Execution Excellence through 4DX

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. “

Peter Drucker

Strategy needs to be executed for achieving the desired outcomes. In the book titled ‘The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals”, the authors McChesney, C., Huling, J., Covey, S and Kaiker, R share their insights in the form of 4 disciplines which leaders and employees have adopted to produce results. I am sharing a brief description of these disciplines here for your quick reference.

The four disciplines of execution are:

1. Focus on the wildly important
2. Act on the lead measures
3. Keep a compelling scoreboard
4. Create a cadence of accountability

Focus on the wildly important: ‘Focus on less and accomplish more’ is the message here. We can easily relate to this as we tend to accomplish those few goals that we treat as ‘must-do’. Time and effort that we can invest in anything is bounded by constraints and hence prioritizing what is important and narrowing down the focus to the wildly important goals is the first step in execution excellence.

Act on the lead measures: They say “What gets measured gets done”. What we measure, track and act too needs a shift. Typically the focus is on the lag measures which track the outcome of the wildly important goal. Instead this discipline expects a shift to track and act upon lead measures which lead to the lag measures (or) the final outcome. This way we work on what we can influence.

Keep a compelling scoreboard: Individuals and teams need to know where they are with respect to the goal and through the lead and lag measures. A compelling scoreboard created by the team and accessible to them will create an engagement within the team improving the chances of successful outcomes.

Create a cadence of accountability: Having identified the wildly important goal, the lead measures to measure and track and a compelling scoreboard the team is ready to execute. During execution there should be a regular tracking and review mechanism which is brief and effective focused on the accountabilities of each individual for achieving the wildly important goal. SCRUM methodology uses daily standup meetings for this. In this meeting the individuals make commitments and update the progress on their commitments.

These 4 disciplines of execution excellence are practical and impactful. The book provides simple tools to aid in the adoption of these disciplines by teams and organizations. For more details, you can watch the introductory video and refer the book: McChesney, C., Huling, J., Covey, S. (2016). The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. United Kingdom: Free Press.