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This is lead us to Chapter 14

Titled THE 8TH HABIT AND THE SWEET SPOT.

MAHATMA GANDHI once taught The difference between what we are doing and what we’re capable of doing would solve most of the world’s problems.

THE 8TH HABIT, Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs, is an idea whose time has come. “Whose time has come” is a phrase from the famous line by Victor Hugo quoted earlier: “There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” The reason why the 8th Habit is such an idea is that it embodies an understanding of the whole person, an understanding that gives its possessors the key to crack open the limitless potential of the knowledge worker economy. As is represented on the lower road of figure 14.1, the Industrial Age manual worker economy was based on a part- or fragmented-person paradigm. In today’s world, this lower road leads to mediocrity at best. It literally straitjackets human potential. Organizations mired in the mind-set of the Industrial Age continue to have the people at the top making all the important decisions and have the rest “wielding screwdrivers.” What an enormous waste! What an enormous loss!

Remember again the statement by author John Gardner: “Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve their problems but because they cannot see their problems.” This is exactly what has happened.

The 8th Habit gives you a mind-set and a skill-set to constantly look for the potential in people. It’s the kind of leadership that communicates to people their worth and potential so clearly they come to see it in themselves. To do this, we must listen to people. We must involve and continually affirm them by our words and through all 4 Roles of Leadership.

Here is a succinct way to remember what each role does. Notice how each role directly or indirectly affirms people’s worth as whole people and empowers the unleashing of their potential.

First, modeling (individual, team). Modeling inspires trust without expecting it. When people live by the principles embodied in the 8th Habit, trust, the glue of life, flourishes; trust comes only through trustworthiness. In short, modeling produces personal moral authority.

Second, pathfinding. Pathfinding creates order without demanding it. That means when people identify and are involved in the strategic decisions, particularly on values and high-priority goals, they emotionally connect; the locus of both management and motivation goes from the outside to the inside. Pathfinding produces visionary moral authority.

Third, aligning. Aligning structures, systems and processes is a form of nourishing the body politic and the spirit of trust, vision and empowerment. Aligning produces institutionalized moral authority.

Fourth, empowering. Empowering is the fruit of the other three roles, modeling, pathfinding and aligning. It unleashes human potential without external motivation. Empowering produces cultural moral authority.

Remember, the most important modeling is done by the leader when he or she models the other three roles. In other words, pathfinding is modeling the courage to determine a course and the humility and mutual respect to involve others in deciding what matters most. Aligning is modeling the willingness to set up structures, systems and processes that are congruent with the “what matters most” strategic decisions so that the organization stays constantly focused on its highest-priority goals. Empowering is modeling a bone-deep belief in people’s capacity to choose and in the four parts of their nature through co-missioning processes.

FOCUS AND EXECUTION

I suggest that all that we have covered can be essentially summarized in two words: Focus and Execution. In these two words we truly find “simplicity on the far side of complexity.” Again, focus deals with what matters most, and execution deals with making it happen. The cutting-edge bestseller business book by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy called Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done has been influential in my thinking behind this two-word summary.

Leadership without the discipline of execution is incomplete and ineffective. Without the ability to execute, all other attributes of leadership become hollow.

No company can deliver on its commitments or adapt well to change unless all leaders practice the discipline of execution at all levels. Execution has to be part of a company strategy in its goals. It is the missing link between aspirations and results.

The first two roles of leadership—modeling and pathfinding—can be summarized in one word: focus. The next two roles of leadership—aligning and empowering—can be summarized in one word: execution. How is this so? Think about it. Pathfinding is essentially strategic work; it’s deciding what the higher-priority goals are—what values are to serve as guidelines in accomplishing and sustaining those goals. But this requires both a clear understanding and a commitment in the culture toward these goals. Such commitment is based upon trust, trustworthiness and synergy—the essence of modeling. Only when there is true personal and interpersonal trustworthiness will trust develop and team synergy be effective. This personal/interpersonal modeling involves mutual respect, mutual understanding and creative cooperation (Habits 4, 5 and 6) in producing a clear, committed set of high-priority goals (Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind). This personal/interpersonal trustworthiness is in turn based on people living true to their values and goals, in other words, personal focus and execution. This is Habit 3: Put First Things First. The expression “first things first” is another way of describing focus and execution.

The next two roles of leadership, aligning and empowering, represent the execution. This means creating structures, systems and processes (aligning) that intentionally enable individuals and teams to translate the organization’s larger “line-of-sight” strategic goals or critical priorities (pathfinding) into their actual day-to-day work and team goals. In short, people are empowered to get the job done.

Focus and execution are inseparably connected. In other words, until you have people on the same page, they will not execute consistently. If you use the Industrial Age command-and-control transaction model to get focus, you won’t be able to use the Knowledge Worker Age empowering transformation model to get execution—simply because without involvement and/or identification, you will not get emotional commitment to the focus. Execution will simply not take place. Likewise, if you use a knowledge worker/involvement/empowerment approach to achieve a common focus, but then an Industrial Age/command-and-control approach for execution, you won’t be able to maintain the focus because people will perceive the lack of sincerity and integrity.

On the other hand, if you use the Knowledge Age model on both focus (modeling, pathfinding) and execution (aligning, empowering), you will produce integrity and trustworthiness in the organizational culture. The organization will not only find its voice but it will also use its voice to superbly serve its purposes and stakeholders.

New heading

THE GREAT EXECUTION GAP

Early in the book I made the statement, “To know and not to do is really not to know.” This is a profound truth. The principles encompassed in the 8th Habit are of little worth until they, by practice and execution, become part of our character and skill-set—until they become a habit.

I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me, and I will be able to do them quickly, correctly. I am easily managed—you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great people; and alas, of all failures as well. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human being. You may run me for a profit or turn me for ruin—it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Who am I? I am habit.

Execution is the great unaddressed issue in most organizations today. It is one thing to have clear strategy; it is quite another to actually implement and realize the strategy, to execute. In fact, most leaders would agree that they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution. Those who execute always have the upper hand. As Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., put it, “All of the great companies in the world out-execute their competitors day in and day out in the marketplace, in their manufacturing plants, in their logistics, in their inventory turns—in just about everything they do. Rarely do great companies have a proprietary position that insulates them from the constant hand-to-hand combat of competition.”

There are many things that effect execution, but our xQ research shows that there are six core drivers to execution in an organization: clarity, commitment, translation, enabling, synergy and accountability. It follows, then, that breakdowns in execution typically occur as failures in one or more of these six drivers. We call them execution gaps: • Clarity—people don’t clearly know what the goals or priorities of their team or organization are;

• Commitment—people don’t buy into the goals;

• Translation—people don’t know what they individually need to do to help the team or organization achieve its goals;

• Enabling—people don’t have the proper structure, systems or freedom to do their jobs well;

• Synergy—people don’t get along or work together well; and

• Accountability—people don’t regularly hold each other accountable.

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.

PETER DRUCKER

The following chart (table 6) identifies these six execution gaps/drivers and gives a very simplified explanation of how the controlling Industrial Age mind-set literally causes these gaps and how the Knowledge Worker/whole-person model, which embodies the 8th Habit, can solve them.

1. Clarity: The manual worker/Industrial Age approach is simply to announce what the mission, vision, values and high-priority goals are. As we’ve discussed, these are often the product of top people going to off-site mission statement workshops and then returning to the workforce to announce in smooth language the strategic decisions to guide all other decisions in the organization. Over time, these mission statements become nothing more than PR statements, simply because there is no real involvement; therefore, there is no real identification, which is the essence of the Knowledge Worker Age. Remember that identification is personal moral authority coming from involvement with the admired person, not necessarily from involvement in the strategic decisions.

2. Commitment: The Industrial Age approach to getting commitment is to sell—communicate it constantly and frequently, explain it, and try to make sense of it. Sell, sell, sell! But research data show that only one in five have a passionate commitment to the high-priority goals of their team and organization. The 8th Habit approach in the Knowledge Worker Age is to put a whole person in a whole job—body, mind, heart and spirit. Pay me fairly, treat me kindly and respectfully, use my mind creatively in doing work that truly adds value and in doing it in a principle-centered way. It’s not just a matter of what we have called The Great Jackass Theory of Human Motivation, where you just throw more money at the workers. In fact, studies have shown that when you have a Knowledge Worker approach, workers place salary fourth in priority behind trust, respect and pride. Why? Because when people have intrinsic satisfaction in their work, extrinsic, or external, factors are less important. But when there are no intrinsic satisfactions in the work, then money becomes the most important thing. Why? With money you can buy satisfactions off the job. The whole-person 8th Habit unleashes internal motivation.

The execution gaps of clarity and commitment are also the primary source of time management problems. There is one simple reason—how people define the high-priority goals, along with mission and values, will govern every other decision. Therefore, when there is a lack of clarity and commitment, you will have nothing but confusion about what is truly important. The end result is that urgency will define importance. That which is popular, pressing, proximate and pleasant—in other words, that which is urgent—becomes important. The net result is that everyone is reading the tea leaves, putting their finger to the political winds, and kissing up to the hierarchy. Then the confusion gets pushed down through the entire organization in a compounded way. So until people develop clarity and commitment toward the mission, vision and values of the organization no amount of time management training will have any sustaining impact, except in people’s personal lives. As Charles Hummel once said: The important task rarely must be done today, or even this week. . . . But the urgent task calls for instant action. . . . The momentary appeal of these tasks seems irresistible and important, and they devour our energy. But in the light of time’s perspective, their deceptive prominence fades; with a sense of loss we recall the vital task we pushed aside. We realize we’ve become slaves to the tyranny of the urgent.3

3- Translation: The Industrial Age approach is job descriptions. In the Knowledge Worker Age, you help align people’s jobs to their voices (talents and passions), and their jobs have a line of sight to accomplishing the team’s and organization’s high-priority goals.

4- Enabling: In many ways, enabling is the toughest execution gap to deal with, because it requires you to remove all the dysfunctional structural, systemic and other cultural barriers that we have been discussing throughout the book. These enabling or disabling structures and systems—recruiting, selecting, training and development, compensating, communicating, information, compensation, etc.—are exactly where many people get their sense of security and predictability in their work life. Unless there is genuine involvement in the strategic decision making, particularly regarding values and line-of-sight priorities, you won’t get sufficient emotional connection, trust and internal motivation to align deeply embedded structures and systems.

In the Industrial Age, people are an expense, and things, like equipment and technology, are an investment. Just think about this again! People . . . an expense; things . . . an investment! This is the bottom-line information system. It is sick bloodletting. With the 8th Habit approach to the Knowledge Worker Age, people can become involved in setting up a very powerful visual, compelling, real-time Scoreboard on both result and capability that reflects how well the systems and structures are aligned, to enable key goals to be accomplished.

5- Synergy: The Industrial Age is a compromise approach at best, and win-lose or lose-win at worst. Synergy in the Knowledge Worker Age enables Third Alternatives to be created. It’s an 8th Habit kind of communication, where people’s voices are identified and aligned with the organization’s voice so that the voices of different teams or departments harmonize together.

6- Accountability: The Industrial Age practices of “carrot-and-stick” motivation and “sandwich technique” performance appraisal are replaced by mutual accountability and open sharing of information against the top-priority goals that everyone understands. It’s almost like going into a soccer stadium or a football or baseball arena where the scoreboard displays information so that everyone in the entire arena knows exactly what’s happening.