In my last posting I told you about a
wonderful book I’m reading, The 4
Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your
Wildly Important Goals, authored by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling. I explained that the 4 Disciplines of
Execution that the authors refer to this
as 4DX, is a simple, repeatable and proven formula for executing your most
important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind of all the other
competing priorities. I told you that
the 4 Disciplines were:
- Acting on Lead Measures
- Keeping a Compelling Scorecard
- Creating a Cadence of Accountability
I also told you that 4DX is not a theory, but rather a proven set
of practices that have been tested and refined by hundreds of organizations and
thousands of teams over many years. In
addition I explained that I have written about a technique first introduced as
the Intermediate Objectives Map by H. William Dettmer who most recently has
elected to change the name of this logical tool to the Goal Tree. In this posting I want to further discuss
each of these 4 disciplines that, if used correctly, can propel your
organization to exciting levels of improvement.
I also want to explain how I intend to integrate these disciplines into
the framework of the Goal Tree.
The authors of this book explain that there
are two principle things a leader can influence when it comes to producing
results: Your strategy (or plan) and
your ability to execute that
strategy. If you are a leader, my bet is
that you struggle more with the execution piece. The authors are saying the same thing and
when they have asked clients what they were taught more of, they received a
clear answer….it was strategy. So when I
saw the review of this book on Amazon, I knew I had to buy it.
The authors point out correctly that if you
are leading people, you’re probably trying to get them to do something
different because no significant result is achievable unless people change
their behavior and this is not easy. The
simple fact is, when you execute a strategy that requires a lasting change in
behavior of other people, you are clearly facing one of the greatest challenges
you will ever face as a leader. There
are two distinctively different strategies for improvement. One, the authors refer to as
stroke-of-the-pen, are those that you execute just by ordering them to be
done. The second strategy is referred to
as a behavioral change strategy. With
this type, you can’t order them to happen….they require as the name implies, a
change in behavior and not by just a few, but many people. Organizational change requires that the
entire organization must do something it has never done before, so no wonder it
is so difficult. It is not unusual to
see this type of strategy fail at the execution stage.
The authors tell us that one of the prime
suspects behind execution breakdown is clarity of the objectives. In other words, people don’t understand the
goal they were supposed to execute.
Another problem the authors point out that the people who did understand
the goal, had problems committing to achieving it. Accountability was also an issue, meaning
that most people will tell you that there was no accountability for regular
progress on the organization’s goal. So
it’s no wonder that execution is so difficult.
If the people weren’t sure of the goal, weren’t committed to it, didn’t
know what to do about it specifically, and weren’t being held accountable for
it, then how could they possibly execute it.
The authors rightfully point out that the
real enemy of execution is your day job, which they referred to as the whirlwind. The whirlwind is the massive amount of energy
that’s necessary just to keep your operation going on a day-to-day basis; and
ironically, it’s also the thing that makes it so hard to execute anything
new. In other words, “the whirlwind robs
from you the focus required to move your team forward. And as the name of my blog indicates (i.e. Focus and Leverage), without the proper
focus, then any path will do. In
everyone’s defense, the whirlwind is urgent and acts on you every minute of the
day. Yes the goals are important, but as
the authors point out, “when urgency and importance clash, urgency will win
every time. An important point is made
here, “Executing in spite of the whirlwind means overcoming not only its
powerful distraction, but also the inertia of “the way it’s always been done.” The key takeaway here is that if you ignore
the urgent (the whirlwind), it can kill you today, but if you ignore the
important it will kill you tomorrow.
What I have just articulated is why I believe
this book is a must read. The 4
Disciplines of Execution are not designed for managing in your whirlwind. The 4 Disciplines are rules for executing
your most critical strategy in the midst
of your whirlwind. So just what are the
4 Disciplines? Let’s look at each one in
more detail. Remember, ultimately I want
to demonstrate how I intend to integrate the teaching within this book with the
Goal Tree, so keep this in mind as we move forward.
The first Discipline is Focusing on the Wildly Important, so what does this mean? In many of my blogs I have told you that if
you try and improve everything, you’ll usually end up improving nothing or at
least very little. The authors echo this
when they say, “basically, the more you try to do, the less you actually
accomplish.” And because ambitious leaders
want to do more, this is a very important thing to remember. Focus is a natural principle, so it’s
important to learn how to do this. You
may remember from previous posts on the Goal Tree that the first step is
deciding on the Goal of the organization.
The first discipline requires you to go against the natural tendency to
attempt to improve many things and focus on that one truly important goal. The authors refer to this one (or maybe two)
important goal as a Wildly Important Goal
(WIG) to make it clear that this is the one that matters most. The authors tell us that, “failure to achieve
it will make every other accomplishment seem secondary, or possibly even inconsequential.”
In my next posting, we’ll continue discussing
the Four Disciplines for Execution and then begin to discuss how I believe they
fit so naturally with the Goal Tree.
Bob Sproull
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