This fall, Snow College's VP for Academic Affairs asked me to serve as a member of the college's Mission Fulfillment Team. This group is charged with helping the college see how well they are doing toward achieving their mission and advising on ideas for improvement.
It caused me to reflect on the simple, yet crucial, concepts taught in the book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution. These four items apply to an organization and are a bit less granular than the keys to individual performance as mentioned in my blog posting of a few months ago titled, Let Them Manage Themselves. It may seem overly simple, but for an organization, there are really just four basic “to do’s” for good execution in a business or team.
It caused me to reflect on the simple, yet crucial, concepts taught in the book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution. These four items apply to an organization and are a bit less granular than the keys to individual performance as mentioned in my blog posting of a few months ago titled, Let Them Manage Themselves. It may seem overly simple, but for an organization, there are really just four basic “to do’s” for good execution in a business or team.
- Everyone in the organization must know the goal.
- They must know what to do to achieve the goal.
- You’ve got to keep score. In other words, constantly make sure everyone knows how they and the organization are doing. This information should be timely.
- All must be held accountable, consistently.
Here are a few additional tips for making each of these four keys work well:
One key to the first item is involving everyone in the goal-setting process. Engagement creates buy-in.
A key to the second item is simplicity. Keep it simple. Also, strategically, you should realized that “what to do to achieve the goal” may change depending upon trends and changes that affect your organization and its situation. So, be sure you have a means of watching for leading indicators that may help you spot changes on the horizon so you can adjust as needed.
The key to the third item is relevancy, followed by timeliness and accuracy.
The key to accountability is ensuring everyone is very clear on expectations – which should have been established together. Then, be consistent in holding everyone involved accountable equitably.
If you have insights that would provide additional help in applying these four basic principles please share them by commenting below. I would love to hear them, and I'm sure other blog readers would too. Here's to great execution!
One key to the first item is involving everyone in the goal-setting process. Engagement creates buy-in.
A key to the second item is simplicity. Keep it simple. Also, strategically, you should realized that “what to do to achieve the goal” may change depending upon trends and changes that affect your organization and its situation. So, be sure you have a means of watching for leading indicators that may help you spot changes on the horizon so you can adjust as needed.
The key to the third item is relevancy, followed by timeliness and accuracy.
The key to accountability is ensuring everyone is very clear on expectations – which should have been established together. Then, be consistent in holding everyone involved accountable equitably.
If you have insights that would provide additional help in applying these four basic principles please share them by commenting below. I would love to hear them, and I'm sure other blog readers would too. Here's to great execution!
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