Execution Ram Charan Quotes

The leader must be in charge of getting things done by running the three core processes—picking other leaders, setting the strategic direction, and conducting operations.

Organizations don’t execute unless the right people, individually and collectively, focus on the right details at the right time.

Execution requires a comprehensive understanding of a business, its people, and its environment.

Stronger, faster companies can detect and pounce on opportunities, for instance, to take advantage of the downturn by snapping up assets at bargain prices and snatching market share out from under their competitors.

plan scattered

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.

Leaders in an execution culture design strategies that are more road maps than rigid paths

The three processes—people, strategy, and operations— remain the building blocks and heart of good execution.

Passage Five: From Business Manager to Group Manager This is another leadership passage that at first glance doesn’t seem overly arduous. The assumption is that if you can run one business successfully, you can do the same with two or more businesses. The flaw in this reasoning begins with what is valued at each leadership level. A business manager values the success of his own business. A group manager values the success of other people’s businesses. This is a critical distinction because some people only derive satisfaction when they’re the ones receiving the lion’s share of the credit. As you might imagine, a group manager who doesn’t value the success of others will fail to inspire and support the performance of the business managers who report to him. Or his actions might be dictated by his frustration; he’s convinced he could operate the various businesses better than any of his managers and wishes he could be doing so. In either instance, the leadership pipeline becomes clogged with business managers who aren’t operating at peak capacity because they’re not being properly supported or their authority is being usurped. This level also requires a critical shift in four skill sets. First, group managers must become proficient at evaluating strategy for capital allocation and deployment purposes. This is a sophisticated business skill that involves learning to ask the right questions, analyze the right data, and apply the right corporate perspective to understand which strategy has the greatest probability of success and therefore should be funded. The second skill cluster involves development of business managers. As part of this development, group managers need to know which of the function managers are ready to become business managers. Coaching new business managers is also an important role for this level. The third skill set has to do with portfolio strategy. This is quite different from business strategy and demands a perceptual shift. This is the first time managers have to ask these questions: Do I have the right collection of businesses? What businesses should be added, subtracted, or changed to position us properly and ensure current and future earnings? Fourth, group managers must become astute about assessing whether they have the right core capabilities. This means avoiding wishful thinking and instead taking a hard, objective look at their range of resources and making a judgment based on analysis and experience. Leadership becomes more holistic at this level. People may master the required skills, but they won’t perform at full leadership capacity if they don’t begin to see themselves as broad-gauged executives. By broad-gauged, we mean that managers need to factor in the complexities of running multiple businesses, thinking in terms of community, industry, government,

Growth will be slower. The vast consumer market that is America may no longer be the principal global economic driver it has been, and countries intent on creating jobs for their people will be much slower to import our goods.

everyone will be fighting harder and smarter to win market share. Each company will be searching for a new advantage, in the form of products, technologies, management, locations, prices, among many other variables.

Ram Charan, the well-known Indian management guru, became world-famous because of his book by the same name — Execution. In it, he says, "Execution is the key through which every CEO opens his door to success." Without this, the goal cannot be reached. Even Swami Chinmayananda phrased it beautifully, "Plan out your work and work out your plan.

a handful of decisions that only the board can make: the decisions to select, retain, or dismiss the chief executive; to establish a climate of ethics and integrity; to set the goals and incentives for the executive team; and to pinpoint the company’s central idea, risk appetite, and capital structure.

Execution, when first published in 2002, was based on our observation that the discipline of getting things done was what differentiated companies that succeeded from those that just muddled through or failed.

There will be a new regulatory environment and each government will carry it out in different ways, some as partners to business, others as adversaries.

But inflation or deflation can be forecast to some extent. The real risks are those that lie hidden beneath the veneer of “business as usual.

the company that executes well will have the confidence, speed, and resources to move fast as new opportunities emerge. It will also have credibility as a partner, supplier, and investment of choice, compounding its advantage as it positions itself for growth.

Execution is what gives you an edge in detecting new realities in the external environment as well as risks that are being introduced, perhaps inadvertantly, to your own operations.

Execution not only ensures efficient use of resources in a credit and cash-starved world, but also provides the feedback loop needed for the business to adjust to changes—big or small—in the external world.

It is imperative, too, that every strategy takes into account an analysis and understanding of the global financial and economic environment marked by slower growth, increased competition, altered consumer behavior, and more government intervention.

The heart of execution lies in the three core processes: the people process, the strategy process, and the operations process.

When we asked Woolard about the most important lessons from his Apple experience, he reported that a board leader has to have regular access to the chief financial officer, deeply understand the company strategy and execution—and pick and partner with the right CEO.