Growth tips 30 seconds to business enlightenment.
The Cadence of business execution
16-Sep-2010
Cadence is the rhythm that brings your strategic planning and business execution together
Picture a rowing crew in the Olympic finals with the coxswain calling
out the tempo of the rowing strokes. Everyone in the crew is rowing in
time and the boat is rapidly slicing through the water. The race
winners have a plan. They stay focused on the execution of their race
strategy even though they can see their competitors jockeying for
position in their peripheral vision. They maintain their synchronous
cadence – a fast, even tempo for the duration of the race, even when
they are tired and don’t necessarily feel like it.
Just like the rowing crew, effective companies use a disciplined cadence
to execute their strategy. They have a rhythm that keeps everyone in
their company synchronized and executing the strategy at the optimum
pace.
Quarterly Strategic Planning.
Strategic planning should be an ongoing process - not an annual event.
Effective companies have the discipline to stop and debrief their strategic execution every quarter and learn from it. They ask questions like: Did we achieve our targets this quarter? Did we execute our strategic priorities
effectively? What did we learn this quarter? What will we start
doing? What will we stop doing? What will we do better next quarter?
Then they use a disciplined strategic thinking and decision making
process to confirm their key priorities for the coming quarter. This
ensures the plan’s relevance with the competitive environment, and
re-aligns everyone to the strategy.
Weekly Execution Meetings.
Just as you eat an elephant one bite at a time, strategic execution is accomplished one week at a time. It’s all about the “1 Thing”.
Every person in the company must commit to doing 1 Thing each week. Not
to be confused with their “business as usual” tasks – things which must
be done every week anyway – rather it is the 1 Thing that is going to
move their quarterly strategic priorities forward a step. The 1 Thing
they will be held accountable for checking off as “done” by the next
weekly execution meeting.
If you hold people strictly accountable for completing their 1 Thing
every week – they start to be very careful about what they promise to
do. This is exactly what you want. Your job as a leader becomes much
easier when your people get very clear on their #1 priority every week –
and you can count on them to actually do it.
Good progress should be acknowledged every week with positive praise and recognition.
Lack of progress should be confronted every week. The discipline of
holding people accountable every week – drives strategic execution – and
very quickly weeds out the poor performers on your team. Performance
appraisals are not an annual thing. People should know every week
whether they are performing or not. Business Execution Software makes this easy.
Do you apply a discipline cadence to the way you set and execute strategy?
Quick test: What is your #1 Action Priority this week? Do you know? Do your staff know?
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34531334269947::RESULTS.com | The Missing 98%
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| Date | 21-May-2012 |
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