Trust and the Execution Breakdown

When it’s all said and done, the success or failure of our business falls on execution. 

Strip away all of the strategy, planning, processes, and technology and you'll see that it always comes down to one thing; people making things happen.  Consistent execution becomes even more important when a company is accountable to shareholders to deliver quarterly and annual results.

Typically, the ways in which we affect change and execution fall into three categories:

1. Stroke of the Pen – we affect execution here by leveraging our power and influence as leaders. We make strategic acquisitions, hire new talent, increase marketing spend, invest in new technology, or write new policies. While all of these things are necessary, they can’t make a strategy succesful alone. 
2. The Whirlwind – this is the day job.  We spend 70 – 80% of our time here.  This is e-mails, employee issues, customer service, business operations, new processes, and key business metrics.  All of these things must get done and they’re not going anywhere.  The whirlwind represents the health of the firm.  But, if people focus all of their time here, we can’t move the firm forward.
3. Behavior Change – the most significant execution challenge for leaders is getting their teams to do something different; effectively  managing a change in behavior.  Like I mentioned earlier, all strategies have one thing in common: they require people to change their behavior to some degree. When leaders can get the middle 60% of their teams to adopt behaviors similar to those of high-performers, they’ll see a significant change in results.

Why does execution so often break down? 

That question can often be answered by one (or a combination) of the following:

• People didn’t know the goal

• People didn’t know what to do about the goal.

• People didn’t know the “score” (whether they’re winning or losing)

• People weren’t accountable for the goals

What we’ve learned is that the majority of these problems have their roots in communication. 

Accountability, strategic planning, clarifying expectations, talking straight, creating transparency, and keeping commitments are all impacted by communication.  And communication is most effective in a high-trust environment. 

Trust really plays at 5 levels;

1. Self - increasing individual credibility
2. Relationship - behaving in ways that inspire trust
3. Organizational - aligning teams, systems, and processes with principles of high trust
4. Market - improving the team's reputation
5. Societal - making a positive contribution to the world

 At each level, the 13 behaviors that build high trust are the same.  The differences are found in application and audience. 

Installing a behavioral framework and common language that systematically increases trust will accelerate the effectiveness of organizational initiatives.

Communication gets better.  Leaders get better.  Execution gets better.

What do you think of trust as a catalyst for execution and managing behavior change?