Notes from the book “Execution : The Discipline of Getting Things Done”

Most management case studies distill the success or failures of businesses into an underlying strategy reinforced by a sequence of decisions that were responsible for the results. This is usually the case because, unlike strategy and key decisions, it is difficult to discuss execution in depth. For example, it’s easy to attribute the success of a company to a product idea but far more difficult to discuss how the right distribution channel, sales strategy, and pricing strategy were discovered and improved to build the momentum which led to the results. One reason could be that it requires significant context of the business which might not be easily available from outside.

However, advice from top leaders and entrepreneurs tend to focus more on ‘outstanding’ execution contributing to the success. Which is why instead of focussing on greatness in one idea or strategy, continuous learning, rapid experimentation, and relentless focus on execution are increasingly being preached. Among startups, far more than the original idea, execution is seen as the key difference between a unicorn and a shipwreck. While there isn’t a standard method about it, I see execution as one’s ability to sink teeth in the problem deeper and deeper till you taste success. To reflect more on execution, I picked this book which was a part of our curriculum at business school.

If you are running a mid sized or a large organisation where many of the last top projects that you attempted have all more or less failed or performed below expectations, and you see your organisation shifting their belief from one idea to the other, this book titled “Execution: The Discipline of getting things done” by Larry Bossidy & Ram Sharan is a great way to take a pause, read the cases, and reflect on your experiences/situations.

As per my experience, this book essentially puts you in a mindset sensitive towards striking the right balance of strategy and execution. It puts extreme focus and importance on getting simple and key things (like getting the right person for the right job), done right.

In this post, I’ve listed down some of the ideas from the book which I thought were potentially impactful, and which I’d like to keep reading again.

To make a strong strategic plan, make sure it addresses following questions:

• What is your assessment of the external environment?
• How well do you understand existing customers and markets?
• What’s the best way to grow business profitably and what are the obstacles to growth?
• Who is competing with us?
• Can the business execute the strategy?
• Are short term and long term balanced?
• What are the important milestones for executing the plan?
• How will the business make money on a sustainable basis?

Overall, the book touched the following themes:

• People, Strategy, and Operations as key pillars of execution
• Know your people and know your business deeply
• Always insist on realism
• Identify clear goals and priorities for your people
• Follow through and reward the doers
• Invest time and resources on expanding people’s capabilities
• Know yourself
• Systematically expose reality and act on it
• Always be deeply immersed in business
• Bring weaknesses to light and rally your team to correct them
• Look at revenue with following objectives: cash, margin, velocity, market share, and growth.

While all of them sound simple, to apply them in practice is anything but simple in most business situations. One key reason is that it demands 1. extreme discipline and clear thinking to be honest with yourself and 2. super-human focus to say no to a lot of distracting things.

Also, a lot of advice is about how you systematically discover truth and dynamically adjust your inner workings to get what you want in light of new discoveries. This sound a lot like Ray Dailio’s advice in his book Principles, where he says:

“Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2, and do that with humility and open-mindedness so that you consider the best thinking available to you.”

Time for me to get back to work!

Cheers!