The Discipline of Execution (DoE): Getting the Right Things Done Timeously, By Segun Mojeed

Wao! I’m humbled by the reactions to last week’s article – Extra-Legendary Customer Service (XLS101): My Yale Experience. It was so overwhelming they were still pouring in even as I wrapped my head round this week’s piece, another passion of mine – Execution! A couple of those feedbacks came from abroad – this is the internet age, you know; and with Twitter, WhatsApp et al, information now travels at the speed of thought (or is it the speed of light?) or even faster.

Before I go further into that, let me humbly apologise for a printer’s demon, may be it was a devil that had a ‘cameo appearance’ in last week’s edition. The first release of that article had me using the word ‘nephew’ twice, first for a young man, and then for a lady. Ha! When did that word become unisex? It hit the airwaves briefly before the editors quickly retrieved the piece, corrected it and reposted. Thank God for the advent of the e-world. In the days of yore, that error would have remained forever in print. Not these days. It was corrected pronto! And I want to wholeheartedly give a shout out to my friend, colleague and protégé, Gbenga Omojola who quickly alerted me of that blip. We had a brief chat after and his comment that he learned attention to details from people like me took my breath away. Thank you young man, we all keep learning and improving.

Back to the feed backs on XLS101, and please permit me to just share only one for now because of space constraint. I would surely share my friend, Ryan’s equally thrilling response in the coming weeks. Ms Gypsy Garcia e-mailed from Yale:

 Hi Segun,

So great to hear from you! Everything is well here – I have since been promoted after our last contact on campus, and enjoying the new experience. Hope all is well with you! 

I just read the article – I am truly touched and humbled by your accounting of your experience at Yale. That article is thoughtfully put together, thank you for sharing! Do you mind if I share the link with our marketing team? They may be interested in promoting the article, with your permission! 

 And thank you, Ryan, for being such a great partner! It was a great team effort.

Please continue to stay in touch – always great to hear from friends of Yale. We hope to see you on campus sometime in the future!

 Kind regards,

Gypsy

As for her promotion, I’m not surprised. Judging by the way she executed that project, she is destined for greatness. As for the permission to use the article, she got a resounding ‘yes’ from me.

Today’s piece is somehow related especially in the area of doing what we say we would do, and that timeously. I could easily have titled this piece The habit of getting results!’  However, there are deeper issues involved in execution than just getting results. Execution is a mind-set, a learned habit put to use consistently with age-long, time-tested principles well valued. It’s no luck and it doesn’t depend on it. It is no happenstance, it is a deliberately cultivated habit.

Oftentimes, in the Machiavellian corporate killing fields of this generation, results are often achieved without much consideration for the enduring values of empathy, friendship, integrity, teamwork, trust, etc. This subject, therefore, is not just about results but what manner of results? It is a call to be an Executioner – the one who gets the right things done the right way and at the right time. Execution is a discipline that requires deliberateness and the discipline to act. It is a distinguishing characteristic in identifying leadership excellence and top performers.

‘Execution is a mind-set, a learned habit put to use consistently with age-long, time-tested principles well valued. It’s no luck and it doesn’t depend on it.’

 Some years ago, around 2005, while working as H.O.D (something like a GM), Learning and Talent Development for one of Nigeria’s foremost telecoms company, I was on a Telecoms mini-MBA training in Dallas, Texas, when I read the book: Execution – the Discipline of Getting Things Done (written in 2002) by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. It was un-droppable. A few years later, I also read an executive summary of another book along the line of execution – The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling. With these two beautiful books agreeing with all I hold so dear on the discipline of execution, I could not resist jotting down some of my key refreshing learning which I have found so useful and apply-able over the years.

In addition, a firm of leadership competencies improvement, Zenger Folkman in 2016 identified what they call fourteen ‘companion behaviours for Execution’. I read the online version a few months ago. These behaviours include integrity and trust, supporting with adequate resources, creating a high performance team, innovation, providing rewards and recognition, personal accountability, quick to act, setting S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals, effective feedback and development, having a clear vision of desired results, etc. In a nutshell, a leadership that would create an environment for seamless execution must exhibit and encourage these behaviours. The guys at Zenger Folkman call these behaviours the key to how leaders get things done.

A further grouping of these companion behaviours into manageable clusters for good understanding is desirable. A clear vision and strategy takes care of planning and organisation, and the ability to anticipate problems. No fire brigade, knee jack measures. There is a plan for execution, people are involved and they are committed. “Without a clear strategy, execution gets diverted and individuals head off in different directions. To your tents O Israel! Execution thrives in an atmosphere of having a clear vision of desired results. Execution is a movement from theory to implementation, from why to how, and from what to when.” Jack Welch believes execution do not just happen. It goes with having the right strategy and hiring the right people.

Honing one’s execution skill is no rocket science as long as one is disciplined enough and she or he is ready to learn. It has to be deliberately cultivated, groomed and practised consistently. It is the mind-set of ‘if-it-is-to-be-it-is-up-to-me’. It is to be able to complete the sentence ‘I’m the one person ultimately responsible for…’ It is making up your mind to add value and have no excuses. Talking of adding value, let us not forget, value is defined by the receiver, not the giver. Getting the right things done timeously requires one being tough on oneself and never giving up. It requires that you have your space at times, that is, time for thinking and allowing fresh ideas and solutions come to you. Some of us have this moment deep in the night, some in the bathroom, some while driving on the freeway, some while having coffee, eating lunch or dinner; all these for different reasons. A friend once shared his preference for the bathroom with me. It was quite revealing. But you have to pardon me if I’m not able to share his reasons with you on this page. When we meet in any of our classes, you may raise the issue.

“Without a clear strategy, execution gets diverted and individuals head off in different directions. To your tents O Israel! Execution thrives in an atmosphere of having a clear vision of desired results. Execution is a movement from theory to implementation, from why to how, and from what to when.”

-Jack Welch

One key step, do not let your writing materials be far away from you, you may have to jot down your thoughts. You would also need to make choices if you desire to be so disciplined – a choice between concentrating your finest energy on a few goals at a time on one hand, and dissipating mediocre efforts on dozens of goals all at the same time, on the other hand. Execution starts with focus. I have heard people say “focus and die”. In fact, at a point in the last century, that was the swan song. For a manufacturing concern or products merchant, that would be okay but at the level of executive strategy, your personal goals, and routing the competition, you need the power of focus and purpose to accomplish set goals. Execution is a focused venture, as that old African proverb says: “a hunter who chases two rabbits at the same time catches neither”.

It also helps your execution prowess when your goals have finish lines in the form of from X to Y, and when. You may be familiar with one of my favourite quotes by Harvey Mackay who said goals are dreams with deadlines. Yes, those finish lines go a long way in facilitating execution. A host of unserious people shy away from those finish lines for fear of failure, the fear of ‘what ifs…’ There is no shying away from them – finish lines should be the motivation as we aim at finishing well and strong. Execution requires audacity to shoot for the moon in setting your goals, the big hairy audacious goals (BHAGs) as Jim Collins calls it in his classic book, Built to Last.

In this regard, let me quote an action verse from the 4 Disciplines of Execution… “In 1961, President John F. Kennedy shook NASA to its foundations when he made the pronouncement ‘land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth before this decade is out.’ When your team moves from having a dozen we-really-hope goals to one or two no-matter-what goals, the effect on morale is dramatic. If you can throw that switch, you have laid the foundation for extraordinary execution. When Kennedy said ‘to the moon and back by the end of the decade’, he threw that switch.

The thing with execution is that no significant result is ever achievable unless people are willing to change their behaviour. At the root of execution is attitudinal restructuring and this would require that you gain commitment from team members for you to succeed in your drive to get things done. Securing an enduring commitment in a world polity and economy characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) is not going to be easy.  Authors McChesney, Covey and Huling identified a real enemy of execution they called the ‘whirlwind’ – the massive amount of energy that is necessary just to keep your operation going on a day-to-day basis. However, the discipline of execution requires that you focus on executing your most critical strategy in the midst of your ‘whirlwind’. Identify and focus on your wildly important goal – W.I.G – the one goal that can make all the differences. Focus on the important because as Stephen R. Covey said in the Seven Habits…, what matters most must never be at the mercy of what matters least.

‘Getting the right things done timeously requires one being tough on oneself and never giving up. It requires that you have your space at times, that is, time for thinking and allowing fresh ideas and solutions come to you.’

Dealing with a VUCA world requires acting fast, and may be essentially proactively in our responses by deploying ‘VUCA plus’ or ‘VUCA-Reloaded’. For the volatile environment, the spirit of execution counters with vision. I mentioned clear vision earlier. Let’s move on…you deal with uncertainty by deploying understanding creating an execution environment founded on a culture of responsibility and accountability, ensuring there are adequate resources, supporting team-bonding and unleashing the full potential of team members. It takes teamwork to make the dream work. With complexity, deploy clarity. I love the way the scripture puts it in Habakkuk: “…write the answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time…if it feels slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” (Habakkuk 2:2-3 NLT). For execution to take place, the instruction must be clear with assurances of what’s in it for everyone. Lastly, you replace ambiguity with agility, resilience and responsiveness.

Execution is not just getting things done but getting them done very well and effectively on time. Martin Luther King Jr. once said if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a street sweeper who did his job well. Larry Bossidy thinks execution is your most important job and I agree. Talking of his movement from GE to AlliedSignal as CEO in 1991, he said his (new) company had a lot of hardworking, bright people, but they were not effective, and they didn’t place a premium on getting things done. Instead of hardworking, they should have been smart-working people. That is getting things done.

‘…the discipline of execution requires that you focus on executing your most critical strategy in the midst of your ‘whirlwind’. Identify and focus on your wildly important goal – W.I.G – the one goal that can make all the differences.’

When leaders fail, check their execution scorecard, see the gap between the promises they made and the results they deliver. If culture eats strategy for supper, check strategy execution. Execution is the new strategy. On a more personal level, building blocks of execution would include knowing yourself and knowing what matters most to you and to the project at hand, setting clear goals and priorities, follow through on them, continuous improvement, banishing fear and be personally committed, delegate, be a team player, and be trustworthy. Trust is a currency you cannot afford to run short of if you want to accomplish something worthwhile. An Edward Marshall quote from Zenger Folkman says “speed happens when people…truly trust each other.” A project would likely derail and execution falters when team members don’t trust one another and they begin to query each other’s integrity. Pillars of trust would include positive relationships, knowledge and expertise, and consistency. Trust, I would be doing an elongated version on this essential ingredient for life and living in the nearest future.

Another essential ingredient of execution is responsibility and accountability. This is a different kind of accountability. It is personal accountability to the commitment you have made and is within your power to keep. When you are seen as fulfilling your commitments without excuse, then people see you as someone to be trusted. When this happens, relationships work better, performance improves, the team is energised, and there is a sense of fulfilment.

We had a scenario in our company sometimes ago – two of our suppliers sent in their invoices for a particular service. We took a decision to buy from the one with the more expensive quote. Why this seemingly ‘uneconomic’ decision you may wonder? The difference between the two suppliers is that one has a track record of performance, no disappointments, bending over backwards to meet our demands even when we set ‘impossible’ timelines, and the other has a tradition of excuses and somewhat annoying apology text messages, though his quote was cheaper. Do I need to say more? Good things happen to those who get the right things done.

‘Trust is a currency you cannot afford to run short of if you want to accomplish something worthwhile.’

In the meantime, I beg you to look into the mirror. What are those things you have been pushing forward, giving one excuse or the other? Make up your mind to be an executioner from today, start practising, get up and get going. Do something. I guess it was George Washington Carver who said that ninety percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. Eradicate the virus called excucitis today. Go out there, execute and excel. Till next week, enjoy. 

Acknowledgement/Sources of Resources for this article:

1. Clip arts and snippets from Google, YouTube, and from the Internet to drive home the points.
2. A compendium of over 25 years of manuscripts of my thesis and lecture series in Talent Management and People Matters (unpublished yet).
3. BezaleelConsulting Group Library bezaleelconsultingrw.com
4. Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan: Execution – the Discipline of Getting Things Done. Crown Business/Random House Inc. 2002
5. Chris McChesney, Sean Covey & Jim Huling: The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. FranklinCovey Co/Free Press/Simon & Schuster. summary.com
6. Zenger Folkman: Execution – The Key to How Leaders Get Things Done. zengerfolkman.com