Something called the “execution strategy” is taking on a life of its own among managers, as though it were an obscure concept requiring special insight and study. The real importance of the “execution strategy,” however, is simply in reminding managers that this is what being an “executive” really means, and helping them to return their focus to their core purpose.
In recent decades executives have been assailed with a plethora of distracting expectations. They are heroes, leaders, great men and women who stride the globe mastering the ungovernable. They are visionaries, “edgewalkers” and modern shaman, peering into the future and reshaping our organizations to meet it. They empower employees, they are the spring of innovation, they protect the environment, they are national champions. They are wholly self-aware beings who descend from the mountain to utter truths that their organizations exist merely to express, however uncomprehendingly.
Really: the gurus of the modern leadership movement teach just this sort of nonsense. But in their book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck dismiss the better part of this sort of thing, and remind us that underneath all the blather, the real job of a manager is to get things done – a charge that, as the subtitle dryly suggests, does require some considerable discipline these days.
It is really – really – remarkable to see how surprised (and even relieved) executives at all levels of all types of organizations are upon being reminded of this. It offers them clarity and focus. It enables them to reclaim perspective, control, and effectiveness. It relieves a lot of pointless pressure, and enables a brilliant and focused humility to surface and serve the organization.
If you see your duties as an executive to execute, then there are really only two things to concern yourself with: what is to be done, and how best to do it. The rest – whether respecting employee policy, product/service development, marketing, governmental relations, or even fiscal management – are only derivatives of this; they are driven by – not drivers of – your main purpose, which is to executive corporate aims.
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