EXECUTION : THE DISCIPLINE OF GETTING THINGS DONE BY LARRY BOSSIDY

Execution – or more frequently, the lack of execution – is the biggest issue facing businesses today. Execution is the gap between what a company promises and the results it actually achieves. To be able to execute consistently well, a business needs to have in place three key building leaders who are hands-on and who understand execution, a corporate culture which values execution highly and the right people in the right places.

In all, execution never just happens by chance. Unless the right people focus on the right details at the right time, execution just won’t happen. Great leaders always know how to execute. They expound a corporate vision which is grounded squarely in reality rather than wishes.

How do you translate strategy into results? Execution is both an organizational culture and a specific set of behaviors. Leaders must be hands-on and intensively involved with three core interlinked processes -the people process, the strategy process and the operations process.

In Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, authors Ram Charan and former Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy share leadership strategies about how to hire doers that energize others, make decisions quickly, get things done through delegation and follow through. Business leaders who understand the reality of markets, customers and resources must own the strategy process and use the operations process to design new programs and tie performance to incentives. These three core processes are the foundation of competitive advantage.