How Many of Your Leaders Can Execute?

George B. Weathersby

Chairman & CEO, Genesys Solutions, LLC

Execution is a topic that rivets the attention of senior executives — and for good reasons. Board members increasingly expect improved corporate performance within three to five quarters of the arrival of new leadership, if not sooner. Investment analysts expect improved earnings over the previous year — every year. China and India have twice as many engineers and scientists as we do who are working on many of the same product challenges at 15% of our cost and with a greater sense of urgency than our people demonstrate.

External expectations and competition are very difficult to manage, but at least a company can manage its own execution capability. Larry Bossidy's best selling books tell CEOs how to do it. Jack Welch and other former CEOs tell conference attendees how they did it. But what is the result? Can most organizations execute their own business plans and strategies?

Jim Collins and other business researchers report that only 1% of the businesses they studied have made the transition from good to great. And our research indicates that at best 10% of the executives and managers of most firms can execute the business initiatives of their firm. In terms of execution, 90% of most organizations' workforces are MIA.

Over the past three years we have measured over 150 separate business units employing over 200,000 in the US, UK, and Europe with our unique instrument to determine the leading indicators of an organization's ability to execute its own major initiatives. In almost every case, the first measurement of a business unit showed significantly less than 10% of the respondents at every level of responsibility within the organization were capable of execution. If you believe as I do that the widely reported disappointments in corporate acquisitions, new product launches, software integration, business process improvements, and even responses to natural disasters are primarily failures to execute, then you know that relying on less than 10% of your organization cannot produce success.

There is good news. Once measured, execution can be managed. Genesys can work with you and your senior team to develop a full understanding of the fundamental requirements of execution, to identify the organizational barriers that could limit your success, and to remove those barriers and foster action plans that accelerate the execution of the key initiatives. Across the full spectrum of possible leadership actions, improving execution is typically the highest ROI. Within a quarter, improved execution accelerates the achievement of results and reduces the risks of failure.

Please take a moment to consider all of the key initiatives you are currently undertaking in your own organization. What is the likelihood of their success? What percentage of your workforce is MIA? Do you have a good, objective understanding of your organization's ability to execute? If not, we should talk. We can help.

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How Many of Your Leaders Can Execute?

George B. Weathersby



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