The 4 Disciplines Of Execution co-written by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling is all about executing your wildly important goals. Now, we know the two ingredients required for success in any field- strategy and execution. Most of us have the strategy part in the bag, but are failing miserably on the execution part. This is because execution requires changing behavioural patterns. And we know how much the brain hates any kind of change, even when it's good. This book cracks the code of execution error, as it breaks down the problems that come along with executing your strategy into fruition.
So what are the 4 disciplines of execution ? They are:
Discipline1: Focus on the wildly important
Discipline2: Act on the lead measures
Discipline3: Keep a compelling scoreboard
Discipline4: Create a cadence of accountability
Now let's breakdown each one of these disciplines to better understand how to execute them.
Discipline1: Focus on the wildly important
"The real enemy of execution is your day job!"
Your life is a constant battle between your day job and your wildly important goals. We call your day job "the whirlwind" because it's urgent but robs you of your time and resources from your wildly important goals. It's always a tug of war between THE URGENT VS THE IMPORTANT. This is not to say that your day job is not important and can be neglected; It is important, but the nature of a day job is that it steals your time and resources that you otherwise would have spent on your lead measures which would have pushed the needle towards the life of your dreams.
It's almost like killing your dream to make someone else's dream a reality. Your day job is the real enemy of execution! And this is why we call your day job a decoy to your dreams. When it comes to THE URGENT VS THE IMPORTANT, the urgent will always win and that's why you need to create space and time for you to act on your dreams within the whirlwind.
So here's how to focus on the WIG- wildly important goal:
Identify your WIG
Do not have more than one or two WIG's
Narrow focus on the WIG
Have a deadline on the WIG
Discipline2: Act on the lead measures
Your lead measures are the activities that, when you do, moves the needle towards achieving your goals. When you nail down your lead measures, it can give you immense leverage for achieving your lag measures.
Lag measure- measures the goal
For instance, you want to reduce 10lbs or 4.5kg of weight in one month. Your desire to reduce weight is your WIG; your strategy to reduce weight, which includes a specific calorie limit per day combined with a specific number of hours of exercise per day is your lead measure; and the way you track the achievement of your goal is your lag measure. In this case, it's a weight measuring scale.
Lead measure- is predictive and influenceable
Predictive- It can predict the outcome of your lag measure.
Influenceable- It can be influenced as it depends on voluntary action.
Most of us are so focused on the lag measures, when 80% of our energy should be directed towards the system/ lead measures which moves us towards the achievement of goals
Discipline3: Keep a compelling scoreboard
The importance of knowing the score and having a scoreboard in front of you at all times is to know if you are winning or losing. Are you moving towards your goals or away from it? Are you progressing or regressing? Your scoreboard needs to
pop-up and be very clear, so that anyone passing by can tell if you are winning or losing. Let's take the same example of you wanting to reduce weight. How do you track your weight? You can measure your weight every day and note it on a desk calendar in red, so that you can easily see whether you are losing weight or not (lag measure) and the effectiveness of your diet and exercise (lead measures).
Discipline4: Crate a cadence of accountability
The way to create accountability is to have frequent meetings or zoom calls with your accountability partner- someone you respect and admire; whom you look up to. Having an accountability partner is crucial for the achievement of your goals as your partner holds you to your word. It makes you want to perform the tasks and show the results, and failure to do so makes you embarrassed that you have to come up with an excuse for not sticking to your commitment.
So to summarise, identify your WIG-wildly important goal and set a deadline, focus on the lead measures which act as a tipping point, keep a compelling scoreboard to review your progress, and have an accountability partner who will hold you to your word. Apply these principles to your goals and you too will have the edge in high execution skills.
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