Why execution disciplines are KEY during a crisis
"You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day. Unless you're too busy – then you should sit for an hour."
This old Zen might be a bit confusing at the start, but sometimes we need to slow down to speed up.
Here’s how that plays out for companies.
I had been working with a client for about nine months. And nine months in, on top of everything else that was going on in the world – COVID, inflation, war in the Ukraine, pending recession – every few days, this company was dealing with extra drama: their bank account got hacked, their inventory system went down, and so on. They had to deal with these crises immediately.
But…when that happened, they got caught in those responses, and lost the habits, the disciplines, they had built over the nine months.
‘Forget that meeting, we have to fix this NOW,’ was now the norm.
They forgot the fundamentals they had built over those nine months:
They lost the rhythm they put in place
Diverged from their company vision
Discipline and accountability went out the window.
Leadership was allowed to take their eye off the ball to deal with the crises because the CEO modeled that behavior. And as the CEO goes, so goes the leadership team. As the leadership team goes, so goes the company.
It’s easy to get caught in responding to everyday crises; I coach my clients to implement three disciplines that will help achieve drama-free (well, almost) execution and accountability.
So what are those disciplines? It’s very simple:
Align around priorities - a small number (2-4) of 90-day priorities I like to call “rocks”.
Measure what matters – the measures that quantitatively define success for the organization.
Implement consistent planning and communication rhythm – a very specific set of planning and accountability meetings, from daily huddles, weekly meetings, monthly meetings to quarterly and, annual meetings, that cascade throughout the organization.
When things feel chaotic and it’s difficult to stay disciplined…that’s the time to DOUBLE DOWN on that discipline. Within that discipline is the recipe to stem the chaos and, at the same time, move towards your longer term vision.
I write about this and key disciplines to build a breakthrough leadership team in my book. You can buy it here: https://www.mike-goldman.com/break-through-leadership-team