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Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
Crown, 2002

"Strategies most often fail because they aren’t executed well,” claim Bossidy and Charan in their book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Business authors of late have heralded a new order of change in organizations, talking about learning organizations (Peter Senge) or audacious goals (Jim Collins), but Bossidy and Charan insist that successful execution underlies the success of any of these other concepts. And unfortunately, there are far too many business leaders who feel that the execution component is the responsibility of people beneath them in the hierarchy.

Of course, the leader that is too focused on execution becomes the micromanager, something the authors do not advocate. So they offer first the building blocks of an execution-focused organization, and then present the three core processes of execution (strategy, people, and operations), explaining in detail how to connect each process to the other two.

The building blocks discuss essential behaviors of the leader, a framework for culture change (that is, moving toward a culture of execution), and putting the right people in the right place. Ironically, many of their points are the same as those made by Senge, Collins, and other gurus in the books that Bossidy and Charan deride earlier for not being execution focused. For example, many of the leader’s essential behaviors are captured by Patrick Lencioni in his series on Leadership. The culture chapter echoes Edgar Schein’s work on organizational culture, and the people chapter seems straight out of Collins’ Good to Great. Regardless, the points are well taken, and Bossidy and Charan’s emphasis on honesty, candor, and “realism,” are important additions to the work.

The meat of the book is in the three processes needed for execution: people, strategy, and operations. The people process refers to an organization’s ability to hire and retain the people needed to get the job done, so Bossidy and Charan focus heavily on leadership development. If you are not developing your people, you will likely hit a crisis moment in the future where your leadership is not up to the challenge you are facing. Interestingly, the key to a good people process is what they call “candid dialogue”—the ability to speak openly and honestly about people issues. Their basic points about the strategy process are not new—understand your competition, identify challenges to your business, etc. But they do offer an important perspective by encouraging leaders to demand that their strategy answers the “how” questions: how will this strategy be implemented (using which people and what operational processes)? Operations focuses mostly on budget development and challenges leaders to (a) involve a broader range of people when developing operational plans, and (b) challenge their own assumptions during the planning process.

I think the book is useful for organizational leaders, even in the nonprofit or association world. While the examples are from the corporate world (and large corporations at that), the principles are valid for an Association executive who is seeking to build a strong organization. Even with a staff of fourteen people, an Association CEO needs a sharp yet flexible strategy, the ability to have open and honest conversations about people and leadership expectations, and budgets whose assumptions have been raised and tested.