Execution: It's All About Getting It Done!
Part 2 -- What Is Execution, Where Does It Start, Where Does It End
by Janice Giannini
As a trusted business consultant and advisor, Janice has been helping clients achieve their stretch goals and create a new normal since 2005. She engages with senior executives and teams, particularly in complex businesses where misalignment is blocking their desired success, to develop and execute practical business strategies and plans. Clients have found her especially helpful when they recognize they must integrate an eagle’s eye and worm’s eye view in order to identify and remove obstacles. Janice has consistently taken on those challenges that others chose to run from. This typically involves those challenging times when failure is not an option and integrating business, technology and people changes must be accomplished simultaneously. As a result, many of her clients are complex organizations who won't settle for anything less than developing widespread professional competence.
In Part 2, we focus on defining the execution and emotional mindsets needed for effective execution. The criticality of these mindsets becomes apparent when the team considers the WHAT, WHY, HOW, WHEN and WHO questions introduced in Part 1.
Research indicates that team(s) committed to producing different results; display several significant characteristics.
- Of course we are open minded, aren't we?!!
- Consider this actual example: An organization once had a specifically defined process that took 265 steps and 3 weeks to execute. It was thought that it had to be done exactly the same way each time i.e. no deviations. The challenge was it was cumbersome and time consuming. No one could explain why it had to be done in that manner. "It just did". Being willing to ask the questions above, see additional possibilities, and get to the real cause versus symptoms, enabled true change to occur. The team took the 265-step process down to under 20 steps and cut the time in half.
- Is it easy for someone to say, "Let's try another approach" in your organization?
- Real change can occur when the emotional link is broken between the unconscious thought process, "changing means I have been doing it wrong all this time" and the desire to do it differently.
- Acknowledge the down side of accepting change up front- this enables the team to address the uncomfortable nature of exploring new paths
- Taking performance to the next level is a function of understanding what results effective execution drive into an organization,
- Creating an environment so people are able to see, hear and do what is needed!
- Understanding what motivates people to want that result and see the possibilities.
- What will propel the leadership, the teams and the individuals to go into the gray space?
- What is needed to sustain these same people to push forward to come out the other side?
In Part 3 of this series we will speak to the third focal point, "Thinking through plans and metrics" and the impact they have on an organization's ability to execute flawlessly and "Get It Done!"
- Addressing the What, Why, How, When, and Who of effective execution,
- Properly defining the execution and emotional mindsets needed,
- Thinking through the plans and metrics required to succeed,
- Handling the process challenges and inevitable stumbles along the way, and
- Creating a tight enough linkage between execution and strategy to form an iterative cycle.