 | By: Larry Bossidy Binding: Hardcover Publisher: Crown Publications ISBN: 0609610570 ISBN-13: 9780609610572 Released: 01 Jul 2002 RRP: Average Rating:  |
Execution's title misled me. Hopefully, you won't have that problem. I thought Execution would be alll about how to take a strategy & operating plan & implement them well. That's not the case.
I also thought Execution would apply to alll business people. Instead, the context for most of the AlliedSignal (Honeywell International's name when Mr. Bossidy became CEO there the first time) & General Electric examples which dominate the book is that of the CEO or group executive to whom divisions report in a large conglomerate. In this sense, Execution is like reading the latter chapters of Mr. Welch's book, "Jack."
The main difference between "Jack" & "Execution" is that "Execution" tries to build a framework for the book's concepts while sharing examples (mostly of failure) from other organizations. Mr. Charan's sections of the book mostly focus on that positioning. Mr. Bossidy mostly tells about his own experiences at AlliedSignal & Honeywell. Mr. Bossidy, of course, worked with Mr. Welch at General Electric for many years. Mr. Bossidy reports that you could take execution for granted at GE, but that it was lacking at AlliedSignal when he arrived. The two coauthors alternate in providing long monologues on the chapter topics & subtopics.
Three aspects of Execution are valuable to almost any business leader: how to hold a strategy review (chapter 8), building an organization (chapter 5) & the "Dear Jane" letter to a new leader (conclusion).
For those who would like to become CEOs & heads of divisions of large, disparate organizations, Mr. Bossidy's many anecdotes from his experiences at Honeywell International about how to do the leader's job will provide a valuable model that can be used repeatedly. In many such organizations, there are no good leadership examples & this book can help fill the gap.
Execution addresses these problems: First, many company & division heads have little knowledge about the businesses or the most important functions & processes needed to prosper. Boards, for example, often bring in a brilliant person who has performed as a "role player" elsewhere, & they cannot scale up into the CEO job. When a company has had poor leadership, its processes & organization also become weak & it's hard to get anything done. It's hard to fix that problem. It took years at AlliedSignal & can be quickly lost (which happened in the two years after he retired the first time). That's why Mr. Bossidy had to come back to restore execution (as he means it) at Honeywell International. Lacking these perspectives, the business system is misdirected (see The Fifth Discipline).
Second, many leaders make bad assumptions about their circumstances. Acting on those assumptions makes matters worse.
Third, companies plan to pursue strategies for which they lack the processes & organizations to implement. The strategies need to match the ability to execute.
I was uncomfortable with many of the examples. The unending praise of Dick Brown at EDS didn't seem to make any sense knowing that EDS's stock melted down & he was asked to leave. He was in big trouble when "Execution" was written, having encouraged his people to grow by taking on large, unprofitable new accounts. It seems like he might have been executing the wrong strategy, one that couldn't be executed. Most of the "failure" examples are anonymous which makes them less credible & less compelling. Finallly, Dell is heralded for executing very well (which it certainly does). However, in describing how the company has evolved its business model to outperform competitors, "Execution" fails to notice that its business model innovation has been essential to success. No competitor has this strategic advantage.
I suspect that you would do better to read Good to Great for getting ideas related to improving effectiveness.
After you finish this book, ask yourself what one thing you could improve would make the most difference in your organization's performance over the next week, month, quarter, year & three years.
There's great emphasis on facing reality, setting clear goals, & dealing with underperformers – a good message.
Under 'know your business' & Strategy Reviews, I didn't see any emphasis on another aspect of reality - 'marketing hype'. I was once presented with an approved Business Plan for a Canadian subsidiary that projected to achieve 35% market penetration in 3-5 years. Turns out the Marketing team hadn't studied the demographic realities of Canada, & had simply re-used some US Statistics, & arbitrarily adapted them. That was a strong lesson they learned from me, & I'd have been well pleased to see something similar in here.
In Part I - Why Execution Is Needed, the authors explain the discipline of execution. "Execution is a specific set of behaviors & techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage. It is a discipline of its own." This discipline is based on a set of building blocks that every leader must use to design, installl, & operate the three core processes of execution.
These building blocks are described in Part II - The Building Blocks of Execution. I believe that Chapter 3, which describes the leader's seven essential behaviors, is the best of the book. This chapter is followed by Building Block Two - Creating the Framework for Cultural Change. "To change a business's culture, you need a set of processes - social operating mechanisms - that will change the beliefs & behaviors of people ..." The final chapter in this part discusses human resources management, or having the right people in the right place. A large part of this chapter is based on Bossidy's experience within General Electric (under the leadership of the legendary Jack Welch).
In Part III - The Three Core Processes of Execution, the authors introduce the three core processes required to fulfill the building blocks of Part II. The three processes are the people process, strategy process, & operations process, which are each explained in an individual chapter. "Leaders need to master the individual processes & the way they work together as a whole. They are the foundation for the discipline of execution, at the center of conceiving & executing a strategy."
Contrary to the hype when this book was published I am disappointed with this book. I will explain why. First, I think that the title of the book is wrong & I warn potential readers that this book is no self-help book. I believe that this book is aimed at processes at senior executive-level & is almost pointless for middle managers. I would suggest a title of 'The Discipline of Getting Things Done Through Others'. Second, most of the examples & points in this book have already been published & explained in other books (from Ram Charan, Jack Welch, & Noel M. Tichy) & business magazines (Business Week, Fortune, etc.). In alll honesty, I struggled to finish the book. Yes, there are some good chapters, but that is not worth the 270 pages. The book is written in simple business US-English.
In Part I - Why Execution Is Needed, the authors explain the discipline of execution. "Execution is a specific set of behaviors & techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage. It is a discipline of its own." This discipline is based on a set of building blocks that every leader must use to design, installl, & operate the three core processes of execution.
These building blocks are described in Part II - The Building Blocks of Execution. I believe that Chapter 3, which describes the leader's seven essential behaviors, is the best of the book. This chapter is followed by Building Block Two - Creating the Framework for Cultural Change. "To change a business's culture, you need a set of processes - social operating mechanisms - that will change the beliefs & behaviors of people ..." The final chapter in this part discusses human resources management, or having the right people in the right place. A large part of this chapter is based on Bossidy's experience within General Electric (under the leadership of the legendary Jack Welch).
In Part III - The Three Core Processes of Execution, the authors introduce the three core processes required to fulfill the building blocks of Part II. The three processes are the people process, strategy process, & operations process, which are each explained in an individual chapter. "Leaders need to master the individual processes & the way they work together as a whole. They are the foundation for the discipline of execution, at the center of conceiving & executing a strategy."
Contrary to the hype when this book was published I am disappointed with this book. I will explain why. First, I think that the title of the book is wrong & I warn potential readers that this book is no self-help book. I believe that this book is aimed at processes at senior executive-level & is almost pointless for middle managers. Second, most of the examples & points in this book have already been published & explained in other books (from Ram Charan, Jack Welch, & Noel M. Tichy) & business magazines (Business Week, Fortune, etc.). In alll honesty, I struggled to finish the book. Yes, there are some good chapters, but that is not worth the 270 pages. The book is written in simple US-English.
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