Our last post on Business Execution essentially focussed on the following:
- Definition of Execution,
- Benefits of Execution, and
- Creating a System of Business Execution.
This, concluding part, addresses the need to avoid execution inertia.
4) How do you avoid execution inertia:
Right people: No gainsaying your most important resource is your human capital. Employing, attracting, retaining and motivating the right people with the right knowledge, skills and attitudes is key to eliminating execution inertia. You have to have the right people who are sufficiently motivated and excited to get things done. Without the right people, the other resources will come to nought. As you take on more tasks and environments change, you have to keep retraining your people to keep up to speed on the demands and challenges that are thrown at you.
Work on thyself: I always maintain that the best things are first achieved in the recesses of our minds. Walt Disney is considered a high achieving personality. His action ‘recipe’ was the four C’s of ‘Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy’. So the right place to start is with a curious and confident mind. You and all your team members, all across your enterprise, must ‘buy into’ the execution mindset. There are three issues involved here. First, all of you must understand the meaning of execution and its necessity in setting you apart and ahead of your competition. Second, is to determine how and which systems (and resources) you need to develop in your business that will support and make execution necessary and ‘easy’. Third, you have to assess and reward people based on their execution capabilities.
Avoid the average performance mentality: This is a mental approach that drags you and your team back from achieving extraordinary levels of execution. Sometimes, it is because we see the business simply as an avenue to satisfying our egos. Unless we see the business much beyond that, we run the risk of getting complacent even when we can do and achieve more. The point at which you decide to be ‘satisfied’ is typically the point your success will flatten. But as with all things in nature, unless you do something to up the ante, entropy will set in.
The human mind is amazing. We unconsciously ‘work’ not to surpass the limits we set on ourselves! Unless, therefore, we instil a ‘can do’ approach to our work we will fail to achieve what is ordinarily possible. Some few years back, a key member of our bidding process told me that ‘we didn’t stand a chance to win (a particular bid)’! He ‘reasoned’ that we didn’t have the technical capability to win. And truly, as to our technical capability, we really were weak. I could have, nonetheless, tried to convince him about the possibility of winning by adopting a partnership model. However, I was concerned that given his seniority and level of ‘conviction’, the risk of ‘ thought infection’ to other team members was unacceptable to me. I therefore kept the person aside and continued with the rest of the team. We partnered with a foreign company that had the technical capability and eventually won the bid. In our success review, I involved the person and we went over all issues. That became a clear lesson in my organisation that the mindset helps us achieve or fail to achieve our objectives. I have no illusion whatsoever that his involvement could have yielded a different outcome (as his mind would have ‘worked’ tirelessly to prove that he was ‘right’). A sense of self worth, knowledge confidence and faith are absolutely key in your ability to execute successfully.
Appreciate the challenges: The days of any typical officer ranges from involvement in official, yet mundane activities to the very important. From the easy to the very difficult. From the mentally exhaustive to the emotionally demanding. It is important for every responsibility officer to appreciate and accept that this comes with the territory. To be able to execute diligently, your people must understand that a lot of things have to be done. Unless you all get to know how to get things done, you really wouldn’t succeed in your enterprise. It is all that leadership and businesses are about. Indeed the most successful people do enjoy the ‘routines’ and squarely face challenges as they arise. Attract the right people with the right mindset and make the work interesting and joyful. No wonder successful companies like Google, Apple, and Toyota make their workers’ lives very interesting at their places of work.
Discipline of execution: You and your team must entrench a disciplined approach to execution. That means getting the things done when and how it was agreed to be done. Discipline of execution is both physical and emotional. It is physical in the sense that a lot of things require physical assertion of effort. It is emotional in the sense that you frequently have to forgo certain ‘immediate’ benefit for a larger benefit but which is delayed. Other times feelings and sensibilities are hurt. Understanding the concept of delayed gratification will help you and your team.
Remember, no matter your brilliant idea, no matter your wonderful plan and strategy, nothing will be achieved unless you do something.
