Table Of Content

ex-e-cu-tion (ek si kyoo shun), n. 1. The missing link. 2. The main reason companies fall short of their promises. 3. The gap between what a company’s leaders want to achieve and the ability of their organizations to deliver it. 4. Not simply tactics, but a sys tem of getting things done through question ing, analysis, and follow-through. A discipline for meshing strategy with reality, aligning peo ple with goals, and achieving the results promised. 5. A central part of a company’s strategy and its goals and the major job of any leader in business. 6. A discipline requiring a comprehensive understanding of a business, its people, and its environment. 7. The way to link the three core processes of any business— the people process, the strategy, and the oper ating plan—together to get things done on time. 8. A method for success discovered and revealed in 2002 by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. Pr evious books by Ram Charan What the CEO Wants You to Know Boards That Work Every Business Is a Growth Business (coauthor) The Leadership Pipeline (coauthor) E-Board Strategies (coauthor) Strategic Management: A Casebook in Policy and Planning (coauthor) EXECUTION THE DISCIPLINE OF GETTING THINGS DONE L A R RY B O S S I DY A N D R A M CH A R A N with Charles Burck Copyright © 2002 by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the pub lisher. Published by Crown Business, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. www.randomhouse.com CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and the Rising Sun colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bossidy, Larry. Execution : the discipline of getting things done / Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan ; with Charles Burck.—1st ed. 1. Management. 2. Performance. 3. Achievement motivation. I. Charan, Ram. II. Burck, Charles. III. Title. HD31 .B626 2002 658—dc21 2002018743 ISBN 1-400-04617-3 v1.0 To the hundreds of people who touched our business lives and influenced the thoughts artic ulated in this book. A special recognition to Jack Welch, who in our time was the predomi nant practitioner of “getting things done.” Larry Bossidy Ram Charan CONTENTS Introduction 1 PART I: WHY EXECUTION IS NEEDED 1: The Gap Nobody Knows 13 2: The Execution Difference 35 PART II: THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF EXECUTION 3: Building Block One: The Leader’s Seven Essential Behaviors 57 4: Building Block Two: Creating the Framework for Cultural Change 85 5: Building Block Three: The Job No Leader Should Delegate—Having the Right People in the Right Place 109 CONTENTS PART III: THE THREE CORE PROCESSES OF EXECUTION 6: The People Process: Making the Link with Strategy and Operations 141 7: The Strategy Process: Making the Link with People and Operations 178 8: How to Conduct a Strategy Review 207 9: The Operations Process: Making the Link with Strategy and People 226 Conclusion: Letter to a New Leader 265 Index 271 viii EXECUTION This book has been optimized for viewing at a monitor setting of 1024 × 768 pixels.