Every business leader knows that execution is the hardest part of any business strategy.
As part of my role as the lead Consultant on the design, development, and delivery of leadership development learning journeys I often also provide Coaching services to executive clients and senior leaders who participate in our programs.
Last week I had a very interesting and dynamic session with one of my participants who is struggling with creating a collaboration-based work environment with his team that is focused on execution. He shared with me a story of one of his direct reports who was consistently displaying dysfunctional behaviors and always making excuses for why things were poorly executed. And unfortunately, after a while, other direct reports came to resent the poor effort and were openly wondering why there wasn’t more accountability. Things came to a head when my “Coachee” confronted his direct report and in a very uncomfortable conversation finally said “What is with you? Is your objective to get the job done, or is your objective to be a dysfunctional jerk?”
As I discussed with my Coachee, it seems that the real underlying issue here is that his direct report would rather play politics and use dysfunctional behaviors to solidify his political position and power than to simply do the damn job and get it done. Knowing that the ultimate role of being a leader is to get things done through other people, I shared five simple and important tips for establishing a culture of business execution by cutting through the politics and focusing on the work.
Plan
Leading-by-the-seat-of-your-pants is not acceptable under any circumstances but especially when you have a dysfunctional team and execution challenges. The best way to get on top of the situation is through aggressive preparation and planning. Understand the personality styles of your team, understand the team dynamics and politics of your direct reports, and create a positive plan of action for how you are going to anticipate their needs, actions, and behaviors. Flawless execution takes a lot of work but a little investment in planning will save hours of wasted time later on.
Involve
If you are like most leaders who are also human beings, your first reaction to dysfunctional behaviors might be to act dysfunctional back. If someone is being a jerk, your inclination is to be a bigger jerk back and show that person who is boss. That would be a terrible mistake. There will be times where you have to suck up your ego and involve the dysfunctional people into the decision-making process and help them feel part of the process as opposed to being told what to do which makes them feel outside of the process.
As a quick side note, my Coachee said this was the absolute hardest thing for him to learn but when he did it, it changed his world forever. Gaining stakeholder agreement is the fastest path to strategic business execution success!
Communicate
It’s been my experience that the number one driver of dysfunctional behavior is a lack of leadership communication. It’s at this point that you are smugly thinking to yourself, “Well, that’s not me because I send email on stuff and communicate every day.” You know in your heart that it takes more than an email; it takes real adult conversations that are based around goals and objectives and are in support of a plan. If there is one thing you can take from this blog is to conduct a quick communications SWOT analysis of your communications approach and find one thing to change and make better.
Feedback
Giving and receiving feedback is another critical element of strategic execution. Execution is not done in a vacuum and the most effective leaders provide strong and consistent feedback to their teams when they see both positive and dysfunctional behaviors in execution.
Accountability
The final tip is creating a culture of accountability. That means the goal and objectives are clearly defined and if someone is not meeting their goals they are provided the feedback and support needed to close gaps. It also means that if they are unable to close the gaps hard decisions are made to replace the resources not pulling their weight.
