“The 4 Disciplines of Execution”
By: Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
Free Press, 2012, 296 pages
After endless hours of planning and perfecting a strategy to meet your firm’s identified goals, the effort falls dead in the water. You were able to complete the planning steps of the process, but fell short of successful implementation. Sound familiar? Anyone in a leadership position is likely acquainted with this scenario.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution addresses the issue of strategy implementation. My interest was piqued after hearing rave reviews from colleagues and learning that one of the contributing authors is New York Times bestselling author Sean Covey. Covey is known for books about developing better habits to find success.
McChesney, Covey, and Huling begin the book discussing the development of the 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX). The authors identified various institutional problems across businesses and government agencies and then created an operating system (4DX) to avoid execution breakdown. 4DX was conceived from well researched ideas, but perfected through trial and error. The four disciplines that resulted from the reportedly 1,500 implementations are:
- Focusing on a wildly important goal,
- Acting on lead measures,
- Keeping a compelling scoreboard, and
- Creating a cadence of accountability.
This book focuses on the real life scenarios of 4DX implementation in a variety of businesses across industries. Through recounting the process and results of 4DX in these scenarios, the authors help the reader see how the strategy is applicable and implementable; and, most importantly, how all of the pieces work together for successful strategy implementation.
By Whitney Krebs, Senior Business Development Coordinator, Epstein Becker Green for the January/February 2015 Capital Ideas Newsletter