I recently read a compilation of books written by my colleague, John Spence. Spence is a voracious reader and I have yet to meet anyone that reads as much as John. The following are some key excerpts and my thoughts that are critical to effective business execution.
Success comes from executing the right plans, not from the business planning process itself. This is a main reason why the most successful business leaders have found it useful to hire a third-party to help hold them accountable. It is not unusual for the CEO to have the most discomfort during this process. After all, most of them are in this position as a result of their self-motivation, drive and confidence.
These same traits work against them as they typically fail to focus on anything long enough. As a result, their team members fail to achieve desired outcomes. They are too busy trying to address the many conflicting messages. Case in point, recently I did an organizational survey with the top 10 executives in preparation for their annual planning retreat. We found that the CEO commonly provided this team with 25 new initiatives every week, even when the last 25 were barely addressed.
The above situation is not uncommon and we typically find the following additional issues:
In order to improve business execution of strategy, we recommend the following:
Howard Shore is an executive leadership coach and founder of Activate Group, Inc. based in Miami, Florida. His firm works with companies to deliver transformational management and business coaching to executive leadership. To learn more about executive leadership coaching through Activate Group, please contact Howard at [phone link=”true”].