Execution: The discipline of getting things done.

Reviewed by Siddharth Agarwal

A step walked is better than a mile talked. And taking this first step is what the book ‘Execution’ is all about. The authors Larry Bossidy, ex-CEO of Allied Signal, and Ram Charan, advisor to senior executives and directors of various companies, define execution as the discipline of getting things done, the one factor which makes all the difference between promising results and delivering them. 

Execution has always been considered as the tactical side of business, something that is non-sexy and hence delegated by the leaders so that they can focus on more strategic issues. But execution is not just tactics- it’s about discipline and as per the author it’s ‘the great unaddressed issue’ in the corporate world. Often we see companies led by smart and talented CEOs who are able to rope in the best consultants and yet fail because they could not deliver the results they promised. When these companies announce the shortfall, the investors dump their stocks and the market value is obliterated at the end of which usually the CEO is fired by the board or made to resign. While few other companies that are able to put to place an efficient and functioning system of execution result in behemoths like Wal-Mart, Dell and EDS. The misconception around execution being non intellectual is so ingrained in people’s minds that the authors devote an entire chapter to it named ‘The Gap Nobody Knows’ in which they brilliantly summarise all that is to follow in three simple commandments of Execution:

1.   Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy.

2.   Execution is the major job of the business leader

3.   Execution must be a core element in the organization’s culture

            Larry and Ram suggest that the three core process form the heart of execution- the people process, the strategy process and the operations process and it’s the duty of the topmost leader to be involved in all the three. To impress this point, they provide enough examples of CEOs who either made or wrecked a company just by leveraging or neglecting their attention to execution. And any leader who is in charge or execution needs to have the seven qualities which the authors list out in the chapter ‘The Leader’s Seven Essential Behavior’. Ironically, not one quality on this list is something which cannot be found in every management book or leader’s self-help guide. But the difference brought out here by Larry and Ram is that they are able to convince you, sometimes by their own experiences, that these qualities can make the difference you want to see in your company’s annual result. They also put ample stress on the ‘soft stuff’, the beliefs and behavior of the people, the cultural change that creates and reinforces a discipline of execution and its because they believe that "Behaviors are beliefs turned into actions...They're where the rubber meets the road".

            The leaders are supposed to wear a lot of hats, but the one job he should not delegate is ‘having the right people in the right place’. If the right people are not in the right places, then it’s because of one of the following reasons: the leader’s lack of knowledge of his people, his lack of courage to take a decisive action on his people or his psychological comfort he feels with his people. In the long run, the predicament of having a wrong person in any place is that he is likely to pick more people like himself. Hence the organization needs to have people who are decisive, enthusiastic, can get things done through others and have a knack for following through.

            Having done with the qualities of the leader and the organization, the authors describe the three core process of execution and how they link with each other in great detail They provide some valuable suggestions on how to track the progress made during the process of execution and how to use it to make important decisions with a special mention on ‘How to conduct a strategy review’. The authors close with a letter to a fictional new leader, Jane, from the CEOs Larry and Ram. This letter can be understood as what a CEO might want from a leader in his organization and how he wants her to contribute and improve the existing processes. Both the authors, via this book containing their understanding of the process of execution, their invaluable experiences and suggestions are able to bring home the point that just getting something done by choosing the path of least resistance is as wrong as doing nothing on the pretext of patience and strategy. You will always have to find the way to get the best results in the most efficient manner given the present conditions and constraints.  And to make sure to keep doing it consistently you will need to follow the discipline of execution.