Rating (5 Rising Suns is a must read - 1 Rising Sun is low interest in reading)
Readability:
Maintains Attention:
Applicability of Information:
Review
Larry Bossidy is a retired chairman and CEO of Honeywell International and former board member of GE, Merck and JPMorgan Chase. Ram Charan is a top advisor to many CEOs and senior executives of small and large companies and has taught at both Harvard and
Northwestern
Universities
. Their book, “Execution, the Discipline of Getting Things Done” focuses on connecting the three core processes of execution: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process.
The book combines personal stories from both men that help to link the thoughts and processes to real life by creating examples that the reader can personally identify with while learning how the key learning points connect to the daily lives of everyday leaders.
The examples used in the book focuses on larger complex companies with multiple business lines. The use of such complex companies for the examples in the book may make it difficult for some readers to make the connection to smaller less complex companies; however if the reader can discard the details of the companies and focus on the themes being highlighted he/she will be able to find valuable content in each example.
We recommend this book for leaders who are looking for additional techniques in dealing with the single most common concern for all businesses today; accountability.
Summary of Main Points
The authors spend considerable time outlining how each of the three processes (people, strategy and operations) should work within an organization. However, throughout the book the authors highlight the need for leaders to know what is real, what is attainable and how to create flexibility.
The authors focus on the “Seven Essential Behaviors” as the foundation to execute well in any company. The seven Essential Behaviors are:
- Know Your People and Know Your Business
- Insist on Realism
- Indentify Clear Goals and Priorities
- Follow-Through
- Reward the Doers
- Expand Peoples’ Capabilities
- Know Yourself
Through the use of the seven essential behaviors a leader is better able to link the three core processes together in a way that ensures honest, open and substantial dialogue through-out all levels of the company, thus creating a culture and “social software” that produces high quality outcomes.
This concept of “social software” is what drives a company’s culture and includes the values, beliefs, and norms of behaviors. The key component of the “social software” is what the authors call the “Social Operating Mechanisms”. These are the formal and informal meetings, presentations, even memos - all the venues in which dialogue takes place. Through these venues leaders are able to discuss in an honest way the benefits, consequences, alternatives, “bench strength” of the company’s leaders and the future needs in both terms of physical assets and human capitol. Through these dialogues, decisions can be made by looking at the situation realistically and gaining shared ownership from all members of the company. Goals may be a stretch but are also realistic and are reviewed on a continuous cycle so not to get too far off course without an alternate plan for success.
Call To Action
Reading this book seems to lead one to six immediate steps which will help move us closer to the goals of effective leadership:
- Know your people, spend time understanding the strengths of the people you have around you. Develop ways to enhance their skills by assigning a coach, mentor, classes, etc.
- Learn to evaluate the future. Develop plans by using dialogues that help to flush out what your customers want today and try to realistically predict what they may want next year. How will your competitors respond to you and to the needs of your customers? Spend less time looking in the past and more time thinking about the future.
- Develop honest assessments of your people. Provide ample, candid feedback for your direct reports. Identify who is available to succeed you as a leader and what skills gap currently exists.
- Ask probing questions and develop a culture that fosters debate. As debate is the cornerstone to strong healthy dialogue.
- Make sure plans are attainable. Unattainable plans are never executed, they only fail!
- Attain agreement and continuously monitor the plan allowing for flexibility during the course.
