EXECUTION: THE DISCIPLINE OF GETTING THINGS DONE

EXECUTION: THE DISCIPLINE OF GETTING THINGS DONE

Bossidy and Charan suggest that execution is “the missing link between aspirations and results”.  As evidence, they point to the significant number of CEOs who fail.  For example the author states in 2000 alone, 40 of the top 200 CEOs in America’s Fortune 500 list were removed from post – not retired, but fired or made to resign.  The usual explanation is that the CEO’s strategy was wrong, but Bossidy’s and Charan’s view is that most strategies fail because they were not executed well.

Together both authors have pooled their knowledge and experience into the book on how to close the gap between results promised and results delivered for people in business today. The book has a full insight into why some companies are successful and others are not.

The book focuses on the discipline of execution which involves three core processes; the people process, the strategy process and the operations process. 

The people process:  This is about having the right people in the right place, it is about knowing the strengths, weaknesses, capabilities and capacities of the people in an organization and it is about development. .  In their view the people process is more important than either the strategy or operations processes as it is the people that will make an organization succeed or fail.  Moreover, they argue that most people processes are backward looking, evaluating people against the requirements of today rather than looking at the requirements of the future. 

The Strategy Process:  The authors argue that these sessions are too short-lived and rarely examine the subjects under discussion with the rigor and robustness that they deserve.  Another problem the strategies are intellectually appealing but that the organization is incapable of implementing.  For example, when AT&T acquired several cable companies the strategy made sense but the management did not have the ability to run them

The Operations Process:  Once the strategy has been agreed, it is all too common for organizations to then set targets, agree budgets and allocate resources, no discussion as to how, or even whether, you can get the desired results

The execution culture is about the interplay of the three areas and understanding how to link together people, strategy and operations of every business. According to the authors, leading these processes is the real job of running a business, not formulating a “vision” and leaving for others to carry out. The authors show the importance of being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why robust dialogues about people, strategy, and operations result in a business based on intellectual honesty and realism.

The book further explains the concept of the Building Blocks.

Building Block One: The leader’s seven essential behaviors: Execution is a systematic discipline of exposing reality and acting on it.  It states:

1.       Know your people and your business, where knowing is part active involvement/personal connection and part distilling the challenges facing the business or business units into six or few fundamental issues.

2.       Insist on realism; realism is the heart of execution, about doing what works and stopping what does not.

3.       Set clear goals and priorities; focus on a very few clear priorities that everyone can grasp, just three or four that will produce the best results from the resources at hand.

 4.      Follow through; don’t set goals if you don’t plan to (check on) follow through. 

 5.      Reward the doers; measure results and then reward and promote the people who generate them.

6.      Expand people’s capabilities through coaching; coaching, the difference between giving orders and teaching people how to get things done, is the single most important part of expanding other’s capabilities.

 7.      Know yourself; practice authenticity, awareness, self mastery and humility.

 

Building Block Two: Creating the Framework for Cultural Change (e.g. linking to business outcomes).

1.    Cultural change gets real when your aim is execution

2.    You need to change people’s behavior so that they produce results

3.    First you tell people what results you are looking for, then discuss how to get those results

4.    Reward  people for getting those results, or provide additional coaching when they don’t

 

Bossidy and Burk place emphasis on the leader’s most important jobs which include selecting and appraising people; they feel it is one that should never be delegated as having the right people for the right jobs is highly important for a leadership pool that conceives and selects strategies to be executed. On this basis, if the right people and strategy are in place, they are then linked to an operating process that results in the implementation of specific programs and actions and that assigns accountability.

 

In general integral to strategy, execution is a discipline that prosecutes the three core processes of people, strategy, and operations with rigor, intensity, and depth. It is the major responsibility of the business leader, who gets things done by taking responsibility of the business leader, who gets things done by taking charge of running the three core processes (no delegation).

Execution must be a core element of the organization’s culture, embedded in the reward systems and in the norms of behavior.

The book makes us understand putting an execution culture in place is hard, but losing it is easy. It makes remarks on how senior management should focus on developing an execution culture. As the whole purpose of the job of an organization's leader, is to get things done, to achieve the objectives of the organization and to deliver results


The book provides numerous examples from the perspective of a chief executive of where execution has both succeeded and failed and gives an insight on Larry Bossidy’s 43 years experience in General Electric extensively and how Larry Bossidy transformed AlliedSignal into one of the world’s most admired companies.