Saturday, November 14, 2015

Organizational Excellence Starts with an Execution Culture

"The journey is better than the inn." - Cervantes

Most of us want to build and sustain a strong organization. But fewer have the necessary commitment (purpose), clarity, process, flexibility, self-assessment skills, and support.

Can we distill organizational excellence from the chaos life presents? 

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan wrote "Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done" emphasizing PEOPLE, STRATEGY, and OPERATIONS. 


Bossidy shares some key takeaways:

Philosophers, he says, are people “who are good strategists, but don’t have the capability to translate that strategy into action.”  

Execution is making things happen.

Execution applies to companies that perform. It’s about people who pride themselves on executing. It’s about rewarding people who execute, rather than the philosophers who wander around organizations.

Michael Dell...understood the product was simple, and that to succeed, he had to find a way to differentiate himself.

The one thing that threads through GE is an execution culture.

You can’t govern a company, or a part of a company unless you have a good understanding of the business. 

People are the link to an execution culture.

Have three or four goals, and have everybody, even across diversified businesses, going at the same objectives. We want to get more and better shots than our opponents, to establish the pace we choose and make the fewest mental and physical mistakes possible. 

We can apply the above the everyday details of practice. Do I have the right people on the team (administrative support, custodians, assistants, players, managers)? Is every activity at practice designed to translate to improved individual and collective performance? Do we have the proper balance among individual skill development, team performance, offense, defense, conversion, and special situations? Do the players understand why they are working at each station or segment of practice? 

We must work toward a continuous "performance-focused, feedback-rich" environment to promote execution.