Sicker Than Your Average | How to Get Results that Stand Out

Most leaders are mediocre. That may seem harsh, but when you consider the challenging demands of today's dynamic workplace, it's clear that many leaders fall into the trap of mediocrity. In the race to stand out and deliver exceptional results, only a few truly succeed. So what distinguishes the high-performing leaders from the merely average? What allows some leaders to excel at virtually every project they lead, while others produce more ordinary results? The answer often lies in mastering one critical skill: execution.

Great Leaders Master Execution, Not Ideas.

In leadership, the most admired figures are those known for generating groundbreaking ideas. Think Steve Jobs and the iPhone. Elon Musk and Tesla. They are seen as strong innovators who are capable of leading their teams into the future. Although ideas are important, many leaders and companies overvalue them. The truth is, coming up with ideas is the easy part. Execution, on the other hand, is hard. Leaders with the best results are not just effective at coming up with the ideas. They excel executing them as well. Without execution, the best ideas will simply fall flat.

"Coming up with ideas is easy the part. Execution, on the other hand, is hard.."

How do you master execution

While there are many resources to help leaders create action plans, CLEAR steps is a framework created to help leaders execute action plans more effectively.

• Clarify the Goal — The first step is to have a clear and concise goal. What is it that you want to achieve? When do you want to achieve it by? The goal should be concise and clear enough for any person to implement it.
• List the Behaviors — Identify and list out the behaviors needed to achieve the goal. The behaviors should be specific and easy to identify. By identifying the behaviors in the beginning, you'll have a clear view of what will drive the results you're looking for.
• Evaluate and Measure — Great executions requires that we measure our progress throughout the plan. For example, how will you evaluate the behaviors you identified. Where do you need to be in order to see if the behaviors are happening? What resources do you need to understand your results in real time? How much time do you need to invest with your team to coach the behaviors?
• Adjust — Make adjustments early and often. Leaders who achieve outstanding results make adjustments early and often. They do not wait longer than necessary to evolve. For example, if they neglected to include a key behavior, they gather their teams and communicate what needs to happen differently.
• Reflect — Average leaders tend to transition from week to week or quarter to quarter without taking time to reflect on the previous one. Great leaders spend time thinking through what worked and where they got stuck. Before creating a new goal they identified what they need to do differently.

Clarify Your Goal with behaviors—
Dreams without a goal are just dreams. To create an effective plan, great leaders start by determining what behaviors need to exist in order to achieve the desired results. In the workplace, it's common to hear goals such as "My plan is to sell 10% more products this quarter". The problem with this goal is that it lacks clarity and doesn't describe what behaviors need to exist in order to make the goal a reality. A more effective goal might be, "I realize that small-business owners are more likely to purchase this product when I communicate how it will help them save time. I'm going to start every conversation with these small-business owners by asking them what they would do if they could spend one hour less on operational tasks. Once they begin to imagine the possibilities, I'll then show them how this product could help them save time by making them more efficient. By taking this approach, my goal is to sell 10% more units each week of this quarter.

Can you spot the difference? In the second version of the goal, we go further than saying what outcome we want to have. We list the behaviors we need to see in order to achieve that outcome. This is what great leaders do. They create goals that focus on the behaviors needed to reach the outcome they desire.

In 1987, Paul O'Neil took over as CEO of the aluminum manufacturer Alcoa. During his first shareholder meeting he surprised investors when he shared that his main goal would be workplace safety.

Instead of talking about profit margins, inventory, or plans to restructure O'Neill explained that his goal was to "go for zero injuries". Many investors were shocked and believed O'Neill's plan was not focused enough on increasing shareholder profits.

However, O'Neill knew that workplace safety was a proxy for operational excellence. He believed that if he had the behaviors necessary for zero injuries, he would also have the behaviors necessary for increased profits. He was right. In less than a year, Alcoa's revenue increased by 500%.

O'Neill understood that he could not achieve a zero-injury record simply by declaring it as the goal. Instead, he identified and measured the behaviors that would get him there. For example, he believed that prompt reporting of accidents would be a crucial behavior for success. So he insisted that all accidents must be reported within 24 hours. Previously, accidents might be reported days later if they were reported at all. With this change of behavior, O'Neil encouraged a culture where safety was top of mind.

In addition to reporting, O'Neill required managers to deliver a detailed plan explaining how the incident would be prevented in the future. This was not about compliance. O'Neill wanted leaders to think deeply about each accident. What caused the accident? Did the employee have the right equipment? Was there something causing them to rush? How can we make it so that this accident never happens again? This behavior of thinking deeply about each accident would prove to be key. It helped leaders to develop workflows and practices that would reduce injury, increase efficiency, and productivity. Elements that were all necessary to increase profit.

By identifying the behaviors needed for success, O'Neill was able to drive incredible revenue for Alcoa.

"Great teams can't exist without great coaches."

Evaluate and Measure — If simply creating a goal was enough to get results, the world would be full of top performers. Being able to create a goal and being able to execute the goal involves different skills. To execute a goal well, effective leaders understand that they will need to invest time into evaluating and coaching their team. They position themselves close enough to the action to understand which behaviors the team is doing well and where they may be getting stuck. This takes an investment of time. But strong execution requires it. Because great teams can't exist without great coaches.

In the early 1990s, Tennis legend Andres Agassi often found himself on the losing side of one of his fiercest rivals, Boris Becker. However, during one of their matches, Agassi noticed a strange detail about Becker's serve. Becker had a habit of sticking out his tongue right before he served. More interestingly, Agassi realized that the the direction in which Becker stuck out his tongue could be used to predict where he would serve the ball. If Boris stuck his tongue out in the middle, he would be serve up the middle. If he stuck it out to the side, he would serve it wide.

Using this information, Agassi was able to get the upper hand on Becker and win 9 of their last 11 matches. Agassi kept this secret to himself until years after Boris retired. Upon learning the truth, Boris nearly fell out of his chair in shock, says Agassi.

A natural question may be, why didn't Becker's coach make him aware of this behavior. The truth is, tennis is unique among major sports in that athletes are not allowed to receive coaching during their matches. So it's likely that Becker's coach was never close enough to observe and coach Becker out of this costly habit. No matter how good Becker may have been, he simply could not observe and coach himself.

The same is true in business. No matter how good our teams are, they can't observe and coach themselves. To nail execution, great leaders position themselves in a place where they can coach the behaviors needed for great execution.

In business, it's not always the best idea that survives, it's the one that is most adaptable to challenges.

Make Adjustments — Mike Tyson once said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." In leadership, we find that our strategies don't always go as plan. A key resource doesn't come through when you need it. Your budget is reduced. Your goal is changed. There are many variables that can impact a plan. If you listen closely, you'll hear leaders, even good leaders, talk about how these variables prevented them from achieving the results that they had set out to reach. Although every plan will face interference, the leaders who are known for achieving the highest result rarely view these obstacles as reasons to not achieve their objective. Instead, they focus on making real time adjustments as the obstacles appear.

Charles Darwin once said "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." In business, "it's not always the best idea that survives, it's the one that is most adaptable to challenges."

When Sir Dave Brailsford was hired by the British Cycling team in the early 2000s, the team had never won a Tour de France. And in the previous 100 years, they had won a gold medal just once.

As the new performance director, Brailsford knew he had a difficult task. But Brailsford didn't start his role by announcing huge changes to the program. Instead, he focused on a concept he called the aggregation of marginal gains. The idea behind this concept was simple. Instead of looking for one or two significant areas to make a huge adjustment, Brailsford searched for numerous minor adjustments that would result in a 1% improvement. Some of the changes that Brailsford made were less surprising. For example, he adjusted the nutrition plans of the riders. He made the bikes lighter by changing out the wheels. He found the best seats for the riders to use. But Brailsford didn't stop at the obvious changes. Brailsford made adjustments to the type of fabric used in the cyclists uniforms. He found pillows and mattresses that were best for optimizing sleep. He then brought those pillows and mattresses to the hotels of wherever the team competed. He even tweaked their hygiene routines to minimize the risks of illnesses. With each adjustment, Brailsford was just looking for a 1% improvement. When added together, Brailsford believed that these adjustments would result in an incredible leap of performance for the cyclist. And Brailsford was right. In 2012, the British Cycling team won gold in a staggering 7 out of 10 track cycling events. And their incredible performance didn't stop there. They also won the Tour de France in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

While most leaders can take the average idea and produce average results, the best leaders will take a good idea and produce exceptional results. The difference is often not in the idea, but in the execution itself.