Published: Audio 2002
Publisher: Random House Audio; Unabridged edition
ISBN: 0-739-30275-2

In Execution,  Bossidy and Charan expose the Dilbertesque feeling of most companies where "lots of decisions get made, but nothing ever gets done."  Why is this so pervasive and what can be done about it?  The bottom line is that every organization needs to create a culture of execution, getting things done.  The greatest strategies in the world don't do you any good unless you actually do them.  In this book you will find more than just ways of motivating people and how to write an action plan.  The authors take a top-down approach to getting things done by stating very plainly that an executives job is not just to come up with a plan and tell others to make it happen.  Instead their job is just beginning when the plan is finalized!

Take aways

I will be honest, I listened to this book on a road-trip starting my vacation.  A while back I had this book on my "to-read" list but I took it off in favor of some other more interesting books.  Since I was going to be on the road and since my library had a copy of this book on CD, I decided to go ahead and dive in. 

Bossidy was a CEO at the time he co-authored this book and Ram Charan is a well known consultant to the CEO's of large corporations.  As such this book focused on issues at a very high level in the corporate ladder.  Being a lowly software developer at a tiny company, much of the material was interesting but not particularly helpful to me.  Thus I am going to distill a handful of comments that I wrote down while listening to the book that I thought were interesting and pertinent.

  • Execution is not a strategy.. it is a discipline
  • Execution was the difference between Packard Bell and Dell in the late 90's and early 2000's
  • Lean and JIT production require an execution culture
  • Execution is the job of the leader and should be at the core of the business
  • When dealing with people:
    • Assign the task... but follow up
    • Prioritize goals
    • Create a culture of "identify the gap between desired and actual outcomes, fix the gap, repeat."
  • Execution is an intellectual exercise, not just an activity.  You have to constantly drill down to root causes of failure
  • The focus is on "cause" not "outcome"
  • Executives need to know their own capabilities
  • People Points
    • Know your people and your business
      • Make a personal connection especially when in a new product
    • Insist on realism, not numbers games
    • Set a few clear goals and priorities
    • Follow through... must have accountability
    • Expand the capability of your organization through coaching
    • Know yourself... your own strengths and weaknesses and get help where needed
  • "You don't think yourself into a new way of acting, you act yourself into a new way of thinking."
  • Behaviors are beliefs turned into action
  • If you go see your boss, and he doesn't give you something to improve on... go back and see him again!
  • Getting HR involved
    • Culture of accountability is a must
    • Leader must be willing to question choices
    • Develop a collegial culture... one of mutual accountability
    • Give HR the right to push issues
  • Strategy is no good unless you also have the "how" answered
  • Every good strategy can be boiled down to a few building blocks.
  • When developing a product strategy, you must know who it is that makes the purchase decision
    • Not the purchasing manager... who decides they need this product?
    • If it's someone who is creating something for someone else with your product... what do you know about that customer's customers?
  • Operating plans should relate back to the strategic plan
  • "A static document in an active world reduces an organization's ability to respond to change."
Conclusion

Both Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy help with the reading of this audio version.  Bossidy spent some time working with Jack Welch at GE and oddly enough, they both have a similar reading style.  Many of the ideas and concepts are clearly influenced by Bossidy's days at GE.  The ideas of accountability and feedback are very prominent in the writings of Jack Welch.  I tend to think that these types of books are good for managers in very large organizations although there are a few gems here and there that can help out us "little guys" too!