally to me at all. But I didn’t have the language to say that then.
Brannon: EOS is such a good structure, and I say that as someone who doesn’t naturally gravitate toward structure.
Meghan: Visionaries love structure. For those of you out there wondering whether you are a right person or in a right seat: there is no shame in being in the wrong seat. Just don’t stay there. Life is too precious to spend the gifts you have been given in the wrong place. It is not about shame. It is about recognizing when it is time to make a change and having the courage to do it.
And if you own a firm and you are listening to this, you can change your role too. Just because you are the owner does not mean you cannot change your situation.
Brannon: We talk to a lot of accountants who are feeling burnout. Someone will say they want to sell, and when we ask a few questions, they realize they are not really ready to sell. They are ready to do something different. The burnout is driving the feeling, not a genuine readiness to exit.
Meghan: That is such an important distinction. So what are the signals that it’s time to make a big change? My observation is that there are two levels of recognition. There is a level when your head knows, and a completely different level when your heart knows, and those two levels require different prescriptions.
When your head knows it’s time for a change, you’ll feel frustrated with what’s happening around you. Things in your business feel harder than they should be. And there’s an important difference between stress and overwhelm. Stress means you have a lot on your plate but you generally know how to stay in motion. The head signal is when your business is running you instead of you running your business.
The prescription for head signals is to change something inside the business. Your structure, your seat, your operating system. Maybe you have been hands-on with clients and you are ready to move into more of a mentor or visionary role. Head signals point toward internal change.
Heart signals are different. Overwhelm, not stress. When you have a lot on your plate and have no idea what to do next. When you cannot find joy in your work anymore. When days or weeks go by without that spark that used to light you up. When the work is following you home and affecting your personal relationships. When you are waking up as a worse version of yourself. That is when your heart knows it is time for a leap: a transition, a sale, a retirement, whatever that next chapter is.
When your head knows and when your heart knows are two completely different prescriptions. It is worth slowing down to figure out which signal you are actually getting.
Brannon: I have found that people who are burned out often just haven’t had a real vacation in a long time. Taking actual time away creates the clarity to know which signal they are getting.
Meghan: Absolutely. We all have a set of tells for when we have gone too long without a free day. Distance really can make the heart grow fonder. Have you figured out what your own tells are, Brannon?
Brannon: For me it’s when problems feel bigger than they are. I come back from a trip and those same problems resolve quickly. I wonder why I couldn’t see it before. And even though I try not to work on vacation, sometimes strategies just fall on me like an apple. They feel like they come out of nowhere, but they come from the space your brain finally has to breathe.
Meghan: Exactly right. The ideas feel like they come out of nowhere, but they come from margin. When your brain doesn’t have creative space, the creativity doesn’t work. My own tells after years of paying attention: the first is when everyone around me suddenly seems difficult to work with. I know that is a me problem, not a them problem. The second is road rage. That is a reliable indicator I need to step away. And the third, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but if my bed doesn’t get made in the morning, that is a massive red flag that things are swirling and I need a break.
I just got back from a trip to Italy with my husband, and it was wonderful. One thing we learned: the timing matters. April is probably not the ideal time for CPAs to take a big trip, given what they come back to. But the trip itself was exactly what I needed. We walked through the airport on the way home feeling satisfied and restored, and genuinely excited to come back to our work. What a gift that is.
Brannon: Let’s talk more about EOS. If you had to pick just one tool that firm owners could implement for a big impact, what would it be?
Meghan: I am going to cheat because there are two that I consider truly non-negotiable among the five foundational EOS tools.
The first is the Accountability Chart. This is a critical tool for leaders of entrepreneurial companies, because structure does not automatically equal clarity inside a business. The Accountability Chart lets you actually see what the business is today and what it needs to look like in the next six to twelve months to get where you want to go.
A lot of CPA firm owners started as solo practitioners. They added one person, then two. When you cross over that five or ten person mark, what used to work stops working. You used to be able to wear every hat at once: head chef, bottle washer, hostess. You cannot do that once you reach a certain level of complexity. The Accountability Chart is what helps you stop stepping on toes, create real accountability, and understand who owns what as the firm grows.
Brannon: That was one of the hardest things for us when we started with you. An accountability chart sounds simple when you look at a completed one, but building it was some of the most challenging work we did. It is harder than it looks.
Meghan: It is. And that is one of the reasons I will always advocate for working with an EOS implementer if you can. I know a lot of people run EOS on their own, and it can be done, but I did it myself in a prior chapter with my former business partner. We got it done, but it took significantly longer, and we had the luxury of time that most busy CPAs and entrepreneurs simply don’t have.
The reason it is so hard to build something like an accountability chart from the inside is that you cannot be a part of a system and work on the system at the same time. You have to step away from the work in the business to work on the business, and that is genuinely difficult for any leader. What an implementer brings is the ability to ask questions, draw observations, and hold up a mirror that is nearly impossible to hold for yourself. It’s hard to see the game when you’re playing it. When someone is watching from the sidelines and can see plays developing that you cannot see on the field, it changes everything. You are the expert in your business. An implementer is the expert in the system. It takes both.
Brannon: What is the second tool?
Meghan: The Vision Traction Organizer, or VTO. I encourage every firm owner and visionary and leader to use this tool, even if you never run on EOS formally. It is a two-page strategic plan that simplifies your vision for the business: where you are going and how you are going to get there. It covers your values, your purpose, your big hairy audacious goal, your ideal clients, your three-year picture, your one-year goals, and your 90-day priorities.
We just worked on this with your team last week, Brannon, sharpening the definition of your ideal target client.
Brannon: Three-plus years into working with you, and we are still refining those definitions. What I have come to appreciate is that those things look different when you are a different company than you were.
Meghan: That is exactly the piece I love most about the VTO. It is dynamic. Most organizations have some version of a strategic plan, a beautiful spiral-bound document that gets pulled off the shelf every three years, updated, and then put back. Everyone checks the box for completing the exercise, and then the firm continues exactly as it has been. That is the opposite of how the Vision Traction Organizer works. It is meant to grow and evolve with the organization.
For your CPAs out there: the clients you loved working with three years ago may not be the ones you love working with today, because you have evolved. If your ideal client definition has not evolved with you, you will end up serving a whole host of people who used to be the right fit but no longer are. The VTO gives you a structure to ask that question every 90 days and course-correct before the drift becomes a problem.
And you can download it free at EOSworldwide.com. One of EOS Worldwide’s core values is help first, so these tools are available at no cost. Go get it, especially if you are heading into a new planning cycle.
Brannon: What patterns do you see in companies that scale well versus those that stay stuck?
Meghan: The first is how they think. I call it entrepreneurial thinking, and I want to be clear about what I mean. I am not talking about the serial founder who is always starting something new. I am talking about the kind of thinking that shows up when you love solving hard problems. That kind of thinking can exist in a startup, in a stable growth company, in a nonprofit, in a CPA firm. Companies that scale are the ones that run toward hard problems, not away from them. They recognize that times of revolution inside a business are not signs of failure. They are necessary for breaking through the ceilings of complexity that hold you back. Those ceilings are messy and frustrating and uncertain. But if you keep working through them, you break through and land in a whole new phase of evolution on the other side.
The second is simplification. The companies that scale fastest are willing to obsess over it. They say no far more than they say yes. They shed unnecessary complexity and laser in on what they do best. The Vision Traction Organizer actually helps with this because it gives you objective context to make those yes and no decisions, rather than making them arbitrarily or emotionally.
The third is vulnerability-based trust. Teams that scale are not teams without problems. They are teams that talk about their problems when they encounter them. They are willing to enter the danger, have hard conversations, ask for help, and find the tension rather than avoid it. That courage and that willingness to be authentic is some of what I most admire about your team, Brannon.
Brannon: Last question before we close. Do you have a memorable or crazy story from your career?
Meghan: The first one that comes to mind is probably a low point, but I think we learn as much from our struggles as from our victories. This was my first week as press secretary for a US senator. My boss had an interview on the Today show at the top of the 7:00 hour. My job was to pick him up, get him to the studio, and get him prepped and ready. For a combination of reasons, some my fault and some not, I was running late. There had been major breaking news overnight. The producer had me on the phone at 6:00 in the morning for thirty minutes while I was trying to get ready. I was late picking up my boss, who was waiting in the street in front of his house. I was late getting him to the studio. I did not even fully park the car. We flew up to the studio and got him there just in time, but without makeup, looking like he had not slept.
I could hear the producers in New York talking to the team on the ground in DC: what is wrong with him? Anyway, what I did not know is that the New York Times was at the Today show headquarters that very day, doing an article about the complexity of live television. My first week as press secretary, my very large mistake ended up mentioned in the opening paragraph of that article.
It did get better from there. But what I carry from experiences like that is this: doing hard work, showing up in high-stakes moments, working through the pressure, those things build something in you. The work I do now in EOS sessions is intense. It brings out big feelings. Teams are vulnerable. I have had tears and screaming matches and panic attacks right in the middle of sessions. And on the other side of every one of those moments, I have watched teams break through ceilings that had held them back for years. I had a client just a few weeks ago who hit their ten-year goal five years early. We got to celebrate with champagne and cigars. Watching that happen is why this is the greatest work I have ever gotten to do.
Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. There is no learning in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the learning zone. If something makes you uncomfortable, it probably means you are on the verge of a massive breakthrough.
Brannon: Book recommendation?
Meghan: Three, if you’ll let me. The first is “Traction” by Gino Wickman, which we have already mentioned. It is the textbook for EOS, and if you are starting to wonder whether it is time to bring more structure into your organization, that is the one to reach for first.
Beyond that, two others I gift and recommend often. The first is The Five Minute Journal by Intelligent Change. I have been using it for about eight years. For anyone who struggles with an open-ended journal, this one is different because it gives you question prompts. Five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night. It is a way to start and end your day grounded in gratitude, which is one of my core values. It is a small practice with a meaningful impact.
The last is “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brené Brown. For any of you who may have some perfectionist tendencies or who sometimes find yourself working to earn your place. That book was one of the most important milestones in my own journey. It helped me recognize where I was working to prove my worth rather than simply believing I already had it. It gave me language, and then it gave me a path toward actually believing that I am enough, just as I am.
Brannon: Meghan, thank you so much. I am sure our listeners have gotten a tremendous amount of value from this conversation.
Meghan: It has been such a privilege to get to walk with you and your leadership team on your EOS journey, Brannon. And even more than that, it is a privilege to call you all friends. I feel like I am a part of your team, whether you like it or not. It has been a joy to watch your business grow, to watch this podcast grow, and I am so grateful to have finally gotten the chance to join you on it.
