Execution is the missing link between a company’s strategy and results. As such, it is the major job of every business leader. If you don’t know how to execute, the best strategy in the world is rendered impotent, and your business suffers through endless cycles of failed strategies and poor results.

Execution talks about how important it is to business success to get things done. Although large amounts of time and money are dedicated to developing strategic thinking, few executives realize the importance of being able to execute the strategy they develop. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan have identified the discipline of execution as the way to link the three core processes of any business: the people process, the strategy, and the operating plan.

Key points on execution:

•    Execution is a discipline. “Don’t confuse execution with tactics. No worthwhile strategy can be planned without taking into account the organization’s ability to execute it.” (p. 21)
•    Execution is the major job of the business leader. “Organizations don’t execute unless the right people, individually and collectively, focus on the right details at the right time.” (p. 33)
•    Execution must be a core element of an organization’s culture. Execution should begin with the senior leaders and drive the behavior of everyone in the organization.

The Three Building Blocks of Execution

Building Block One: The leader’s seven essential behaviors

•    Know your people and your business. Thoroughly understand the people and the business environment you’re working with.
•    Insist on realism. People usually want to hide mistakes and avoid confrontations. You start by being realistic yourself.
•    Set clear goals and priorities. Focus on three to four priorities that everyone can grasp. “Without carefully thought out and clear priorities, people can get bogged down in warfare over who gets what and why.” (p. 69)
•    Follow through. Explore conflicts that stand in the way of results and create mechanisms such as regular reviews to ensure people do what is expected.
•    Reward the doers. Measure, reward and promote people who get things done.
•    Expand people’s capabilities. Coaching is the single most important part of expanding others’ capabilities.
•    Know yourself. In execution, emotional fortitude is absolutely critical. You need to be open to information whether it’s what you like to hear or not. Emotional fortitude comes from authenticity, self-awareness, self-mastery and humility.

Building Block Two: Creating a framework for cultural change.

“Most efforts at cultural change fail because they are not linked to improving the business’s outcomes.” (p. 85) To deliver better results, start with examining whether your organization’s ingrained beliefs are helping the business perfect its execution.

If a company rewards and promotes people for execution as well as for desirable behaviors, its culture will change. “Linking rewards to performance is necessary to creating an execution culture, but it’s not enough. Leaders must also help people to master the new behaviors by coaching.” (p. 96)

You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue, which makes an organization effective in gathering information and reshaping it to produce decisions. Robust dialogue starts when people have open minds. They listen to all sides of the debate without preconceptions or private agendas. They want to hear new information and choose the best alternative. Adopting norms such as “truth over harmony” can help a company move in this direction.

Building Block Three: Having the right people in the right place

“If you look at any business that is consistently successful, you’ll find that its leaders focus intensely and relentlessly on people selection.” (p. 110)

•    Define jobs in terms of the three or four non-negotiable criteria, things the person must be able to do to succeed. Fill the job based on these criteria rather than personal opinions.
•    Leaders must develop the emotional fortitude to confront people who are in the wrong job and make a change. Failure to do this can cause untold damage to a company.
•    Fill jobs with people who fit the criteria, not ones that the leader is personally comfortable with.

The best people get satisfaction from getting things done. They energize people, are decisive on tough issues, get things done through others, and follow through.

As a final note, the authors are enthusiastic about the degree of learning that happens as a company engages these processes, and emphasize the importance of understanding that they are linked together to execute well. Throughout the book Bossidy and Charan provide engaging and thought-provoking stories of how to turn strategy into action, and action into success.

		Jim Cullen is the managing partner of Schooley Mitchell Consultants within Mid-Michigan.  His firm, independent of all telecom providers, offers a broad range of services that include analysis of existing and future telecommunications needs, assessment of best alternatives and implementation of cost-effective solutions.