How to Finish What We Start

Bill Hansen

CEO

Bill Hansen Catering and Event Production

If you’re like me, you’ve started initiatives and programs and never brought them to completion. Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As we start, all goes well, but only for a while. Then road blocks, detours, and other obstacles get in the way. So, what starts out as a dream ends up as a memory of another postponed initiative. These the important things that fall by the wayside as the urgent day-to-day activities are moved to the front burner. And another year goes by and we never seem to find time to work on what’s truly important to our success as caterers.

The problem is that we’re all trying to do too much, with too little time. The more goals we have, the less likely we are to achieve any of them according to the authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution. So how many goals are too many? Anything more than 3, with 1 and 2 having the best chance of succeeding.

And what are the criteria for only having 1-3 goals? They must be Wildly Important. There will always be more good ideas than our ability to execute. 

According to Tim Cook, Apple CEO:

 "We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. "

"We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas to keep the number of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose."

 So how do we establish those Wildling Important goals? Simple. Get away from work, gather your team in an invigorating environment, brainstorm, and give everyone a chance to offer their ideas. Then, as a team drill down to what if Wildly Important. More than likely it will have something to do with raising guest satisfaction scores, raising sales, reducing costs, opening a new venue, bringing on new team members or perhaps revamping your food and beverages menus.

Here's the key: Never More Than Three and There’s Nothing Wrong with One.

Step 2 after determining the Wildly Important Goal(s) is to identify measurable and predictable actions that will contribute to your achieving your goal. Here are a few examples of what you can measure that will contribute to your achieving your goal. For example, assume your goal is to reduce overall costs by 2% and raise your bottom line by 2%. How can you measure your progress along the way? Here are three that come to mind, and if you spend some time on this you can probably list dozens of ways and then select the most important.

Reduce Food Cost by 2 %

Reduce Overtime by 10%

Reduce Cost of Insurance by 10% with Competitive Bidding

Step 3 is to keep a Compelling Scoreboard where everyone on your team can see. It needs to be simple, and everyone from your utility team to your management team can glance at it at least weekly and know how you’re doing. Here’s a simple one:

And last, but probably the most important is to create a Cadence of Accountability. Each person on your team must commit to certain actions that they will take during the week and then report back to your team the following week.  Everyone participates and tells the others what they plan on doing in the upcoming week. At the next meeting they report their results and commit to what they intend to do the coming week. Here’s the good news---everyone on your team will be helping other team members staying accountable.

This program has been used by Marriott, Kroger, Bain, Campbells Soup, Whirlpool and scores of other firms, both big and small. It works and it’s very cost effective.  And I’m excited about using implementing it this summer in my company.

If you wish to have an online summary, here’s the link:

https://pmimilehi.org/images/downloads/Presentations/creating_a_culture_of_execution_jeffery_downs_2a3a_245pm_breakout.pdf

The 4 Disciplines of Execution

Chris McChesney--Sean Covey—Jim Huling