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New heading: THE SWEET SPOT

Let’s tie all this together. Early in the book, I introduced the idea that everyone chooses one of two roads in life—one is the well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other the road to greatness. We’ve explored how the path to mediocrity straitjackets human potential and how the path to greatness unleashes and realizes human potential. The 8th Habit is the pathway to greatness, and greatness lies in Finding Your Voice and Inspiring Others to Find Theirs.

Together we’ve explored what could be called three kinds of greatness: personal greatness, leadership greatness and organizational greatness.* Personal greatness is found as we discover our three birth-gifts, choice, principles and the four human intelligences. When we develop these gifts and intelligences, we cultivate a magnificent character full of vision, discipline and passion that is guided by conscience, one that is simultaneously courageous and kind. This kind of character is driven to make significant contributions that not only serve mankind but also reach and are focused on “the one.” Such character I would term primary greatness, whereas secondary greatness would include such things as talent, reputation, prestige, wealth and recognition.

Leadership greatness is achieved by people who, regardless of their position, choose to inspire others to find their voice. This is achieved through living the 4 Roles of Leadership.

Organizational greatness is achieved as the organization tackles the final challenge of translating their leadership roles and work (including mission, vision and values) into the principles or drivers of execution in an organization, clarity, commitment, translation, enabling, synergy and accountability. These drivers are also universal, timeless, self-evident principles, for organizations.

THE DIAGRAM THAT FOLLOWS summarizes the relationship between personal greatness, leadership greatness and organizational greatness. Organizations that govern and discipline themselves by all three truly hit what you might call the sweet spot. The sweet spot is the nexus where all three circles overlap. This is where the greatest expression of power and potential is found. When you hit the “sweet spot” of a racquet while playing tennis, or of the golf club when connecting with that little white ball, you know when you’ve hit it. It is exhilarating! It resonates. It just feels right. With no more effort than usual, that connection with the center releases a burst of power and the ball is sent soaring much farther and faster than usual. It is another way of referring to the power that is released when you “Find Your Voice” as an individual, team and organization.

New heading: THE 4 DISCIPLINES OF EXECUTION (4DX)

There are four disciplines that, if practiced consistently, can close these execution gaps and vastly improve teams’ and organizations’ ability to focus on and execute their top priorities. We call them The 4 Disciplines of Execution. Of course, there are dozens of factors that influence execution. However, our research suggests that these four disciplines represent the 20 percent of activities that produce 80 percent of results, as they pertain to executing consistently with excellence on top priorities. You will notice that these four disciplines are consistent with, and flow out of, the three areas of greatness. They are the Sweet Spot (see 4DX at the center of the diagram), the power-releasing contact point, the set of next-step, actionable, “rubber meets the road,” laser-focused practices that will enable a team and organization to consistently get results.

Below is a summary of these four disciplines (4DX):

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

There’s a key principle that many fail to understand about focusing an organization: People are naturally wired to focus on only one thing at a time (or at best very few) with excellence.

Suppose you have an 80 percent chance of achieving any particular goal with excellence. Add a second goal to that first goal, and research shows your chances of achieving both goals drop to 64 percent. Keep adding goals and the probability of achieving them plunges steeply. Juggle five goals at once, for example, and you only have a 33 percent chance of actually getting excellent results on all of them.

How vital it is, then, to focus diligently and intensely on only a few crucial goals.

Some objectives are clearly more critical than others. We must learn to distinguish between what is “merely important” and what is “wildly important.” A “wildly important goal” carries serious consequences. Failure to achieve these goals renders all other achievements relatively inconsequential.

Consider the situation of the air traffic controller. At any moment, hundreds of airplanes are in the air, and all of them are important—especially if you happen to be on one of them! But the controller cannot focus on them all at once. Her job is to land them one at a time, and to do so flawlessly. Every organization is in a similar position. Few can afford the luxury of “divided attention”; some goals simply must be landed right now.

So how do we know which goals are “wildly important” and will best help us execute our strategic plan? Sometimes it is immediately clear and obvious. At other times, analysis is needed. The Importance Screen is a valuable strategic planning tool that will help you prioritize your goals by running them through the economic, strategic, and stakeholder screens. In other words, it will help you assess which of all the potential goals would bring the most leverage in terms of economic, strategic, and stakeholder benefits. You may wish to use the Importance Screen when determining your top goals. This is pathfinding at the cutting edge of action.

The Stakeholder Screen. What are the most important things you should do to fulfill the needs of your stakeholders? Customers, employees, suppliers, investors and others all have a stake in these goals. Consider how the potential goals: • increase customer loyalty.

• ignite the passion and energy of your people.

• favorably impact suppliers, vendors, business partners and investors.

The Strategic Screen. Consider how the potential goals affect the strategy of the organization, including whether or not the goal: • directly supports the organization’s mission or purpose.

• leverages core competencies.

• increases market strength.

• increases competitive advantage.

Ask yourself: What is the most consequential thing we can do to advance our strategy?

The Economic Screen. A wildly important goal must contribute to the overall economics of the organization in some direct or indirect way. Ask yourself: Of all your potential goals, which few would bring you the most significant economic return? Consider the following: • Revenue growth

• Cost reduction

• Improved cash flow

• Profitability

Even in a nonprofit organization, economics are still crucial, since every organization must have cash flow to survive.

PUTTING THE GOALS through the stakeholder strategic and economic screens positions a clear “why” behind the “what” of each goal.

In my estimation, a strategic plan will remain vague and lofty unless it is broken down into the two or three top priorities or “wildly important” goals (WIGs). Stakeholders at all levels of the organization should be involved in the identification of these crucial goals so that they have a greater level of commitment and understand the rationale behind each one.

To achieve results with excellence, you must focus on a few wildly important goals and set aside the merely important. Since human beings are wired to do only one thing at a time with excellence (or at best just a few), we must learn to narrow our focus. The reality is, far too many of us try to do far too many things. Like an air traffic controller, we need to learn to land one plane at a time to do fewer things with excellence rather than many with mediocrity.

To practice this discipline you must clarify your team’s top two or three “wildly important” goals and carefully craft them to be in alignment with the organization’s top priorities.

FILM: It’s Not Just Important, It’s Wildly Important!

To illustrate the underlying need for focus on “the vital few,” I invite you to watch a little film called It’s Not Just Important, It’s Wildly Important! This film is based upon actual interviews we conducted with our own clients, not with actors. It illustrates the misalignment and lack of goal clarity that pervades most organizations. It is humorous but all too indicative of the focus and execution problems most organizations face. Just go to www.The8thHabit.com/offers and select this title from the Films menu, and sit back and see if you don’t recognize a little of the organization for which you work.

Discipline 2: Create a Compelling Scoreboard

A Scoreboard allows you to leverage a basic principle: People play differently when they’re keeping score.

Have you ever watched a street game of some kind, basketball, hockey, football, when the players were not keeping score? Players tend to do whatever they want, the game stops for a few jokes, and the playing is not very focused. But when they start keeping score, things change. There’s a new intensity. Huddles happen. Plays are improvised. Players adapt quickly to each new challenge. And the speed and tempo build dramatically.

The same thing happens at work. Without crystal-clear measures of success, people are never sure what the goal truly is. Without measures, the same goal is understood by a hundred different people in a hundred different ways. As a result, team members get off track doing things that might be urgent but less important. They work at an uncertain pace. Motivation flags.

That is why it’s so crucial to have a compelling, visible, accessible Scoreboard for your strategic plan and crucial goals. Most work groups have no clear measures of success, nor do they have any way to see how they are doing on their key priorities.

According to our xQ studies, only about one in three workers can refer to clear, accurate measures to gauge their progress or success on key goals. And only about three in 10 believe that rewards or consequences have anything to do with performance on measurable goals. Obviously, few workers have the feedback system they need to execute with precision.

Think of the tremendous motivating power of the Scoreboard. It is an inescapable picture of reality. Strategic success depends on it. Plans must adapt to it. Timing must adjust to it. Unless you can see the score, your strategies and plans are simply abstractions. So you must build a compelling Scoreboard and consistently update it. This is combining pathfinding and aligning at the cutting edge of action.

New heading: HOW TO CREATE A COMPELLING SCOREBOARD?

Through involvement and synergy (modeling the 7 Habits), identify the key measures for your organizational or team goals and make a visual representation of them. The Scoreboard should make three things absolutely clear: From what? To what? By when?

1. List your top priorities or “wildly important goals” those your team simply must achieve.

2. Create a scoreboard for each one with these elements:

• The current result (where we are now)

• The target result (where we need to be)

• The deadline (by when)

The Scoreboard might take the form of a bar graph, a trend line, a pie chart or a Gantt chart. Or it might look like a thermometer or a speedometer or a scale. You decide—but make it visible, dynamic and accessible. Remember also that because ends preexist in the means, you might consider including measures in the Scoreboard regarding principle-centered values.

1. Post the Scoreboard and ask people to review it every day, every week, as appropriate. Meet over it, discuss it, and resolve issues as they come up.

All team members should be able to see the Scoreboard and watch it change moment by moment, day by day, or week by week. They should be discussing it all the time. They should never really take their minds off it. The compelling Scoreboard has the effect of keeping score in a street game. All of a sudden, the tempo changes. People work faster, conversations change, people adapt quickly to new issues. And you get to the goal more precisely and rapidly.

Discipline 3: Translate Lofty Goals into Specific Actions

It’s one thing to come up with a new goal or strategy. It’s quite another to actually turn that goal into action, to break it down into new behaviors and activities at all levels, including the front line. There is a vast difference between the stated strategy and the real strategy. The stated strategy is what is communicated; the real strategy is what people do every day. To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you need to start doing things you’ve never done before. Just because the leaders may know what the goals are doesn’t mean that the people on the front line, where the real action takes place, know what to do. Goals will never be achieved until everyone on the team knows exactly what they’re supposed to do about them. In the last analysis, the front line produces the bottom line. They are the creative knowledge workers. Leadership, remember, is a choice, not a position; it can be distributed everywhere—at all levels of the organization. Also remember, you cannot hold people responsible for results if you supervise their methods. You then become responsible for results and rules replace human judgment, creativity and responsibility.

To practice this discipline, your team must get creative, must identify the new and better behaviors needed to achieve your goals, then translate them into weekly and daily tasks at all levels of the organization. This is empowering at the cutting edge of action.

Discipline 4: Hold Each Other Accountable, All of the Time

In the most effective teams, people meet frequently, monthly, weekly, or even daily, to account for their commitments, examine the Scoreboard, resolve issues, and decide how to support one another. Unless everyone on a team holds everyone else accountable, all of the time, the process will be dead on arrival. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, widely credited with the renaissance of New York City, held regular “morning meetings” with his staff. The idea was to account for progress on key goals every single day. Reengaging less than weekly allows the team to drift off course and lose focus.

A self-empowering team, then, will focus and refocus in frequent accountability sessions. Such meetings are not like the typical staff meeting, where people talk about everything under the sun and can’t wait for the meeting to end so they can get back to their real work. The purpose of an effective accountability session is to move the key goals forward.

Three key practices are characteristic of effective accountability sessions:

• Triage Reporting

• Finding Third Alternatives

• Clearing the Path

Triage Reporting. In a hospital emergency room, you will often see a large notice posted that goes something like this: PATIENTS ARE TREATED IN ORDER OF SERIOUSNESS, NOT ARRIVAL. The medical staff conducts a process called “triage,” in which casualties are sorted and treated based on the severity of their condition. This is why your broken arm has to wait while the doctors work on a patient with a brain injury, even though you might have arrived first.

In triage reporting, everyone reports quickly on the vital few issues, leaving the less important issues for another time. They focus on key results, major problems, and high-level issues. This doesn’t mean that only “urgent” issues are discussed. It means that only “important” issues are discussed, even if some of these issues are not “urgent.” This table contrasts the typical staff meeting with an effective accountability session: Finding Third Alternatives: In effective accountability sessions, there is intense focus on how to achieve the key goals. The principle here is that a new goal that we’ve never achieved before requires doing things we’ve never done before. That means we’re constantly looking for the new and better behavior that will get us to the goal. That’s why we must find “Third Alternatives”—courses of action that are better than my way or your way, but that are the product of our best thinking. Remember again, we produce synergy by honoring diversity or differences—that is, individual differences in the context of unity on mission, values, vision, and WIGs.

In such sessions you’ll see a lot of brainstorming going on, time allocated for creative dialogue. This table contrasts the typical staff meeting with an effective accountability session: Clearing the Path: To a great extent, effective leadership consists of clearing the path of barriers and aligning goals and systems so that others can achieve their goals. In a true “win-win agreement” process, the manager agrees to clear the path, to do things only he or she can do, to enable the worker to achieve. Of course, it’s not just the manager who clears the path for others. It’s everyone’s job.

Thus, in an effective accountability session, you’ll hear people ask, “How can I clear the path for you?” or “I’m struggling with this issue and need some help.” or “What can we do for you to help you get that done?” This table contrasts the typical staff meeting with an effective accountability session: This is aligning at the cutting edge of action.

New heading: INSTITUTIONALIZING EXECUTION.

As you can see, the 4 Disciplines represent a methodology for taking something that is usually considered a variable factor practiced by a few high performers—consistent execution—and turning it into something that is predictable, teachable and replicable. We’ve learned by research and experience that when these four disciplines are practiced by teams, units or organizations, they demonstrate a much greater ability to execute top priorities, again and again.** Execution then becomes institutionalized and is not a matter of luck or the influence of a few key leaders. Further, the key to institutionalizing a culture of execution is regularly measuring it.

THE EXECUTION QUOTIENT (XQ)

Organizations need a new way to express and measure their collective ability to “focus and execute.” Again, we call it xQ—The “Execution Quotient.” Just as an IQ test uncovers gaps in intelligence, an xQ evaluation measures the “execution gap”—the gap between setting a goal and actually achieving it. The xQ score is a leading indicator of an organization’s ability to execute its most important goals. It’s no longer necessary to wait for the lagging indicators to tell you whether you’ve succeeded or not. By asking workers twenty-seven carefully crafted questions that take around fifteen minutes to answer, you can get at that leading indicator.† Can you imagine the power of doing an xQ test from the grass roots up every three to six months, one that gives an accurate picture of the degree of focus and execution of the organization? It could be done formally and informally. In fact, the more mature the culture becomes, the narrower the difference will be between formal and informal information gathering. Then based on the xQ Questionnaire, strong grassroots cultural impetus would be given to aligning goals between departments and divisions so that the strategic critical priorities would be constantly focused on and executed. This would drive the Knowledge Worker Age model into the Age of Wisdom.* HOPEFULLY YOU’RE BEGINNING to see how the 8th Habit—Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs—is another way of saying, “Use the empowering knowledge worker, whole-person model. Apply the 7 Habits (personal greatness), the 4 Roles of Leadership (leadership greatness) and the 6 principles or drivers to execution (organizational greatness) to that model.” We move now to the pinnacle of the 8th Habit: Using Our Voices Wisely to Serve Others.

QUESTION & ANSWER

Q What is the difference between what you have traditionally taught as the 5 elements of a good win-win agreement and the 4 Disciplines of Execution?

A: At the basic principle level, there is no difference. The difference lies in semantics (how words are being used and defined), and in the overall context in which the 4 Disciplines are placed. Let me explain more fully. The 5 elements of a good win-win agreement are: 1. Desired Results

1. Guidelines

2. Resources

3. Accountability

4. Consequences

Desired results and guidelines are basically embodied in the first two disciplines of execution—establishing WIGs (Wildly Important Goals) and a compelling Scoreboard. As discussed earlier in the book, ends and means are inseparable; therefore, the accomplishment of desired results with the achievement of the WIGs can be interwoven when done in principle-centered ways.

The third element of a win-win agreement, resources, is implicitly involved in the third discipline of execution—translate lofty goals into specific actions. The fourth and fifth elements of a win-win performance agreement—accountability and consequences—are explicitly involved in the fourth discipline: You hold each other accountable, all of the time. Since consequences are the natural result of the accountability being given, they are also implicitly involved.

The great advantage of the 4 Disciplines approach to execution and team empowerment is that it comes out of a research-based study of execution gaps, the larger context of how the Industrial Age model produces those gaps, and how the Knowledge Worker Age model fills them.