It’s a safe bet that many leaders are where they are because they have good ideas – visionaries, some of them, whose dream of what the company could and should be inspire the workforce. Then comes the execution part. And all too many great visions fall into that big black hole that yawns between vision and execution. That road to you-know-where, paved with good intentions.
This brings us to 4 disciplines of execution
The 4 Disciplines of Execution is a metology that will help you find your crucially important goal to generate follow-up activities that will allow you to know how close you are to your goal and what actions you must take to achieve your goal. The 4 Disciplines exist for one reason: to run on a plan above the whirlwind of distractions, allowing you and your team to focus on a game in which they can win.
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How do you prioritize your time so you can concentrate on what's most important?The first requirement is getting the leader to narrow their focus. This is not only hard in the beginning, it’s hard to sustain because leaders are always drawn to new ideas. While innovation is important, without focus the team cannot succeed – so leaders must learn to say “no” or “not now” to new ideas until the results on the strategy have been achieved.
The second requirement is focusing on leading outcomes or behaviors, rather than overall results. Leaders are most often measured (and compensated) based on results, and over time, most of their focus is on these outcomes. Unfortunately, this focus doesn’t drive the highest performance – it’s like driving a car while looking in the rearview mirror. 4DX asks a leader to put a disproportionate focus on the outcomes or behaviors that will lead to results. The third requirement is to institute a cadence of shared accountability. When accountability only exists between each team member and their boss, its effect is limited, but when team members feel accountable to each other, their performance shifts from being professional to personally important. Our experience has consistently shown that people will work hard to avoid disappointing their boss, but they will work harder to avoid disappointing their team. The result is a dramatically increased level of performance and follow-through. |
Discipline 1.
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