Driving Results

E3. DRIVING RESULTS: Increasing intensity toward driving results; developing strategies to better hit numbers; driving own performance; increasing standards for personal achievement.

E3. Driving Results

Driving action for the sake of action can do more harm than taking no action at all. In the final analysis, you—the executive—will be judged by the results you produce. Mastering the art of driving results will allow you to rapidly advance your career. 

John was a good friend of mine who has since passed away. He first hired me in 1987 when he was CEO of a 2,000-employee company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. I had the privilege of coaching him through five major executive roles over the course of his career. John was known for getting results. He was a strong driver, with a dominant, no-nonsense personality. However, he was also engaging and social, and genuinely cared about those he led. At one point, he was a direct report to Jack Welch, former CEO of GE. John and Jack butted heads, and the relationship only lasted a year. 

I had never witnessed John get angry until he came to work for me in 2012. I remember sitting across from him at lunch, trying to explain to him that he had to adapt his style now that he was coming to run my company, a boutique executive coaching firm. The smallest company John had ever run did $500M a year in revenue. It was obvious to me that he was a big-company executive, and I nonchalantly told him that. Wow, I hit a nerve. He got so angry, he almost quit. It turned out he was told the same thing by John Scully, former CEO of Apple and Pepsi, as he was being exited from a startup he was hired to run. John was not a startup guy, and could not drive results for Scully or, it turned out, for me. He just did not have that entrepreneurial gene required to work in a very small environment. Yet, he was masterful at producing results in large, global companies. 

The moral of this story: Just because you can produce results in one environment does not mean you can produce results in any environment. Every executive has a sweet spot, and it is important to know yours if you want to have the best possible career.

John’s career, like the careers of many executives I have watched over the years, did not end well. It ended with a whimper when it could have ended with John on top. Your last job should be your very best job, and if you learn what your sweet spot is—that is, where you are best suited—then you have a much greater chance of finishing well. My advice: identify the environments where you produce great results and stick to them. Then you and your executive career will thrive. 

How to Drive Results as an Executive

1. Increase Intensity toward Driving Results

It is a given that your stakeholders expect you to motivate others to make things happen and will call you to account for your team’s results as well as your own.

As you know, it is critical for you to create a sense of urgency while managing a myriad of often conflicting priorities. You must get your team on board with your goals to do this. It’s up to you to increase their sense of buy-in, motivate them, and hold them accountable.

How do you do this? I think it is as easy as putting increased emphasis on this area. If driving results is a weak area for you, then please know the clock is ticking on your longevity in your role. I don’t want to use the phrase “table stakes” again, but this is exactly what it is. Your very identity as an executive must be one of “I drive results.” And, it must be twofold. You personally drive results, and you drive results collectively through your team and others you are there to influence. If this is not how you see your role, you should take a step back into first- or second-line management and give up on the notion of being an executive. Far too many are after the title, money, power, prestige and other trappings of the executive world. Far too few are committed to doing what it takes to drive results.

Questions to Consider

?       Why will mastering Driving Results allow you to rapidly advance your career?

?       Thinking back on John’s story, why does your success depend on the environment?

?       What are the environmental factors you need to successfully drive results?

?       How do you increase your intensity according to behavioral style?

•        Dominant
•        Influential
•        Steady
•        Cautious

2. Develop Strategies to Better Hit Numbers

Driving results is not about using brute force. There is a finesse to this process that makes it as much an art as a science. It’s also about having a strategy. You need to have strategies in place to hit the numbers by which you’re measured. 

Almost everything in business comes down to metrics. Even in HR, which is all about people, there are still metrics quantifying things like employee engagement, onboarding success, and turnover rates, to name a few. With customers, we measure our Net Promoter Score, and with sales, we track revenue goals. Finance measures revenue, profit, net operating income, and more.

It is your role to develop strategies for better hitting numbers. Those who can do this get to stay and keep driving better results. Those who can’t, rarely keep their position.

A high competence in driving results involves understanding numbers and what they mean. It also means knowing how to direct action to improve results. There must be strategy that moves results from their current state to an improved state, and effective executives know how to do this. You don’t simply watch trends—you create them.

If you are not metrics oriented, that is a gaping hole in your executive skillset. Plug this proverbial hole in the dam before you get into trouble. You may be getting away with it now, in your current role, because you are not functioning in a metrics-driven culture. But chances are, the next company you work for will be metrics-driven, and you will need that orientation before you start.

Questions to Consider

• Why do you need to be metrics oriented as an executive?
• Why does everyone need to get better at this?
• How do you become more metrics oriented?
• Why is this more important than ever?
• How does this topic relate to behavioral styles?

3. Drive Your Own Performance

One major mark of a top executive is self-drive. You must be a self-motivated, internally driven self-starter. You shouldn’t need anyone watching over you to ensure you drive yourself and others.

Taiichi Ohno, co-creator of the Toyota Production System (which later led to Lean methodology), wrote, “Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations.” High achievers challenge the status quo and drive results in doing so. Therefore, watch metrics, take quick, right actions, and hold yourself and others accountable. By doing this, you will drive significant results.

Questions to Consider

• What do you do to drive your own performance? Tips? Tricks?
• What do you do when you are not motivated? How do you fire up?
• Why are most executives rarely satisfied with their performance?
• How can you emulate success?

4. Increase Standards for Personal Achievement

Increasing standards for personal achievement means constantly raising the bar for yourself, expecting greater achievements and better results. CANI (constant and never-ending improvement) is the rallying cry. 

A high competency in driving results means having high standards for your own performance. You cannot remain comfortable with the status quo, or you won’t last long.

You should apply these same standards for personal achievement to your organization. Regard your company as being in a race—against the market, your competitors, and the future. Strive for organizational CANI—more profit, more efficiency, more harmony, faster onboarding, fewer defects, increased safety, etc. You do this by creating KPIs, monitoring metrics, and constantly adjusting for further improvement. 

For both yourself and your organization, nothing will drive results like CANI.

Questions to Consider

• What does CANI stand for?
• Why is it the rallying cry for most top executives?
• How do you raise the bar for yourself?

Why Does Driving Results Matter?

Driving results is one of the primary requirements of an executive. Action without intentional results is useless. If you’re merely spinning your wheels, you won’t get anywhere—and won’t last long. Metrics will prove your competency or incompetency. 

Executives with high competency in Driving Results have mastered the ability to intensify drive, hit numbers, and increase standards for achievement for themselves and their team. They drive continual improvement, create a sense of urgency, and hold themselves and others accountable for results.

Developing This Strength

To develop this strength, you need to look at your own internal motivation and drive, and the strategies you have created to increase your intensity, drive performance, develop accountability, and constantly improve. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. To what degree am I driven to achieve?
2. Do I have strategies to create urgency in my team and lead them to getting results?
3. How effective am I at understanding KPIs and driving action toward success?
4. How effective am I at holding myself accountable for getting results?
5. How effective am I at holding my team accountable?

You can further develop this strength by researching relevant articles online, as well as by reading such books as Getting Results, by Clinton Longenecker and Jack Simonetti, and Results-Based Leadership, by Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger and Norm Smallwood.

Finally, you can enlist a coach to help you increase your intensity, develop better goal-attainment strategies, drive your performance, and increase your standards.