Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

by Larry Bossidy

Many CEOs have told me that my reference calls were different from most because I focused so much on the candidate’s energy, implementation, and accomplishments.

How leaders meet their commitments is at least as important as whether they meet them and is often more important. Meeting them the wrong way can do enormous damage to an organization.

example, if you are doing an assessment, you may tell the person, “You’re ambitious, you’re enthusiastic, and you work well with people. You’re conceptual, you’re analytical, and you’re a team player. Now, what could you do better? One, you’re not aggressive enough. You’re indecisive. Your standards aren’t high enough. You don’t develop your organization the way we ask you to—you didn’t promote enough people last year.” You illustrate these points with specific observations that you have made.

you have leaders with the right behavior, a culture that rewards execution, and a consistent system for getting the right people in the right jobs, the foundation is in place for operating and managing each of the core processes effectively.

If you don’t get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business.

One of the biggest shortcomings of the traditional people process is that it’s backward-looking, focused on evaluating the jobs people are doing today. Far more important is whether the individuals can handle the jobs of tomorrow.

A robust people process provides a powerful framework for determining the organization’s talent needs over time, and for planning actions that will meet those needs. It is based on the following building blocks: Linkage to the strategic plan and its near-, medium-, and long-term milestones and the operating plan target, including specific financial targets. Developing the leadership pipeline through continuous improvement, succession depth, and reducing retention risk. Deciding what to do about nonperformers. Transforming the mission and operations of HR.

Meeting medium- and long-term milestones greatly depends on having a pipeline of promising and promotable leaders. You need to assess them today, and decide what each leader needs to do to become ready to take on larger responsibilities.

Identifying high-potential and promotable people avoids two dangers. One is organizational inertia—keeping people in the same jobs for too long (a common practice in some industries). The other is moving people up too quickly

The good Lord had some development needs.

we agreed to disagree. You don’t always get agreement, but the more people you listen to, the better a composite you get.

Even the best people process doesn’t always get the right people in the right jobs, and it can’t make everybody into a good performer. Some managers have been promoted beyond their capabilities and need to be put in lesser jobs. Others just have to be moved out. The final test of a people process is how well it distinguishes between these two types, and how well leaders handle the painful actions they have to take.

Their failures don’t mean they’re bad people. It just means they aren’t performing at the level that is essential for the company’s success. And you deal with them quickly and fairly.

“When we consider whether a person is right for their job, we place them in one of three categories: a good fit, a stretch, or an action required.

The Duke team identified four basic groups of competencies: functional skills, business skills, management skills, and leadership skills.

The right people are in the right jobs when information about individuals is collected constantly and leaders know the people, how they work together, and whether they deliver results—or fail to. It’s the consistency of practice that

If a strategy does not address the hows, it is a candidate for failure.

Corporate-level strategy is the vehicle for allocating resources among all of the business units. But it should not be simply the sum of those parts. If it is, then the business units could do just as well standing on their own (or better, since they wouldn’t bear the burden of corporate overhead).

A corporate strategy also defines the walls of a company—the businesses it wants to be in and the general arena of play.

To be effective, a strategy has to be constructed and owned by those who will execute it, namely the line people. Staff people can help by collecting data and using analytical tools, but the business leaders must be in charge of developing the substance of the strategic

What is the best way to grow the business profitably, and what are the obstacles to growth?

How do you make such an assessment in your business? In a sense, this shouldn’t even be a question. If you’re doing your job as a leader—if you’re intimately involved in the three core processes, running the robust dialogues that permit candid assessments—you can’t help but have an idea of your capabilities. But don’t stop there. Listen to your customers and your suppliers. Get all your leaders to do the same, and ask them to report what they’ve heard.

You can’t just say mañana. You’ve got to have a plan that both plants seeds and harvests, that can make your financial objectives in the short term as well as do things that extend the life of the business in the longer term.

Where the business makes this investment (whether in technology, products, customer segments, or geographic regions) is deduced from and directly linked to the strategy dialogue.

Do not fix the problems individually; fix the process. Please make sure we have a defined path to achieve the reduction in the fourth quarter.

a big problem with conventional budget processes is that targets disconnected from reality can be all but meaningless for the people who have to meet them. An operations process that runs on the social software of execution solves this problem, because the people themselves help set realistic targets. And since those targets are the ones their rewards are linked to, the operating plan is where they take full ownership of them. This is the bedrock of accountability.

Getting the strategy process right is crucial to your longer-term success and that of your organization. Are business leaders driving the process, or has it been delegated to nerdy and isolated planning types? Does the plan have the right information to allow an accurate assessment of your position versus your competition? Is it sufficiently detailed so that your people can see how they will achieve both growth and productivity improvements? You can’t settle for vague declarations in these crucial underpinnings of the plan—you need specific programs.

are resources allocated in proportion to opportunities, or does every opportunity get some resources and none get enough? Is the plan straightforward, concise, and easily understood? Remember, you want everyone in your business to have a good grasp of it.

Don’t let yourself get too low or too high. Consistent behavior is a sign of a contained ego, and inspires confidence in you from those around you.