Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - How to Execute When Everything Feels Urgent | Chris McChesney - Author of 4 Disciplines of Execution (#1 WSJ Bestseller)

Transcript

Lessons - How to Execute When Everything Feels Urgent | Chris McChesney - Author of 4 Disciplines of Execution (#1 WSJ Bestseller) · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  In this lessons episode, discover how the four disciplines of execution help leaders turn
• 0:04
  strategy into action and focus on what truly drives results. Learn how to overcome uncertainty
• 0:09
  and urgency that block progress, understand why clarity and leverage determine successful outcomes,
• 0:14
  and explore how accountability and focus sustain long-term performance in any organization.
• 0:19
  So let's let's let's queue up the four disciplines and what they're actually so four
• 0:32
  disciplines are four disciplines that are focused on executing executing in a business context
• 0:38
  in a leadership context. This is obviously what the you know this is the book that you just
• 0:42
  re-released. Today actually today we're recording it on Tuesday April 20th yeah so congratulations
• 0:51
  that's exciting it's very exciting so actually so what's the what's the re-release about like if
• 0:59
  people have already checked out this book what is the re-release and then I actually want to go
• 1:02
  into some of the more tactical stuff but I'm just curious what's the yeah so the if you're familiar
• 1:07
  with the four disciplines the the re-release about 30% new content really a lot of focus I'm
• 1:13
  where to use this approach and where not to use this approach this is not you know vitamin C this
• 1:19
  is not good for what ails you this is heavy medicine right and and where do leaders apply these
• 1:25
  disciplines and where not to how do leaders of leaders we go into much more detail on how organizational
• 1:32
  leaders apply this we do a lot with leaders that are finding themselves managing projects and they're
• 1:38
  not project managers how do you apply the disciplines to a project go instead of a performance type
• 1:44
  goal and then finally sustainability a lot of organizations have been at this for almost a
• 1:49
  decade how do you keep it fresh how do you keep it alive so those are kind of I guess the headlines
• 1:53
  or the highlights of how of what's new in the second edition and there are there's valid points
• 1:59
  because I can I can tell you from personal experience the the leaders of leaders point is something
• 2:04
  that nobody really nobody learns in school it's one of the most difficult things to figure out
• 2:12
  and then also just the project management piece when again another leader of leaders things when
• 2:18
  you're managing tasks that if you're in sales and you love selling and you move into sales manager
• 2:24
  and you move into director sales and you move into VP sales well now you have to manage projects
• 2:28
  and now and actually that's one of the reasons why some people don't like those executive roles
• 2:31
  because there's a lot of leaders of leadership type requirements and there's a lot of project
• 2:37
  management type requirements that is so far from the actual act right yep anyways good good
• 2:44
  advice I'm glad you said that about leaders of leaders I'm glad that because the one of the
• 2:50
  co-authors of the book Jim Hueeling and I are actually starting right now we had the same thought
• 2:55
  you did we're starting right now another work on leading leaders and we don't know if that's
• 3:00
  the name of the book it's a damn good name there's a whole chapter on this and we we we had to cut
• 3:07
  this chapter short we had so much on this topic and and we we had to say it's got we said the
• 3:12
  same thing you did there's not a lot out there there's a lot on leadership in a general sense
• 3:17
  but in terms of the specific dynamics of when you're a leader and you have to lead another leader
• 3:22
  that is not at least at least we've not seen a great deal on those unique dynamics so that is
• 3:28
  something that we're looking at right now it's a good it's a good topic and I know that the audience
• 3:34
  here some of them everybody here is career focused trying to build something themselves so I would just
• 3:41
  say if you aren't leading leaders right now regardless of whether or not you're starting a side hustle
• 3:46
  building something you're an entrepreneur and you want to build something in an organization there
• 3:51
  will be a point where this will be applicable in your career I mean I'd be today but figure it out
• 3:55
  so you don't have to go through hell and trial by fire when you're actually living it
• 4:00
  anyway so let's yeah this will be the reward of success exactly we will be leading leaders that's
• 4:07
  right that's exactly yeah okay so we're trying to remove ambiguity we're trying to take on
• 4:13
  tasks that ambiguity so that everything's clear everything is comforting we see the end result we
• 4:18
  see the vision so first of all how do we do that and then how do we apply say these four
• 4:24
  principles to executing when we have that clear vision so first how do we get rid of that ambiguity
• 4:28
  yeah so let's do this let's let's put up sort of two obstacles and then let's maybe walk
• 4:33
  through the disciplines so the one obstacle is it's not that people we think this but it's not
• 4:40
  that people necessarily resist change we think people resist change because it looks like
• 4:45
  they're resisting change a lot what they resist is uncertainty people initiate change quite a bit
• 4:53
  so it's it's really unfair to say that it's a human dynamic to resist change what people resist
• 4:57
  is the uncertainty that often comes with change okay so if you said uncertainty is sort of one
• 5:03
  issue and then the the here's the second issue that gets in the way of execution and it's it's
• 5:10
  urgency it took us a long time to sort of see this this was hiding in plain sight
• 5:17
  the any goal that you're trying to achieve any strategic priority anything that's really important
• 5:24
  will always compete with the day job and we've given the day job a nickname called the whirlwind
• 5:30
  right so this day job this whirlwind always feels urgent immediate oh I've got to get back to
• 5:35
  so-and-so oh I promised I might have that done oh I've got to do this oh I've still got seven
• 5:39
  unanswered emails oh oh oh right and so we're working all day long and you can live in the whirlwind
• 5:46
  and not move on anything strategic and and here's the other problem in the moment when a human
• 5:52
  being is confronted with a choice between something that's happening right now or spending energy
• 5:59
  on something far more important but less urgent the human default does not go to importance the
• 6:04
  human default goes to urgency this is the great barrier to strategic execution we're not wired for
• 6:11
  we are wired for immediacy so you think about those two factors this this resistance to uncertainty
• 6:19
  and this this whirlwind of urgency that we have to execute through so if you just think of those
• 6:25
  two things and then the what are the what are the four disciplines all right well the first one
• 6:31
  is called discipline ones called focus on the wildly important and it's a decision that a
• 6:37
  that a leader or an entrepreneur or a professional person makes when they say I'm going to give
• 6:43
  something disproportionate energy I'm not gonna ignore doesn't mean I got to ignore everything
• 6:48
  else everything else can go into whirlwind but something's going to get disproportionate energy
• 6:54
  and I'm gonna and I'm and not only am I gonna narrow the focus but I'm gonna it's a little bit
• 6:58
  like focusing a camera I'm gonna bring it into focus I'm gonna give it a starting line I'm gonna
• 7:02
  give it a finish line I'm gonna give it a deadline and there's a whole science around how you do that
• 7:08
  in organizational setting and how you do that between levels but that's what the first discipline
• 7:13
  is all about it the first discipline is all about targeting getting really clear on well let me
• 7:19
  let me give you a quote um I really like this this this was something that was said to us 20 years ago
• 7:24
  by the gentleman who's now the president of Chick-fil-A he was VP of operations at the time his name
• 7:30
  is Tim Tisopolis and he said when I meet with a leader he's got one of the yet one of the planets
• 7:36
  really good operators right he said when I meet with a leader the first thing I want to know
• 7:42
  where is that leader putting disproportionate focus this where are they spending like I don't
• 7:48
  want to know your seven priorities I want to know number one I want to know what's your big bet
• 7:53
  what you play right now otherwise I know if they don't have that they're on the defensive they're
• 7:59
  just they're just trying to put out fires right they'll put out fires they just want to get through the
• 8:04
  week right and he says it really helps me know where a leader's head is and and I think that little
• 8:09
  statement started to influence the way we use the discipline so so I got discipline one is about
• 8:13
  what I'm going after discipline two is called act on the lead measures so if discipline one is
• 8:19
  about the principle of focus discipline two is the principle of leverage it basically says look
• 8:25
  I'm just I've just identified something that by definition I can't move otherwise I wouldn't
• 8:30
  have identified I've just deliberately picked this really important thing that's really hard
• 8:36
  and so if you think about a rock that's too heavy to move yeah and then you picture a lever
• 8:41
  if you get a full chrome you get a lever under there right and you know what are the characteristics
• 8:46
  of a lever well a lever unlike the rock you can move it the lever is influenceable and when the
• 8:53
  lever moves the rock moves so the lever is predictive and so for 20 years we have been our had our
• 8:59
  heads into this idea of where's the leverage okay so the classic example that everybody gets his
• 9:05
  weight loss so people know okay if losing weight is the heavy rock I've just not been able to
• 9:12
  accomplish right diet and exercise really are the lever right I could act I don't always act on
• 9:19
  them but I can right and they're predictive if I stay with it it works right we don't believe it
• 9:27
  work but it works right so so it's predictive and influenceable and what we found is that in every
• 9:33
  field of human endeavor if you can get the targets low enough down to where the work is happening
• 9:39
  you can find leverage points you can find what we call lead measures now so a lead measure
• 9:46
  predictive and influenceables not the same as a predictive indicator just one little distinction
• 9:51
  on this if I was trying to grow corn right and crop production was my wildly important goal that's
• 10:01
  what we call the targets in discipline one we call them wigs or wildly important goals my
• 10:05
  wildly important goal or my lag measure right what's crop growth like similar to weight loss
• 10:13
  a predictive indicator of crop growth would be rainfall right we have we have a lot of rainfall
• 10:19
  we're gonna have a good crop growth okay well you can't control it okay I'm very good it's got right
• 10:24
  it's predicted but it ain't influenceable right lead measures are not predictive indicators lead
• 10:28
  measures are true leverage they're influenceable and they're predictive all right so so getting
• 10:33
  so you might have an organization with eight nine different teams each team we we really
• 10:38
  limit you to one wildly important goal per team per workgroup at a time this is what we found
• 10:45
  people can handle the day job plus one right so they got one wig that team has been very involved
• 10:50
  in creating the lead measures discipline three now it's called um keep a compelling scoreboard
• 10:57
  and it's really about for me it's about throwing the game on switch like that's that to me that's
• 11:05
  a that's a tangible it's a binary switch when someone goes all right it's live game on right and I
• 11:13
  engage and the hypothesis that you've created a discipline one and discipline two doesn't put it
• 11:18
  into motion but the minute you go game on and for us that's been a scoreboard so we we have an app
• 11:25
  4dx os that we've got over a half a million people on right now utilizing and in very simple terms
• 11:36
  it's not like it's not like a business scoreboard it's not like a spreadsheet it's not like well
• 11:42
  like a coach we think of it this way it's not a coach is scoreboard you you need those you have
• 11:46
  those this is a players scoreboard okay so if you think about the scoreboard at any athletic event
• 11:53
  it's much more like that than it is the spreadsheet they hand the coach at half time so that's
• 11:57
  discipline three does the team can we take what we did in disciplines one and two and can we make
• 12:02
  it go game on and the discipline four is create a cadence of accountability and that is every week
• 12:11
  right every team that owns a scoreboard each individual making commitments and then reporting the
• 12:17
  next week like in addition to the 100 things I got to do this week what's the one or two things
• 12:23
  that are going to ensure we do the lead measures like if my lead measures are diet and exercise
• 12:29
  right what would a commitment be will do diet and exercise no no no no we know that my commitment
• 12:34
  might be it's going to rain next week so I'm going to get that gym membership because I hate running
• 12:37
  in the rain or I'm going to go to Whole Foods because I've got these recipes but I don't have
• 12:43
  the ingredients right and I've got to right I've got to right want to make sure that I'm not eating
• 12:48
  junk and that I'm hitting that calorie lead measure so discipline one get the focus discipline two
• 12:53
  get the leverage discipline three game on and then discipline four if you've ever heard the
• 12:59
  adage force against leverage that's right that's applying that force so what we found is by doing
• 13:05
  that we're able to drive activities into an otherwise schedule of urgency and do it in a way
• 13:13
  that it doesn't feel overwhelming to people where they're like I don't even know where to start
• 13:35
  you