Execution

I was fortunate to be invited to a leadership summit recently hosted by our chief executive to elaborate the current strategy, the state of the union and plan for next year.  The portfolio and pace of initiatives were heavily discussed and the underpinning ingredient to success is people.  The organization has been stretched thin due to our size and also recruitment competitiveness.  Pinching and poaching is omnipresent targeting the technical savvy.

Execution has been poor in new entries and will continue to be the focus for the next few months.  I listened carefully the discussions among our senior leaders and watched with interest the behaviors that were displayed. People generally like to discuss issues and highlight problems with little focus on solutions.  That's when strong leadership is required to steer the direction of the discussions and decipher the real issues at hand.

When asked what execution meant, the typical answer is getting things done.  Execution is really a process and culture that enables things to get done.  The process must be embedded with a strong people process, talent management and above all, clear accountability.  The culture must reward performers who deliver and coach the ones who struggle.  With this in mind, it's imperative to tie strategy back to reality and operations plan.  This  is typically what needs to be tuned and tied together.

The areas I see needing improvement is around accountability.  Often accountability is vague especially in a matrix organization.  Who is responsible for delivering the plan?  Who is accountable for the execution of the strategy?  Successful organizations have figured this out well.  Accountability must always be a single point and not shared to avoid confusion and vagueness.  Many are responsible to play their individual roles in executing a given plan, but there must be only one single point accountability for delivering the business plan.  This needs to be refreshed from time to time.

Each individual leader must state clearly in his or her performance contract what they must achieve to deliver the plan. This must be stated clearly with tangible predictions of results, milestones and timeline.  Putting things like "deliver wells on time and budget" is just too vague.