Issue No. 100 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting indulges in a brief moment of celebratory hoopla!—to commemorate Issue No. 100. (Applause.) OK…now back to business. Delegate your reading on this book to a team member who will report on it at a future staff meeting. It’s a keeper for your staff resource library. And this reminder, check out the archives here for the 100 books I’ve recommended over the last two years. Plus, visit my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
The Persistence to Make the Hard Choices
In my book, I urge you to “Avoid Management-by-Bestseller Syndrome.” That’s why this week’s book gets my high-five rating. It fits with my Management Buckets system—and it’s all about execution. As Peter Drucker said, “Vision without execution is delusion.” Plus, the author’s recommended books (including many that I’ve reviewed in the past 100 issues here) give you a synergistic context. The book won’t take you off-course. It’s a complementary tool to help you walk the next steps.
A week ago, Gary Harpst’s book on strategy and execution was #1 on the Wall Street Journal’s bestselling business books list. To order from Amazon, click on the title here: Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution: Solving the One Business Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier.
“The first premise of this book is that what most business leaders think is their greatest challenge really isn’t,” says Harpst, who implemented more than 60,000 business management systems. “In most of my 20-year tenure as CEO of Solomon Software, I was in react mode, moving from one crisis to the next.” So he makes the analysis simple with four quadrants focused on strong or weak strategy, coupled with strong or weak execution. The four quadrants: 1) growth wave, 2) fire-fighting, 3) profit wave, and 4) balanced and predictable.
It’s all about getting to his quadrant of excellence: balanced and predictable. “This sounds easy,” he writes, “but most organizations don’t have the framework, the will, or the persistence to make the hard choices it requires.” He adds, “Sustainable excellence isn’t possible unless an organization learns to systemically increase its capability to execute, and to do so faster than the rate at which its challenges are growing. It’s ironic that the better an organization executes today, the bigger its challenges will be tomorrow.” (Been there, done that, right?)
Is everyone in your organization on the same page regarding strategy and execution? You and your team members can take a quick online assessment at The Execution Revolution Challenge.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1. Most of the year, are we in the “fire-fighting quadrant” or the “balanced and predictable quadrant?”
2. The author says that excellence is “the enduring pursuit of balanced strategy and execution” and excellence is also the “journey that never ends.” Do you agree?
Bad Culture Eats Good Strategy for Lunch - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
Free Management Buckets Workshop! Feedback is the breakfast of champions—so I’m giving a complimentary two-day Management Buckets workshop registration to one fortunate reader who gives me feedback on or before Friday, August 15, 2008.
To commemorate Issue No. 100 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting, I’d like your feedback on the next 100 issues. Go to The Workshop page on my Management Buckets website, and click on the Feedback Survey link. We’ll select one person, on a random basis, to receive the complimentary workshop registration fee (a $395 value). You may use it yourself, or give it to a colleague, for any of the three fall workshops listed below.
Speaking of feedback, in the Culture Bucket, chapter 8, of Mastering the Management Buckets, we ask leaders how they know if they have a healthy corporate culture unless they measure it. The Best Christian Workplaces survey does just that. Participants say it’s a great tool to diagnose and improve your culture while honoring your staff by asking for their confidential feedback, all for a very reasonable price (20% early bird discount through August 31). Al Lopus, president and co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces Institute says, “Remember, bad culture eats good strategy for lunch (and after lunch you still have a bad culture)!” Visit their website for more information.
FALL 2008 WORKSHOP DATES. Join your colleagues at one of our Buckets or Board workshops this fall:
Mastering the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
September 16-17, 2008 (Colorado Springs)
October 14-15, 2008 (Chicago)
November 18-19, 2008 (Orange County, Calif.)
Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop
September 18, 2008 (Colorado Springs)
October 13, 2008 (Chicago)
November 21, 2008 (Orange County, Calif.)
For more details and to download the workshop brochures, visit The Workshop page on the Management Buckets website.
NEXT STEPS: I can help you integrate these leadership and management best practices into your unique setting and help you assess your competencies in the 20 management buckets. Email me at [email protected] or visit my website at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com and my book website at www.ManagementBuckets.com.
Comments