Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

by Larry Bossidy

Execution not only ensures efficient use of resources in a credit and cash-starved world, but also provides the feedback loop needed for the business to adjust to changes—big or small—in the external world. True, leaders must still conceive of a path forward, but execution is what drives the organization along that path and allows it to seize opportunities. And good execution not only will see a company through the tough times, but also significantly improve its chances for success as the environment continues to shift.

the company that executes well will have the confidence, speed, and resources to move fast as new opportunities emerge. It will also have credibility as a partner, supplier, and investment of choice, compounding its advantage as it positions itself for growth.

Good execution reveals flaws in outmoded or wrong strategies sooner and allows time to change direction.

The three processes—people, strategy, and operations— remain the building blocks and heart of good execution. But as the economic, political, and business environments change, the ways in which they are carried out also change.

An environment of fast growth can cover a multitude of sins, but an era of slow growth will magnify every shortcoming of every person in the business, especially the leaders. Not only will many formerly well-regarded managers be found wanting in the new environment, there will also be a shortage of well-grounded leaders who have the mental acuity, fortitude, and persistence to execute well in a tough environment.

Leaders must be sensitive to when a strategy has run its course and needs to be changed and have the flexibility to act quickly to make the change.

One way to ensure that you have the right people in the right jobs in this rapidly shifting environment is by writing job descriptions for the kind of people you need in each job as it will exist tomorrow, then match those descriptions against the talents and abilities of the peole holding those jobs today.

You must also begin now to cultivate the leaders of the future, testing and evaluating people for their ability to execute in the face of new challenges and circumstances.

To execute well there must be accountability, clear goals, accurate methods to measure performance, and the right rewards for people who perform.

Strategy no longer is set in stone. A good strategy will be under constant review or revision depending on what is happening in the business environment.

When Procter & Gamble decided to shift from a global to a regional structure around the world, the change required a different set of people in leadership positions. It wasn’t that the people already in place weren’t doing a good job, but the new mandate required different skills and knowledge.

He set up rigorous compensation policies that made it clear that if the company overall didn’t thrive, neither would the employees. He would reward individual initiative, but the real gains in salary and bonus would come only if the enterprise as a whole did well. He paid particularly close attention to the big bonuses to be paid to the investment bankers, going through the list one at a time to ensure that each bonus was earned, not just awarded.

knowing your people is not enough. They need to know you. It is absolutely critical during trying times that you as a leader are accessible, that you project a sense of confidence tempered by concern, that you share as much undistorted and unfiltered information as you can, and that you act decisively. Remember that people are constantly searching for indications about their leader’s ability to carry them through a raging storm and they will interpret or misinterpret the slightest signals, whether those signals are sent intentionally or mistakenly.

Living with uncertainty, though, doesn’t mean paralysis. You have to act on your strategy even as you recognize that the strategy will evolve as circumstances evolve.

A fundamental component of setting any goal is understanding the risks inherent in trying to achieve it. There is no reward without risk, but the failure to understand and guard against those risks jeopardizes the ability to reap the reward.

For follow-through to serve its function, action must follow analysis. Knowledge without courage isn’t effective.

For too long companies—and this often involved boards of directors— set “shareholder value” as one of the goals to be measured and rewarded in compensation plans. But the directors and CEOs who set shareholder value as a goal missed an essential point. Increasing shareholder value is an outcome, not a goal. If you set the right strategy with the right goals and execute well to implement the strategy and achieve the goals—growth in earnings per share, good cash flow, improved market share, for example—then shareholder value is the result. Get everything else right and shareholder value will take care of itself.

The company had lots of hardworking, bright people, but they weren’t effective, and they didn’t place a premium on getting things done.

In the past businesses got away with poor execution by pleading for patience. “The business environment is tough right now” is one typical excuse; or “Our strategy will take time to produce results.” But the business environment is always tough, and success is no longer measured over years.

Execution is now tested on a quarterly basis—and not just by the numbers.

Most often today the difference between a company and its competitor is the ability to execute. If your competitors are executing better than you are, they’re beating you in the here and now, and the financial markets won’t wait to see if your elaborate strategy plays out.

I saw that leaders placed too much emphasis on what some call high-level strategy, on intellectualizing and philosophizing, and not enough on implementation.

Execution is not just tactics—it is a discipline and a system. It has to be built into a company’s strategy, its goals, and its culture. And the leader of the organization must be deeply engaged in it.

Many business leaders spend vast amounts of time learning and promulgating the latest management techniques. But their failure to understand and practice execution negates the value of almost all they learn and preach. Such leaders are building houses without foundations.

Execution is not just something that does or doesn’t get done. Execution is a specific set of behaviors and techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage. It is a discipline of its own. In big companies and small ones, it is the critical discipline for success now.

Strategies most often fail because they aren’t executed well. Things that are supposed to happen don’t happen. Either the organizations aren’t capable of making them happen, or the leaders of the business misjudge the challenges their companies face in the business environment, or both.

unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they’re pointless. Without execution, the breakthrough thinking breaks down, learning adds no value, people don’t meet their stretch goals, and the revolution stops dead in its tracks. What you get is change for the worse, because failure drains the energy from your organization. Repeated failure destroys it.

To understand execution, you have to keep three key points in mind: Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy. Execution is the major job of the business leader. Execution must be a core element of an organization’s culture.

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.

In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it.

Much has been written about Jack Welch’s style of management—especially his toughness and bluntness, which some people call ruthlessness. We would argue that the core of his management legacy is that he forced realism into all of GE’s management processes, making it a model of an execution culture.

The heart of execution lies in the three core processes: the people process, the strategy process, and the operations process.

You need robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business. You need accountability for results—discussed openly and agreed to by those responsible—to get things done and reward the best performers. You need follow-through to ensure the plans are on track.

The leader must be in charge of getting things done by running the three core processes—picking other leaders, setting the strategic direction, and conducting operations. These actions are the substance of execution, and leaders cannot delegate them regardless of the size of the organization.

It should be clear by now that execution isn’t a program you graft onto your organization. A leader who says, “Okay, now we’re going to execute for a change” is merely launching another fad of the month, with no staying power.

Leaders who execute look for deviations from desired managerial tolerances—the gap between the desired and actual outcome in everything from profit margins to the selection of people for promotion. Then they move to close the gap and raise the bar still higher across the whole organization.

The common view of intellectual challenge is only half true. What most people miss today is that intellectual challenge also includes the rigorous and tenacious work of developing and proving the ideas.

he never asked why they didn’t make them. An execution-savvy leader would have asked that right away. Then he would have focused on the cause—after all, you don’t fix a problem just by looking at its outcome.

Know your people and your business. Insist on realism. Set clear goals and priorities. Follow through. Reward the doers. Expand people’s capabilities. Know yourself.

Being present allows you, as a leader, to connect personally with your people, and personal connections help you build your intuitive feel for the business as well as for the people running the business. They also help to personalize the mission you’re asking people to perform. Dick Brown’s personal connections at all levels of the organization at EDS fostered a degree of commitment and passion that simply wouldn’t have existed otherwise. We know of no great leaders, whether in business, politics, the military, religion, or any other field, who didn’t have these personal connections.

As a leader, you have to show up. You’ve got to conduct business reviews. You can’t be detached and removed and absent. When you go to an operation and you run a review of the business, the people may not like what you tell them, but they will say, “At least he cares enough about my business to come and review it with us today. He stayed there for four hours. He quizzed the hell out of us.” Good people want that. It’s a way of raising their dignity. It’s a way of expressing appreciation and a reward for their extensive preparation.

Realism is the heart of execution,

When we ask leaders to describe their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they generally state the strengths fairly well, but they’re not so good on identifying the weaknesses. And when we ask what they’re going to do about the weaknesses, the answer is rarely clear or cohesive. They say, “We have to make our numbers.” Well, of course you have to make your numbers; the question is how you are going to make your numbers.

Embracing realism means always taking a realistic view of your company and comparing it with other companies. You’re always keeping an eye on what’s happening in companies around the world, and you’re measuring your own progress, not internally, but externally. You don’t just ask, “Have I made progress from last year to this year?” You ask, “How am I doing vis-à-vis other companies? Have they made a lot more progress?” That’s the realistic way to look at your station.

Leaders who execute focus on a very few clear priorities that everyone can grasp.

First, anybody who thinks through the logic of a business will see that focusing on three or four priorities will produce the best results from the resources at hand. Second, people in contemporary organizations need a small number of clear priorities to execute well.

Along with having clear goals, you should strive for simplicity in general.

Clear, simple goals don’t mean much if nobody takes them seriously.

If you want people to produce specific results, you reward them accordingly. This fact seems so obvious that it shouldn’t need saying. Yet many corporations do such a poor job of linking rewards to performance that there’s little correlation at all. They don’t distinguish between those who achieve results and those who don’t, either in base pay or in bonuses and stock options.

Good leaders regard every encounter as an opportunity to coach.