I’m a life hacker. I love tools, corner-cutters, and tip for living. The problem is, you can spend so much time hacking that you never get around to lifing. This can really cause problems at work, when strategy never gets around to action. Execution is an excellent and much recommended instruction on putting those hacks to practice.


Notes:

Recommended by Manager Tools

Library

The three core processes of execution
1 strategy
2 people
3 operations

Leaders must be sensitive to an a strategy has run its course and needs to be changed and have the flexibility to act quickly to make the change (xv)

The fractious culture in which people and subsidiaries were looking out for themselves, not for the overall well-being of the company (xxi)

The seven essential behaviors
1 know your ppl and your business ((xxiii)

It requires you to become a better listener, seeking peoples’ opinions and ideas even when they may not be as forceful in making their points or arguments as others (XXIV)

Remember the people are constantly searching for indications about their leaders’ abilities to carry them through a raging storm and they will interpret or misinterpret the slightest signals, whether those signals are sent intentionally or mistakenly (XXV)

2. insist on realism

Only the paranoid survive

Being relentlessly realistic rather than trying to gloss over problems

3. identify clear goals and priorities

There is no reward without risk, but the failure to understand and guard against those risks jeopardize the ability to reap the reward (XXVII)

4. follow through
5. Reward the doers ((xxvii)
6. Expand people’s capabilities (XXX)
7. Know yourself

Leaders spend too much time on intellectualizing and not enough time in implementation (6)

Follow through

Strategies most often fail because they aren’t executed well (15)

Unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps of action, they’re pointless (19)

execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats , questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability (22)

In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it (22)

Dialogue is the core of culture and the basic unit of work (25)

The leader who executes often does not even have tot Tell people what to do, she asks questions so they can figure out what they need to do. In this way she coaches them, passing on her expertise as a leader and educating them to think in ways they never thought before. Far from stifling people, this kind of leadership helps them expand their own capabilities for leading. (28)

Management by walking around (28)

Six Sigma processes for continual improvement (30)

Chapter 2: the Execution Difference (34)

Though he chewed his executives out for not making their numbers, he never asked why they didn’t make their numbers (37)

While stretch goals can be useful in forcing people to break old rules and do things better, they are worse that useless if they’re totally unrealistic, or if the people who have to Meet them Aren’t given the chance to debate them beforehand and to take ownership of them. (38)

Part 2: The Building Blocks of Execution (55)

Chapter 3: Building Block One: The Leader's Seven Essential Behaviors (57)

1. Know your people and your business
2. Insist on realism
3. Set clear goals and priorities
4. follow through
5. Reward the doers
6. Expand people's capabilities
7. know yourself
1. Authenticity (81)
2. Self-awareness
3. Self-mastery (82)
1. Keep your ego in check
2. take responsibility for your behavior
3. adapt to change
4. embrace new ideas,
5. adhere to your standard s of integrity and honesty under all conditions
4. Humility

Building Block Two: Creating the Framework for Cultural Change (85)

Linking rewards to performance (92)

Bring reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality (102)

Leaders get the behavior they exhibit and tolerate (105)

Building Block Three: The Job No Leader Should Delegate -- Having the Right People in the Right Place (109)

Why the right people aren’t in the right jobs
1. Lack of knowledge
2. lack of courage
3. 'Psychological comfort
4. Bottom line: lack of personal commitment (118)

What kind of people are you looking for? (119)
1. they energize people
2. they're decisive on tough issues (123)
3. they get things done through others
4. they follow through

Personal note: how can I make interview questions that will bring these out?

Part 3: The Three Core Processes of Execution

Chapter 6: The People Process: Making the Link with Strategy and Operations (141)

Chapter 7: Making the Link with People and Operations (178)

A strong strategic plan must address the following questions (188)
* What is the assessment of the external environment?
* How well do you understand the existing customers and markets
* What is the best way to grow the business profitably, and what are the obstacles to growth?
* Who is the competition
* Can the business execute the strategy
* are the short term and long term balanced?
* What are the important milestone for executing the plan?
* what are the crucial issues facing the business?
* how will the business make money on a sustainable basis?

Chapter 8: How to Conduct a Strategy Review (207)

Chapter 9: The Operations Process: Making the Link with Strategy and People (226)

This is definitely a business book and I am certainly not a business person. I learned, but it wasn’t really written for me as an audience.

3 Building Blocks of Execution

#A – The leaders 7 essential behavior
1.tKnow your people and business
a.tMaster the art of questioning and take questions – you intuitively know the culture and how well the managers normally communicates w/ the workforce.
b.tBuild personal connection – absent that personal connection, you are just a name.
c.tConduct business reviews – show up as a way of your appreciation and a reward for their extensive preparation. It’s not an interrogation, but take the form of a Socratic dialogue.
2.tInsist on realism
a.tAsk the question of ‘what’ and ‘how’ instead of simply ask ‘what’
b.tAlways understand where you are comparing it with other companies
3.tSet clear goals and priorities – less is more, laser focused on the top 3 priorities.
4.tFollow through – have the review process to ensure feedback and progress.
5.tReward doers – enforce accountability and promote execution.
6.tExpand people’s capabilities via coaching – master the art of questioning, asking incisive questions forces people to think, to discover, to search.
7.tKnow yourself – build emotional fortitude – comes from self-discovery and self-mastery.
a.tAuthenticity – walk your talk, be real.
b.tSelf-awareness – Know your strength and your weakness. Put mechanisms in place to help you disciplined and overcome your weakness.
c.tSelf-mastery – keep your ego in check (don’t think you are better than others)
d.tHumility – the ability to contain your ego.

The ultimate learning comes from paying attention to experience. As you gain experience in self-assessment, your insights get converted into improvements that expand your personal capacity. It requires tenacity, persistence, and daily engagement.

#B – Creating the Framework for Cultural Change
tThe hardware of a computer is useless without the right software. Similaryly, in an organization the hardware (strategy and structure) is inert without the software (beliefs and behaviors).
tReward – You should reward not just strong achievements on numbers but also the desirable behaviors that people actually adopt.
tRigor cadence (rhythm) of the business – strategy planning, operating plan, business reviews…
Robust dialogue – effective meetings, plannings, reviews, the difference is in the quality of the dialogue, starts from the top.

#C—Having the right people in the right place
1.tInterview – a person who doesn’t interview well may be the best choice for the job. You need to probe deeply, have structured interview to frame your questions which focus on details (not just high-level strategy or philosophy), how to set priorities, qualities, decision making process, energy level…
2.tAppraisal – focus on the ‘how’ as well as ‘what’. The ‘how’ unvarnish the truth.
3.tCandid dialogue – practice, such that you have enough confidence to give areas for improvements.

3 Core Processes of Execution

#A The People Process
1.tPeople Evaluation – Who are the people who are going to execute that strategy, and can they do it? Deciding what to do about nonperformers.
2.tPeople Development – detertime the organization’s talent over time and planning people development actions that will meet near-, medium-, and long-term milestones.
3.tLeadership Pipeline / Strong succession plan – developing leadership pipeline thru continuous improvement, succession depth, and reducing retention risk.

#B The Strategy Process

#C The Operation Process

I generally dislike "business books," and regularly counsel the businesspeople I work with to read just about anything *but* business books. However, EXECUTION is one business book I do like. It's direct and relevant, not overly jargon-laden, and offers useful ideas on how to engage people and organizations to define and execute plans. The fact that the book was co-written by an academic and a (former) practicing CEO may be a key to the book's success.

If I recall correctly, this book became necessary reading while working as Director Marketing, Internet at Molson Coors Canada very early in my career there. Current CEO Dan O'Neill became a big believer in the advantages and performance benefits that could arise if we could just inch by inch become much better at EXECUTION of not only the smallest local tactical promotions but ALL efforts everyday. Great ideas and the perfect promotional campaign only fails or certainly falls way short if poorly executed. Bossidy became the master of hiring and aligning the right teams with a shared commitment to amazing execution and measurement such that he made his entire career through the discipline and best practices of achieving consistent and best in class execution across his organizations which included GE, Allied Signal and others. Leading by example in the hiring, training, succession planning and linking of key people should be a consistent practice of top managers and team leaders such that the business doesn't skip a beat when someone moves on, up, or out.

Knock it out of the park results time and time again, or save a failing effort from losing money, resulted from "the consistent practice of the discipline of execution: understanding how to link together people, strategy, and operations, the three core processes of every business." And... "Leading these processes is the real job of running a business, not formulating a “vision” and leaving the work of carrying it out to others. Bossidy and Charan show the importance of being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why robust dialogues about people, strategy, and operations result in a business based on intellectual honesty and realism." Key take away for me was and is to this day is that the people/execution component of any idea or business model is actually beyond core even more important than the idea or business potential itself and should be considered not at time of implementation but hand-in-hand with the development of the new business idea or service. Short read and great book to pass along to new employees or colleagues.

Bom livro de negócios: daqueles que resume bem, contém bons exemplos e modelos de atuação.

Execution: The discipline of Getting Things Done: Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan


Central Truths:

1.tExecution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.
2.t No company can deliver on its commitments or adapt well to change unless all leaders practice the discipline of execution at all levels.
3.tYou need robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business.
4.tHow people talk to each other absolutely determines how well the organization will function.
5.tOrganizations don’t execute unless the right people, individually and collectively, focus on the right details at the right time.
6.tPeople imitate their leaders.
7.tLeadership without execution is incomplete and ineffective.
8.tLeader must show up. You cannot be detached and removed and absent.
9.tGood people liked to be quizzed – when you probe, you can learn things and your people learn things. Everyone gains from the dialogue.
10.tRealism is at the heart of execution; don’t try to avoid or shade reality.
11.tRewards and respect are based upon performance.
12.tCoaching is the single most important part of expanding others’ capabilities.
13.tWhen leader discusses business and organizational issues in a group setting, everybody learns.
14.tBest learning comes from working on real business problems; ask people to work on 3 or 4 issues facing company – form teams to work on those issues.
15.tEvery leader and supervisor needs to be a teacher.
16.tLeader must have emotional fortitude to be able to be honest with yourself; deal honestly with business and organizational realities; or give people forth right assessments.
17.tEmotional fortitude comes from self discovery and self mastery. It is the foundation of people skills.
18.tPutting people in the right jobs requires emotional fortitude.
19.tFour qualities that make up emotional fortitude include authenticity, self-awareness, self-mastery, and humility.
20.tWe don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting; we act ourselves into a new way of thinking.
21.tA business’s culture defines what gets appreciated and respected and ultimately, rewarded. It tells people what in the organization is valued and recognized.
22.tYou cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue; one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality.
23.tGood motto: truth over harmony. Harmony can be the enemy of truth.
24.tFormality suppresses dialogue; informality encourages it. It invites questions, encourages spontaneity and critical thinking.
25.tThe culture of a company is the behavior of its leaders. Leaders get the behavior they exhibit and tolerate.
26.tThe more you get involved and the better you hash the issues out on the table, the better decisions you will make in terms of their resolution.
27.tIn successful businesses, leaders focus intensely and relentlessly on people selection.
28.tLeaders must be personally committed to the people process and deeply engaged in it.
29.tWhen the right people are not in the right jobs, the problem is visible and transparent.
30.tLeaders need to commit as much as 40% of their time and energy (emotional) to selecting, appraising, and developing people.
31.tDoers energize people; they are decisive on tough issues, get things done through others and follow through as second nature.
32.tGetting things done through others: fundamental leadership skill: if you cannot do it, you are not leading.
33.tWhen the wrong people get rewarded, the whole organization loses.
34.tMechanical evaluations miss how candidates performed in meeting their commitments. Meeting them the wrong way can do enormous damage to an organization.
35.tNowhere is candid dialogue more important than in the people process. Must be able to speak forthrightly in evaluating others, if not, evaluation is worthless.
36.tThe people process is more important than either the strategy or operations processes.
37.tRobust people process: evaluates individuals accurately and in depth; provides framework for identifying/developing leadership talent; and fills the leadership pipeline.
38.tTraditional people process; backward looking, focused on evaluating the jobs people are doing today. More important to determine if individuals can handle the jobs of tomorrow.
39.tMeeting strategic milestones greatly depends on having a pipeline of promising and promotable leaders. Strong leadership pipeline based on good information.
40.tHR person must be well trained in the craft: how to teach people, develop them, make them interested in staying with company, and know what’s important for building momentum and morale in an organization.

Application:

1.tA leader just does not sign off on a plan. She wants an explanation and she should drill down until the answers are clear.
2.tThe knowhow of execution: involve all people responsible for the strategic plan’s outcome; ask staff about the hows of execution; set milestones for the progress of the plan with strict accountability for the people in charge; and have contingency plans to deal with unexpected.
3.tSeven essential behaviors of leaders: know your people and your business; insist on realism; set clear goals and priorities; follow through; reward the doers; expand people’s capabilities; and know yourself.
4.tWork on the personal connection everyday and every way you can. Show up with an open mind and a positive demeanor, be informal and have sense of humor.
5.tFocus on a very few clear priorities that everyone can grasp. Strive for simplicity in general. Speak simply and directly.
6.tAsk people to work on 3 or 4 issues facing company: form teams to work on these issues.
7.tNeed to make judgments about which people have the potential to get something useful out of a course and what specific things you are trying to use education to accomplish.
8.tGain experience in self-assessment.
9.tCultural change must change people’s behavior. Must change the beliefs and behavior of people in ways that are directly linked to bottom – line results.
10.tDo not reward individuals for just strong achievement on numbers but also on the desirable behaviors that people actually adopt.
11.tIncrease population of A-players: those who are tops in both behavior and performance.
12.tSearch for people with an enormous drive for winning.
13.tNever finish a meeting without clarifying what the follow-through will be; who will do it; when and how they will do it; what resources they will use; and how and when the next review will take place and with whom.
14.tPersonally check references. Focus on candidate’s energy, implementation, and accomplishments. Find out about their past/present, accomplishments, how they think, and what drives their ambitions.
15.tLook closely at how the people under review met their commitments.
16.tWhen identifying high-potential and promotable people, avoid two dangers: organizational inertia (keeping people in the same jobs for too long); and moving people up too quickly.

If you see this book on the shelf of the guy interviewing you for your next job, leave.

Terrible book by reckless and mean managers who give corporations a bad name. Some useful lessons in the first 60 pages devolve into a tirade against responsible management. The authors believe that the only purpose of a manager is to maximize profits in the next quarter.

While there are plenty of good ideas, the book is very business jargon heavy. Unless you are reading this book to improve your business practices as a leader, a lot of this may be go over your head or be irrelevant.

This book was a bizarre mix of really solid advice with things that, after reading Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A'S, Praise and Other Bribes absolutely grated on me. I made it half way through in 6 weeks and threw in the towel. Too many other books to be read.

I did not like this book. It relies too much on anecdotal examples of past successes to argue that the processes leading to those successes were correct. Based on my understanding of Nassim Taleb's books, I see this differently. The connection between processes and outcomes is not as straightforward, especially in the complex business world. When looking back, it’s easy to cherry-pick actions that seem effective for selected results rather than analyzing all actions across companies in a thorough, quantitative way to determine what works best.

This book falls short compared to Good Strategy Bad Strategy (While that book also uses anecdotal examples, it provided useful frameworks that made it more practical and insightful). I also did not appreciate this book’s heavy reliance on examples from Jack Welch. I disliked his biography, and how he ran General Electric has faced significant criticism in recent years.

Some of the book’s recommendations, like identifying “high-potential” people, feel outdated and flawed. Nine Lies About Work explains why this belief is misleading.

I agree with the book’s main premise: strategies and ideas alone are not enough—you need strong execution. This aligns with the common startup saying that "ideas are a dime a dozen."

I appreciated the book’s emphasis on doing background checks before hiring and understanding organizational competencies before determining if a strategy can succeed. This point reminded me of the 3C framework: customers, company, and competitors.

Overall, this book had a 1 out of 5 impact on me.

I was quite disappointed by this book. Part I and II contain useful information but not things you don't know. Everything I read here was what I would call common sense. Things that I would expect that the public this book is written for would likely know already. It's good to be reminded about certain things, I find myself reading some books in my library over and over again as you can only focus on so many things at once, but this felt like a waste of time. All the things that were discussed were discussed very high level. If things were only so simple nobody would need this book. Part III then offered some more in depth examples, just a few however.
If you're new to the subject and you only read this book you will know what should be done, you will have a small clue about how it should be done but you will encounter lot's of problems trying to do it that this book will not help you with.
I'm pretty sure that the authors of this book are very knowledgeable about the subject and I'm sure that things didn't went as smooth as they make it appear in this book. It's unfortunate that they don't go into more detail about those obstacles you will for sure encounter.