Working Resources

Helping Companies Assess, Select, Coach, and Retain Emotionally Intelligent People

Volume II, No. 5

Newsletter

Creating an Execution Culture A Leaders Most Important Job

business world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes. Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards that Work.

Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the

alone, In the year 2000Fortunesforty CEOs of theoftop 200 companies on 500 list were removed red or made to resign. When 20 percent the most powerful business leaders lose their jobs, something is clearly wrong. Leaders make big promises and then there are big gaps in what their organizations actually deliver. They have problems with accountabilitypeople arent doing what theyre supposed to do. Execution is not just something that does or doesnt get done. Execution is a culture with specic set of behaviors and techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage. Execution is not only the biggest issue facing business today, it is something nobody has explained satisfactorily. Execution is not just tacticit is a discipline and a system. It has to be built into a companys strategy, its goals, and its culture. And the leader of the organization must be deeply engaged in it. Many people regard execution as detail work thats beneath the dignity of a business leader. Thats wrong its a leaders most important job. Larry Bossidy, former chairman and CEO, Honeywell International According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), a lack of focus on the discipline of execution is the main reason companies fall short on their promises. It explains the gap between what leaders want and what they deliver. Execution is a system of getting things done through questioning, analysis and follow-through. It is a

r. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist and trusted advisor to the senior leadership team. He is the president of Working Resources, a talent management consulting, training and executive coaching rm. We help companies assess, select, coach and retain top talent. We specialize in executive selection, competency modeling, succession planning, leadership consulting, 360-degree feedback, change management, emotional intelligence, culture surveys, career development and leadership coaching. Dr. Brusman is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates mission, values, and vision retreats.
Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching eld, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work. Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

He has been chosen as an expert to appear on radio and TV, and in the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. Working Resources 55 New Montgomery Street, Suite 505 San Francisco, California 94105 San Francisco and Marin locations Telephone: 415-546-1252 Toll free: 800-993-3354 Fax: 415-721-7322 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.workingresources.com

discipline for meshing strategy with reality, aligning people with goals, and achieving the results promised. It should be a central part of a companys strategy and goals, and the most important job of any leader. It requires a comprehensive understanding of the business, its people, and its environment. An execution culture links the three core processes of any businessthe people process, the strategy, and the operating plantogether to get things done on time. The execution phase forces the leaders to translate the broad-brush conceptual understanding of the companys strategy into an action plan for how it will all happen: who will do what in which sequence, how long those tasks will take, how much will they cost, and how they will affect subsequent activities. Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing what, how, and why, of questioning, tenaciously following through, and of ensuring accountability. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies do not face reality very well. That is the basic reason they cant execute.

The three core processes of people, strategy and operations are familiar to practitioners of the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategy-Focused Organization management approaches. In a study of winning companies over ten years, professors William Joyce and Nitin Nohria found there were four primary management practices that directly correlate with superior corporate performance, as measured by total return to shareholders. Winning companies achieve excellence in all four of these primary practices: execution, strategy, culture and structure (What Really Works, 2003). However, more often than not, these core processes stand apart from one another like silos. Typically, the CEO and his senior leadership team allot less than half a day each year to review the planspeople, strategy, and operations. Typically, too, the reviews are not particularly interactive. People sit passively and watch PowerPoint presentations. They dont debate, and as a result often they get few useful outcomes. People leave with no commitments to the action plans theyve helped create. This is a formula for failure. What is needed is: Robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business Accountability for resultsdiscussed openly and agreed to by those responsible for getting things done Rewards for the best performers Follow-through to ensure that progress tracks to the plans

Execution Questions
Which people will do the joband how will they be judged and held accountable? What human, technical, production and nancial resources are needed to execute the strategy? Will the organization have the resources it needs two years out, when the strategy goes to the next level? Does the strategy deliver the earnings required for success? Can it be broken down into doable initiatives? People engaged in the processes argue these questions, search out reality and reach specic and practical conclusions. Everybody agrees about their responsibilities for getting things done, and everybody commits to those responsibilities.

Robust Dialogue
ou cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogueone that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor and informality. Robust dialogue requires that an organization has the information it needs to understand reality, and has the ability to make the right decisions. When mistakes are made, openness is preserved and blaming avoided. The information is used for course correction. Candor and honest conversations foster creativity and ultimately lead to competitive advantage and shareholder value.

3 Core Processes: People, Strategy & Operations

he heart of execution lies in the three core processes: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process. Every business uses these processes in one form or another.

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Emotional Fortitude

t takes emotional fortitude to be open to whatever information you need, whether it is what you want to hear or not. Such fortitude gives you the courage to accept opposite points of view and deal with conict. It takes a special kind of condence to encourage and accept challenges in group settings. It is necessary to be able to accept and deal with your own weaknesses or vulnerabilities, to be rm with people who arent performing, and to handle the ambiguity inherent in fast-moving, complex organizations.

Leadersat all levelsmust become passionately engaged in the organization, recognizing that execution is their main job. Putting the right people in the right jobs and ensuring that rewards and recognition reinforce performance are essential. Bossidy and Charan emphasize that leaders must build and sustain a social operating system, involving continuous review meetings that make up the day-to-day execution management and to link performance and rewards. Review meetings provide the framework needed to create common ways of thinking, behaving and doing.

4 Core Qualities

ossidy and Charan point out four core qualities that make up emotional fortitude and that are required for all leaders: 1. Authenticity 2. Self-awareness 3. Self-mastery 4. Humility Clearly these four qualities should be well-developed by the time an executive reaches a top position within a corporation. However, often one or two of them may appear to be underdeveloped. Leadership development at this level requires the services of a professionally trained executive coach to provide focus and guidance in enhancing these four qualities.

The Leaders 7 Essential Behaviors

hat exactly does a leader in charge of execution do? How does she or he keep from being a micromanager, caught up in the details of running the business? There are seven essential behaviors that form the building blocks of execution: 1. Know your people and your business 2. Insist on realism 3. Set clear goals and priorities 4. Follow through 5. Reward the doers 6. Expand peoples capabilities 7. Know yourself Most executives and managers dont understand the discipline of execution. It is not simply a matter of trying harder or paying more attention to details. Execution involves a specic set of core processes built on a foundation of leadership behaviors; its a culture unto itself.

Execution Is the Main Job

eaders often bristle when they are told they have to run the three core processes themselves. Youre telling me to micromanage my people, and I dont do that, is a typical response. Micromanaging is a big mistake because it diminishes peoples selfcondence, saps their initiative and sties their ability to think for themselves. But theres an enormous difference between leading an organization and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of a hands-off style or puts faith in empowerment is not dealing with the issues of the day. He or she is not confronting the people responsible for poor performance, or searching for problems to solve and then making sure they get solved.

Recommended reading: Bossidy, L. & Charan, R.

(2002). Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business Books.

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Three Keys to Effective Execution

ere are three recommended keys to translating strategy into action, from an important article by Melissa Raffoni, Three Keys to Effective Execution (Harvard Management Update, Feb. 2003).

1. Maintain your focus. What characteristics are necessary to stay in focus? You cant go wrong if you think about maintaining a realistic attitude, simplicity and clarity. How realistic are your plans given your resources? How realistic is this plan given the marketplace and the target customers? The strategy must be as simple as possible. Usually only a few goals can be pursued effectively at any time. Simple, clear objectives that are commonly understood throughout the organization are best. Distilling strategy to its essentials can deepen employees understanding. 2. Develop tracking systems that facilitate problem solving. Develop measures not only for planning but for the execution phase as well. Do your measures really tell you whether youve accomplished the objective? Does the tracking system get to the heart of the problem youre trying to x? The right measures help make expectations clear. Dont let the data get in the way of discussing why things arent working. Facing reality makes the difference. It is up to the leader to see that meaningful conversations take place after all the numbers are reported. 3. Set up formal reviews. Successful execution of plans means continual reviews. Meetings should track objectives and variances with a critical eye towards corrective action. People and resources should be a top priority at review sessions. The right people need to be in the right roles. This means continual evaluation. Resources must be in place to execute successfully. Do your people have what they need? Managers who excel in execution rely on dashboard tools or summary documents to track resources and objectives. Some rms use quarterly action booklets that list major objectives, key actions, resources and dates. The goal is to balance simplicity with thoroughness. You must get a clear picture of the primary initiatives, the key metrics they are impacting, and who is accountable for each, in order to have a true measure of your progress.

Working Resources Dr. Maynard Brusman Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach Mail: P.O. Box 471525 San Francisco, California 94147-1525
Helping Companies Assess, Select, Coach, and Retain Emotionally Intelligent People