{"id":835,"date":"2017-06-21T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T10:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/?p=835"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","slug":"835-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/835-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWithout execution, \u2018vision\u2019 is just another word for hallucination.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhich is easier, strategy (planning) or execution?\u201d\u00a0 Ask any chief executive that question, and he or she will always answer, \u201cExecution!\u201d\u00a0 Putting together a good strategic plan has its own challenges, but the real trick is making that plan happen.\u00a0 And the reason for that is simple:\u00a0 executing a strategic plan is important but not urgent . . . it\u2019s a long-term activity that unfolds over the course of months or even years.\u00a0 Our days tend to get eaten up by urgent matters such as dealing with customer issues, making deadlines, solving operational problems, etc.\u00a0 So if we don\u2019t get around to working on the plan today, we can always put it off until tomorrow or the next day.\u00a0 In short, the urgent will always trump the important.\u00a0 For some thoughts on how you get around this dilemma and execute on your plans, please continue reading below.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cWithout execution, \u2018vision\u2019 is just another word for hallucination.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><em>~ Mark Hurd<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In a YouTube video, Chris McChesney, a representative of the FranklinCovey organization, discusses the \u201cFour Disciplines of Execution.\u201d<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Set SMART goals . . . goals that are <strong><u>S<\/u><\/strong>pecific, <strong><u>M<\/u><\/strong>easurable, <strong><u>A<\/u><\/strong>chievable, <strong><u>R<\/u><\/strong>esults-oriented, and <strong><u>T<\/u><\/strong>ime-based. Vague goals that don\u2019t include measurements or deadlines are doomed from the start.\u00a0 And don\u2019t assign too many goals.\u00a0 According to McChesney, if you set two or three goals, you will achieve two or three of them.\u00a0 If you set four to ten goals, you will achieve one or two of them.\u00a0 If you set more than 10, it\u2019s unlikely you will achieve any of them. \u00a0It\u2019s the Law of Diminishing Returns.\u00a0 When people are struggling to carry out their regular daily responsibilities <em><u>and<\/u><\/em> work on long-term goals, setting too many goals only discourages them.<\/li>\n<li>Provide interim measurements so that everyone involved in achieving a particular goal always knows where they are with respect to the goal . . . ahead, behind, or on schedule. We need to pace ourselves in order to deliver the results we want on time, but we can only do that if we have some sort of interim measurement to guide us.<\/li>\n<li>Keep a scoreboard. While achieving important company goals is serious stuff, there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t introduce some elements of a game by posting our progress on a scoreboard.\u00a0 McChesney recommends that a scoreboard include several elements, especially:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>You should be able to tell at a glance how you\u2019re doing.<\/li>\n<li>Make it large enough and post it in a convenient location so people involved in a goal can see their \u201cscore\u201d easily and often.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Hold regular accountability sessions. Discipline yourself to hold them on a regularly scheduled basis . . . daily, weekly, or monthly, whatever you think is appropriate.\u00a0 These sessions should be a time for people to discuss any challenges they may be facing with respect to their goals and remedial actions they are taking if they are behind on their goals.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Ideally, execution of a plan should trickle down to everyone in the organization.\u00a0 Once the overall company goals have been set, each department should set its own goals to support the company goals, then teams within a department should set goals to support the departmental goals, and finally, each member of a team should have individual goals to support the team goals.\u00a0 In this way, planning and execution become a part of the corporate conversation and part of the company culture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Company Goals<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong> \u2193<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Department Goals<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong> \u2193<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Team Goals<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2193<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Individual Goals<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The whole idea is to set a limited number of high-impact goals, provide tools for tracking our progress toward those goals, and then to keep execution of those goals highly visible with scoreboards, accountability sessions, and companywide participation.\u00a0 And with high visibility, the important (executing our plans) is less likely to get pushed aside by the urgent.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to see Chris McChesney\u2019s presentation, please paste the link below into your browser<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qynXCJZ2xQI&amp;feature=youtu.be\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qynXCJZ2xQI&amp;feature=youtu.be<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhich is easier, strategy (planning) or execution?\u201d\u00a0 Ask any chief executive that question, and he or she will always answer, \u201cExecution!\u201d\u00a0 Putting together a good strategic plan has its own challenges, but the real trick is making that plan happen.\u00a0 And the reason for that is simple:\u00a0 executing a strategic plan is important but not<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/835-2\/\">Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,33,27,26,22,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}