The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
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Average rating4.3
Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organization? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it’s likely no one even noticed. What happened?
Often, the answer is that the “whirlwind” of urgent activity required to keep things running day-to-day devoured all the time and energy you needed to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow. The 4 Disciplines of Execution can change that forever.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) is a simple, repeatable, and proven formula for executing your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind. By following the 4 Disciplines—Focus on the Wildly Important; Act on Lead Measures; Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; Create a Cadence of Accountability—leaders can produce breakthrough results, even when executing the strategy requires a significant change in behavior from their teams.
4DX is not theory. It is a proven set of practices that have been tested and refined by hundreds of organizations and thousands of teams over many years. When a company or an individual adheres to these disciplines, they achieve superb results, regardless of the goal. 4DX represents a new way to think and work that is essential to thriving in today’s competitive climate. The 4 Disciplines of Execution is one book that no business leader can afford to miss.
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A very clear and actionable disciplines to drive execution:
1. Select and focus on a wildly important goal (WIG), which would be a breakthrough. Authors appreciate the pressure from operational activities (whirlwind) and highlight importance to ring-fence a WIG.
2. While Lag indicators is what we need (like revenues or lead time), lead indicators is what the team could really focus on. It's required to define good lead indicators and focus on them.
3. Develop and use visual scoreboard (like the one in soccer game). A team needs to quickly see the current state and coordinate the efforts and focus on result. Such scoreboard is not the same as coach scoreboard, which is usually much more detailed.
4. Implement the cadence of accountability - regular (weekly) meetings where leader and all team members hold each other accountable on their commitments on driving the goal. Authors gives tailored instructions for leaders of leaders and leaders of the front line teams.
This book at first didn't offer anything new to me. But the last 2 disciplines are outlined in a way I had not read before.
Last year, I read this book and then review it again this year to implement The 4DX at work.
As an Agilist, I found the principles embedded with the agile practices in teams following Scrum and Kanban.
Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important.
In line with the Product and Sprint goals, and made explicit in the Kanban Board by adding columns to accommodate the team's behavioral changes.
Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measures
You can modify the Definition of Done to track behavioral changes on the team.
Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
The Boards you sue with your team will make the change of 4DX behavior obvious for the team.
Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability
Covered by the Daily Scrum, we can review the changes we want to achieve by adding a question related to the 4DX.
Maybe it's me forcing a subject into another, but I already experienced behavioral changes by using Agile practices on Development teams, and I can see the similarities in the principles.
