Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

by Larry Bossidy

Clear, simple goals don’t mean much if nobody takes them seriously. The failure to follow through is widespread in business, and a major cause of poor execution. How many meetings have you attended where people left without firm conclusions about who would do what and when? Everybody may have agreed the idea was good, but since nobody was named accountable for results, it doesn’t get done. Other things come up that seem more important, or people decide it wasn’t such a good idea after all. (Maybe they even felt that way during the meeting, but didn’t speak up.) For example, a high-tech company was hit hard by the recession of 2001, suffering a 20 percent decline in revenue. The CEO was reviewing the revised operating plan for one of his most important divisions. He congratulated the division president on how well he and his people had reduced its cost structure, but noted that the business would still fall short of its target for return on investment. And he offered a possible solution. He’d recently learned about the importance of velocity, and suggested that the division could make real gains by working with its suppliers to increase inventory turnover. “What do you think you can do?” he asked the purchasing manager. The manager replied that with some engineering help, he thought he could make substantial improvements. “I’d need twenty engineers,” the manager added. The CEO turned to the engineering vice president and asked him if he would assign the engineers to the tas...

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