The 7 Habits of Successful Execution

Individuals and corporates are failing to deliver on their promises. They are struggling with translating ideas and well-written strategies and plans into results. By having too many priorities or uncompleted projects, they are not focused on achieving their vision, mission and purpose.

Likewise, it is so easy to can get so caught up in the busyness of life that you can forget to concentrate on the important things that matter, things that will make a difference and impact.

It takes a different mindset, habit and discipline to translate what looks good on paper into real action – making things happen and bring it alive.

When plans don’t come alive to deliver the expected results, planning has failed. Plan execution takes the back seat.

The reality is that it is easier to plan and think about things to do rather than actually doing it. Action takes effort, commitment and perseverance.

The problem – Execution failure rates are high

To execute a plan or strategy, leaders must set ambitious goals, translate them into specific targets and milestones, make them transparent throughout the organisation, and discuss their progress frequently. These targets must cascade down and engage the entire organisation from the executive suite to the front-line to deliver results.

Studies have shown that the failure rate for corporate plan execution is between 60 percent and 90 percent.

The challenges to successful execution include:

• Inability to manage change effectively and overcome resistance to change.
• A poor or vague strategy.
• Not having guidelines or a model to guide the execution.
• Trying to execute a strategy that conflicts with the existing power structure.
• Poor or inadequate information sharing between individuals or business units responsible for strategy execution.
• Unclear communication of responsibility or accountability for execution decisions or actions.
• Lack of feelings of ownership of a strategy and execution steps among employees.
• Lack of understanding of the role of organisational structure and design in the execution process.

Power of simplicity required for the execution

Like most things in life that have been over-engineered, strategy execution is no different. Books written on strategy execution requires a university degree to comprehend. This should not be the case.

It is, therefore, vitally important to keep things simple when executing a strategy or plan. It does not have to be complicated, really.

When things are complicated and complex, people tend to switch off. When this occurs, execution fails miserably. There is power in simplifying the strategy execution process for making things happen in organisations and personally, which is the underlying aim of The 7 Habits of Successful Execution. These habits can be applied in any setting and by anyone.

The solution – Developing habits for execution

Jim Rohn once said, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going”.

Motivation is not reliable. It depends on your emotional state as you may “not in the mood” to achieve your goals.

So, to achieve the desired results, build a system and develop a repeatable process. When behaviours ‘systemise’ like dieting, writing and prospecting as habitual behaviours, you make them automatic.

Even though behaviours can become automatic, be engaged while doing them.

Therefore, motivation is what gets you started, habit is what keeps you going, and discipline is what takes you above and beyond. If you want to change behaviour in the long-term, be motivated to start. With regularity, it becomes a habit. With consistency over time, it will become a discipline.

Unfortunately, the word discipline has a negative denotation. It is about training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour using punishment to correct disobedience. This can be hard for people to understand and commit to.

Learn to walk first by developing some regularity in translating good ideas into action and results. Develop execution habits to making things happen. Then think about developing your longer-term discipline.

According to a habit study conducted by Wendy Wood, David Neal and Jeffrey Quinn, titled “Habits – A Repeat Performance”, they concluded that 45% of all of our daily activities were habits. In another study conducted by Texas A&M, their researchers concluded that between 33% – 54% of our daily activities were, in fact, habits.

In a very famous 2006 habits study by Duke University, their researchers found that 40% of all our daily activities were habits.

So, somewhere between 33% and 54% of everything you do, every day, is a habit.

Purposefully integrate these habits into your personal and work life. There are seven practical habits designed for human simplicity.

The 7 Habits of Successful Executionis a practical approach for making things happen and bring plans and strategies alive!

The seven habits for an effective execution

The 7 Habit of Successful Execution, as shown in Figure 1, will enable individuals and corporate executive to execute their plans and strategies respectively to get breakthrough results.

Figure 1: The 7 Habits of Successful Execution

If you don’t believe in setting goals, it’s because you don’t know how to do it

There are different views as to why people don’t believe in setting goals.

One opposing view is that you can be ‘injured’ or selling yourself short from trying to push for an unrealistic goal, especially if you are running a marathon. Goals can lead to cheating or producing poor quality output. It is purely to tick the box of meeting the goal.

Instead, make a commitment to continual improvement. Look at what you can do each day to make small improvements. Over time, it adds up. In fact, we are told that a 1% improvement, over 68 days means you will be 100% better than you were yesterday.

Another opposing view is that goal setting limits your freedom to explore life and follow your passion. You are always doing something that you are excited about. Whether you achieve or not isn’t the point at all.

Instead, it is all about doing what you love, always. There is no bad path, no bad destination. It’s only different. You just don’t know where you will end up.

It is acknowledged that each one of us has different personality types. Goal setting will appeal to some people and not to others. Therefore, if you don’t believe in setting goals, then please stop here and delete this document.

Finally, if you don’t believe in setting goals, perhaps it’s because you don’t know how to do it.