Execution is the key to competitiveness. Even a suboptimal
strategy can be made to work with superior execution while even a great strategy
can be rendered suboptimal by inferior execution. There is lot of management
literature on planning, strategy and the like but very little on execution. Two
books merit mention: the first is “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things
Done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan and the second is “The Four Disciplines of Execution: Achieving
Your Wildly Important Goals” by Sean Covey, Jim Huling and Chris McChinsey.
Probably, execution is seen as simple as as following a set of instructions or
rules embedded in budgets and plans, developed pursuant to goals. The book by
Sean Covey focuses on the behavioural aspects of execution, and brings out
Focus, leverage, engagement and accountability are considered the four critical
disciplines of execution.
Execution at shop floor level or in construction site is
rather easy to monitor. However, execution of a business is more challenging
due to the involvement of countless agencies and people, both internally and
externally, operating under conditions not fully under ones control. One may
draw up an SOP for shop floor activity or a PERT/CPM chart for a construction
project but would find the idea rather out of place for a business initiative. Programme
management has emerged as a discipline for monitoring execution but it only
provides a partial and ineffective answer. The reason is simple. Just as
quality has to be embedded in production processes and operators, execution has
to also be carried out only by people entrusted with execution. Execution is
not a monitor’s job, although monitoring may be part of execution, and if
carried out by other agencies helpful to execution. This blog post proposes
five facets of effective execution.
Execution chain
Execution is the practice of converting a plan into an action
to achieve a goal. Execution, therefore, starts with goal setting itself, as
Sean Covey’s book argues. If the logic is so clear, why is it that there tend
to be huge differences in the execution effectiveness of different individuals
or entities? Some attribute ineffective execution to inadequate goal setting
and insufficient planning. People
subscribing to this view believe that as long as goals and actions are
articulated clearly execution would happen automatically. Yet, execution tends
to be weak in high-planning companies too. Some believe that execution has a
significant behavioural content. Sean Covey’s book proposes that the four key
elements of focus, leverage, engagement or accountability can be ensured in
teams with appropriate behavioural conditioning. It advocates systemic
ownership around key goals with execution itself being both an action and
reward.
The planning based view is simplistic while the behaviour
based view is elaborate. It is important to understand execution from different
viewpoints, align them and integrate them under one execution value chain. At
the lowest end, execution can be seen as a series of actions or events. An
example of this is organizing a leader summit as an event that aligns the
leadership team. However, organization of the event is just a start. At the
next higher step, organizers tend to look for outcomes. In this case,
successful conclusion with 100 percent participation and no dropouts and with
at least 50 percent of participants providing active inputs could be outcomes.
Even this, however, is not complete execution. At the next higher level, one
would look for results, in terms of new collaborative networks being created or
platforms created for post-summit follow-up. Most execution experts believe
that the execution is completed with good results.
There are, however, two other important milestones towards
the higher end of the execution value chain, namely accomplishment and actualization.
Results are metricised numbers of performance. Quarter after quarter companies
publish their results, and even if they are in line with goals companies may
not have a sense of accomplishment. A sense of accomplishment in execution
happens when the executing individuals and teams have sense of ownership, right
from goal setting to accomplishment of results. A sense of accomplishment is
not the final end, however. A feeling of actualization is the ultimate endpoint
of execution. Actualization is a challenging concept, and has been dealt with
by the author in his blog Strategy Musings on three occasions: “The Journey of Self-Actualization: A
Leadership Process of Discovery, Development and Delivery”, August 28, 2012
(http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2012/08/the-journey-of-self-actualization.html),
Self-Actualization by One’s Self for
Oneself: An Enlightened Process for the Elusive Goal”, April 21, 2013 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2013/04/self-actualization-by-ones-self-for.html).
Leader reflections
If one has to travel the full length of execution value
chain, the journey would require leader-follower interactions that focus not
merely on any of the transition points of the execution chain but instead focus
on the actualization end-point. The leader would need to typically evaluate
himself or herself first; what would really fulfill himself or herself. A leader
who is considering a leadership position in a turnaround setting would need to
introspect or reflect which of the following could be the real trigger for his actualization:
revenue, stock price, employee security or hall of fame. While one may say that
all of the factors would be reflected in company valuation, the sense of
fulfillment could come from completely different factors. It could, for example,
be from a sense of learning that he has become a master of turnaround, which he
may not be expressed or measured at all. For the employees involved, it may
come from stepping that extra mile to give novel suggestions and have the
fulfillment of accomplishing them.
A sense of actualization occurs by focusing on transformative
goals rather than mundane goals, and by focusing on a few prioritized ones
among them, rather than on every one of them. The leader should be able to
identify the goals which are predominantly individual dependent, team oriented
or business leadership specific. Delivering a lecture in the leader summit is
an individual accomplishment while organizing the summit is a team
accomplishment. Using the summit to transform the business is a business
leadership accomplishment. Leaders need platforms and forums to articulate,
prioritize, and focus on actions, and monitor outcomes and results on each of
the groups. Once the forums are in place, taking them seriously, and staying
engaged is an essential mind-set, for both leaders and followers. Continuous
engagement helps in mutual reinforcement of leaders and followers towards
fulfilment of goals. It also sets up mutual accountability which is a logical
culmination of ownership.
Follower reflections
Admittedly, followers are unlikely to have the same
uniqueness of perspectives or levels of motivation that leaders would have.
Followers are generally a part of larger teams with significant interactive
noise. Each team tends to have its own group dynamics in terms of behaviour
towards performance. Followers tend to be of two categories; those who are
determined to be leaders and those who are content to be followers. It occurs
naturally for the first group to be highly execution oriented and for the
second group to be passively participative. The relative mix of aspirant
leaders and passive followers is not necessarily a driver of relative
performance differentials. It does not, for example, follow that if there is a
high proportion of aspirant leaders in a group, that group would automatically
perform better. On the other hand, such a group could be more fractious and
more energy dissipating.
Followers need to reflect on what could make them really a
fulfilled part of a group. Some may like their performance to be outshining
others in a group while some others may derive happiness from their group being
more effective overall. Be that as may, followers usually struggle to arrive at
a common understanding of the right dynamics for the group. This is partly due
to a lack of understanding as to how group success, rather than individual
success, can spell overall business success and partly due to a perception
linking individual performance to career growth. Those groups which have a
natural performance culture rather than a rewards driven performance culture
tends to have more harmonious group dynamics.
Leader responsibilities
Visionary execution is what sets out a leader from others.
Execution is a complex value chain starting with goals and ending with
fulfilled delivery. Most leaders see a high performance culture in their
organizations as an enabler for effective execution. That may be a necessary
condition but not a sufficient one. Some others see their own personal
productivity as a key driver of effective execution. Again, it may be an
inspiring factor but not a sufficient one. Most boards believe that linking
rewards to individual, group and company performance would motivate people
appreciate the value of performance. This helps but not without some rancour of
comparisons. Effective execution, like quality and safety, is a behavioural
state.
A leader’s ability to mentor his organization on the various
stages of execution is an important condition for setting in place a natural
and inclusive performance culture for the company as a whole. From establishing
critical, top priority goals in focus to guiding the team on a journey that
extrapolates from actions, outcomes to results, accomplishments and finally
fulfilments is the essence of effective execution. Even institutions derive
actualization through effective execution. See the author’s blog post “Institutional Actualization: The 5A Process
of Virtuosity”, Strategy Musings, May 19, 2013 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2013/05/institutional-actualization-5-process.html).
There is a clear need for more contributions on effective execution practices
in management and leadership literature.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 04, 2016
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