Leadership Through The Lens Of Execution

“Execution is something that most leadership teams need to discover, they just haven’t figured it out yet.”

Monte Pedersen

Here on The Culture of Things (TCoT) we are celebrating another American making history this week as we introduce Monte Pedersen, our first American guest here on the podcast. Monte is joining us to discuss the Execution Management System which is designed to help leaders execute on the plan and ensure team members know exactly what is expected of them.

Did you know a tool like this existed?

Monte is the principal of The CDA Group which is a leadership and training firm specialising in Strategy Execution Management. Execution is the framework leaders require for building emotionally intelligent organisations and The CDA Group’s operations-based system and process, helps leaders achieve their strategic initiatives and improve every single year. Monte has found that although businesses excel at creating a plan, the problem they do have is when they do not execute it so, he has established the Execution Mastery which focuses on:

• Clarifying – because you can never communicate enough
• Deploying – employing resources. People working towards making things happen and needing tools and resources to achieve success
• Achieving – outcomes. This is paramount to what a leader does and is embedded in execution

These organisational initiatives are the fundamentals of leadership and are designed to remove barriers.

Related Post: Creating a Culture to be Proud Of – Bill Clifton

Monte’s passion with execution comes from 35+ years in Hospitality Management. He reflects on the mistakes made by his previous organisation, as well as with him personally and this is what initially drove Monte to do something that would be helpful for others. The hospitality industry was changing and it was time for him to leave. There was little doubt in his mind as to what he wanted to do. Monte had come across the Execution Management System while working with a company, who were in a difficult business and, regardless of their challenges, always executed their plan and hit their targets every year.

With his extensive work, Monte has found that there are two components that leadership teams suffer from when it comes to base elements of execution. Firstly, leaders really do not understand that they need a plan. Execution is a separate discipline which needs an established plan. The second is that it is common to find lower level team members are disconnected from the business strategy. They may have heard the plan but have not been shown specifically how they contribute.

There are five key elements of Execution Management:

1) Foundation Data

2) Performance Agreement

3) Primary Job Responsibility

4) Goals and Tasks

5) Progress Meetings

It is taking everything that you are doing and breaking it down into manageable pieces by rethinking it, reworking it and then getting everybody to achieve the end goal. A great result for a leader, when you have all these components working together, is seeing the ‘fruits of your labour’ translating into positive outcomes by having your team learning things they never thought they would be taught.

Related Post: The Key to Unlocking Potential – Mark Bragg

The will to win within business can be just as intense as it is in a sporting organisation or club and, during today’s podcast, Monte compares the importance of culture in relation to sporting teams such as the Chicago Cubs. Monte touches on how they successfully manage execution from start to finish which includes a detailed level of analysis and debriefing as well as keeping reams and reams of data and information on the outcomes.

Are you a leader looking for advice on how to improve your level of execution in your organisation?

Join us here as we discuss leadership through the lens of execution where Monte explains how The CDA Group are making people think at a level they have not thought at before – which is exactly what great execution is all about!

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