Scaling Up Strategic Execution: The 10 Tests of Execution

Execution might not seem like the sexiest part of scaling up your business, but in my opinion, it can be the most exciting when it’s done correctly. A beautifully executed plan is what allows the Davids of this world to slay the Goliaths. It’s how an underdog team becomes the winning team. And it’s your best offense for growing your bottom line in the long term.

Execution is really about driving fat, bottom-line net profits through efficiency. The problem is that while the method of crafting a strategy and hammering it out flawlessly sounds simple enough, it is much more easily said than done. Many leaders struggle with execution because they lack a process for troubleshooting their team’s performance and they don’t understand how their own actions (and omissions) can promulgate problems.

In helping my clients, I’ve watched many CEOs and their teams shoot themselves in the foot time and again through faulty execution. This list of ten diagnostic questions was developed to help you and your team examine blind spots and turn things around quickly. Using the ten tests, you will see how to nail execution and exterminate the silent killers of sustained, bottom-line profitability.

1.    How committed are you to executing your plan for results (or do you deviate immediately)?

It’s a common human failing to create a plan, outwardly commit to it, but then get nervous and deviate from it. However, that is a leadership sin! In my experience, having the ability to stay committed to your plan is an excellent litmus test for confidence—both in your strategy and your own leadership. Unless you are fully congruent with your plan, you will have a hard time holding your team to it, and quite frankly, you will drive them bats**t crazy! Driving your team crazy is a bad move as you will either dumb good people down, lose A Players, or both.

When you cheat on your plan with these little deviations, you tend to self-justify your behavior and become completely blind to it. It’s like going a little over the speed limit or being just a few extra pounds overweight—since you can get away with it, you think nothing of it. But when you do this consistently with a plan you have communicated with your team, they receive the message, “Do as I say, not as I do.” You subtly teach them how not to execute. When this happens, you create a culture with little to poor accountability. Without realizing it, you have relinquished the ability to hold others accountable because you are not holding yourself accountable to your own plan.

That’s why this question is worth seriously reflecting on. Invest real time in self-reflection on your own leadership actions and steadfastness to executing a plan once it’s drafted. I often see good teams driven nuts by a lack of commitment from leaders who block great execution unconsciously, and I’d go as far as to say that it’s the number one CEO leadership issue I run into. As we say in the Scaling Up framework, the bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle!

2. How consistent are the results you are getting from your team?

You can’t dodge the answer to this one because simple math doesn’t lie. How consistently is your team hitting your goals? What percentage of the time is the goal met? How about what percentage of the time are the actions delivered on time? Whether you are measuring sales figures, budgets, or something else, are most of your team members hitting the mark you have set for them? Achieving results is something you can investigate both on a person-to-person level and across a range of people to stay on top of your overall efficiency of execution. 

For a moment, think of your team as a basketball team. Would each of your players be averaging 75% at the free-throw line? Demand this same consistency in your business. Let’s equate that to sales, for example. If you have a team of six salespeople who you challenged to drive $5 million dollars last quarter, did they hit that mark? Was the actual revenue they earned $4 million, or $6 million? Who was responsible for achieving more or less? These expectations need to be set and placed out in the open. 

3. How hard do you need to lean on your managers to get results?

In my book The A Player, I talk about the kind of energy that you would ideally want from your team. This is the key takeaway: The energy you invest in managing a team member should yield a multiple of that energy back in terms of their contribution to the business. When you have to lean hard on them, constantly holding their feet to the fire—which I call the “sauna session”—your execution needs improvement. I’m not saying that sauna sessions are never necessary. Learn to get comfortable applying legitimate pressure.

But an employee who only yields great results in the short term, like when someone is on their back, is what I refer to as an “Inflatable A” Player. Having one is like continually pumping up a tire with a slow leak. In other words, they only perform well with your adult supervision. You put in more energy than you get out of it and the results do not last. Allowing that in your business is an execution blunder you want to avoid.

4. How good are your managers at developing plans to hit goals?

You should always have very concrete plans to meet your goals. Ask yourself who on your team is good at building those recipe-level plans to consistently achieve goals. Who can make plans that you can take straight to the bank? Are they committed enough to see plans through? There should be managers on your team who can develop plans to hit goals naturally and quickly.

Can your managers develop a detailed, step-by-step plan to achieve a goal like this?

When it comes to mastering execution, the devil is always in the details. As you can see from the example above (done in the strategic execution platform my clients use), an ideal plan should be detailed enough so that if the executive who drafted it went out sick for a week or two, someone else could pick it up and continue that progress. 

The mantra I highly recommend you adopt in strategic execution planning is this: Can you prove your plan? Your proof has two parts:  

1. Can your executives prove their plan will achieve the results towards your quarterly priority?  

2. Can your executives prove they did the actions when they said they would? 

This assessment of your executives’ plans is a critical part of execution that is largely only given lip service. Remember—few people are ever trained in strategic execution planning, and on the teams I coach, it’s often the MBAs and PhDs that struggle the most with developing crisp, executable plans. Since strategic execution planning is not taught in schools, it is a competitive advantage that you need to get good at as an internal competency. A great coach can help you immensely here.

Bottom line: We’re not talking the proverbial smoke-and-mirrors, “100-day plan” here that no one is truly held accountable to. (By the way, never buy into that junk in an interview—nobody ever holds the new hire to the hypothetical plan they proffer in an interview!) Plans should be clear, concrete, and executable, and it is your job to hold your executives accountable to them.  Better plans and execution will drive your bottom line with a smoother ride along the way.

5. How often do you have to follow up and repeat yourself?

If you need to nag your team for results, they might accuse you of micromanaging. Let’s be clear though. Micromanaging has more to do with failing to delegate and the lack of clear, documented systems and processes in your business. What I’m referring to here is a different problem: You find yourself continually chasing down your team because you are not seeing the results you expect from them.

If you were getting the results you needed from your team and you were hitting all your collective goals, you wouldn’t have to follow up so often. While you don’t want to treat your team like your children, notice the parallel between yourself and the parent of a teenager in these situations. “Kevin, how many times do I have to tell you to make your bed. Make your bed!” This is usually answered with, “I know, I know, Dad!” The reality is, everyone knows what needs to be done but saying it and getting it done are two different things!

If you allow your managers to get away with saying but not doing, you are teaching them how not to execute. You teach what you tolerate.

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