Start With A Win - How to Achieve Measurable Gains Using the 4 Disciplines of Execution

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Business school classrooms and boardrooms alike are stacked with strategies for maximizing business success. But truly effective business models move beyond powerful planning into efficient execution. Franklin Covey—a global company that trains businesses in leadership development and individual effectiveness—teaches four major disciplines that help companies maximize execution. The first discipline is about focusing on what is most important. Narrowing the focus allows people to set achievable goals and delegate specific tasks. The second discipline is utilizing leverage to determine which tasks will produce the most desirable results. The third discipline of engagement is based on the premise that people will work to their maximum potential when they are part of the process of keeping score. Finally, the fourth discipline is focused on accountability. A regular system of vulnerable reflection and feedback builds an environment where all three previous disciplines are made possible. Implementing this intentional methodology to achieve personal and professional goals leads to lasting changes that build cultures of greatness. Main TopicsDiscipline 1: Narrow the focus (03:13)Discipline 2: Use leverage to determine lead measures (06:03)Discipline 3: Individual engagement (09:45)Discipline 4: Create a cadence of accountability (12:26)  Episode LinksAdam’s Fool-Proof Time Management SystemThe Four Disciplines of Execution from Franklin Covey Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. I like your little speed walk dance. It was like that really. Oh, yeah. And coming to you from Brand Viva Media Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Contos with Start With The Wind. I'm a little winded after all that dancing. Yeah, that speed walk dancing. Yeah. Man.

Have you ever seen that speed walk championship? No. It's pretty... Pretty intense. Oh yeah, intense. It's like a walking so fast they're almost jogging. How do they keep them from jogging? Is it like some rule where you can't?

Yeah, I think there is. I think there's like a... You can't lift your foot off the ground all the way or something? It's something like that, yeah. It's like they got some weird rules, you know. They have judges. Yeah, exactly. Throw a flag.

You were jogging. You were definitely jogging. Is there like a pillow flag? Yeah. They have to back up a few steps or something like that. That's funny. Yeah. No, it's funny.

There's some elderly groups in my neighborhood that have like a speedwalking group. Whoa, don't get in their way. Oh, no. They will get right past you. They'll take you out. Oh, yeah. You do not want to get into that pathway because they will speedwalk you over. It's a gang.

It's like a gang. Hey, I got a question for you. Okay. What's that question? Do you know what the four disciplines of execution are? You know, I do not know what the four disciplines of execution are, but I'm interested in those four disciplines because I feel like I know a lot of people who have a lot of great ideas and they're always talking about doing something, but they never execute. And I'm like, man, you would be so amazing if you could just execute. Right. Yeah.

Well, what's interesting? And this all comes from this book by Franklin Covey, and it's called The Four Disciplines of Execution, of course. Yeah. And it's just an amazing business read. And they actually start by kind of getting into this concept of what did you learn in business school? And it's fascinating because when you look back at what you learn in business school, in college, wherever, everybody talks about strategy. Strategy. Yeah. And you go to a board meeting, you're like, strategy. And there's no freaking execution that is talked about.

Yes. It was funny because when I went for my MBA and looking back on it and reading the book and watching the videos and everything else associated with it, I'm just thinking to myself, these guys are 100% correct. We didn't talk about executing. There was one small course, like literally one day where one professor came in and said, let's talk about execution. And I'm thinking to myself, you mean I just spent like 2000 hours or whatever the heck time it was in here. And we haven't talked about execution until now. Yeah. So this is kind of that missing piece of the puzzle

when it comes to getting things done in business. So let's dive right into this. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so Franklin Covey in the book identifies the first discipline as focusing on the wildly important. So this is the discipline of focus. And we hear about how people are

distracted all day long. They're busy, stuff like that, which busy is an excuse. That's right. Instead of focusing and being productive. So exceptional execution starts with narrowing the focus and clearly identifying what needs to be done. So you have what they call WIGs, wildly important goals. And when you establish what those WIGs are, and frankly, you should only come up with about two or three of these. And they run this formula where they talk about if you focus on two to three, you can accomplish two to three. If you focus on something like four to 10, you can accomplish one to two. And if you focus on more than 11, you accomplish none. It's like that overwhelm. It's almost like

sometimes I remember back in high school, I had so many things I had to accomplish. I just didn't accomplish anything. Instead of it being like, all right, let me focus on these three things and get them done. Because when you start to map things, when you strategize, you map all the things that you have to do. Right. It becomes extremely overwhelming. And then it's just you almost give up, I feel like, a lot of times. Well, it's fascinating.

It's a subconscious thing that happens. When you go to a business meeting in a business, everybody has their projects. And everybody thinks that they can bring two to three projects into the room. And by the time you list all the projects, you've got like the wall covered in sticky notes of what should we be working on? And it always has to, it's not focus, it's generalities to begin with, but there's a ton of them. Yeah. And that's why everybody leaves and they go back and they're like, we still don't know what we're supposed to do.

Right. Because there's no focus. Exactly. Yeah. This is one of the things, I have a show called The Friday Habit with a business partner. And one of the things we talk about is, you know, at the end of every week, taking time to talk about wins and losses, talk about ideas. But then at the very end of that meeting, assigning an idea to a specific person to take action on that so that you don't just sit in a room and talk about, wow, we could do this, this, and this, and then not have any results at the end of that, but actually hold somebody accountable at the end of a meeting

to actually do something. Oh, we're going to talk about that. Yeah. Oh, good. That's one of the disciplines of execution. Oh, great. All right, I'm doing it. Yeah. Okay, so let's jump into discipline. So the first discipline is focus. Yeah. Oh, good. That's one of the disciplines of execution. Oh, great. All right. I'm doing it. Yeah. Okay. So let's jump into... So the first discipline is focus. Okay. I don't

want to dig too deep on these because they're pretty simple. Yeah. People pick three things and focus on them. If you want to dig deep, there's an eight-hour book you can listen to or read. There you go. There you go. Four disciplines of execution. So the second discipline is leverage. The discipline of leverage. Okay. What does that mean? Explain that. So when we understand what we need to be acting on, so you got to focus on some things. What should you focus on? A lot of times people look at the lag measure. So you have lead measures, which is the things you do, and the lag measures, which is the results from the things you do.

Okay. things you do and the lag measures, which is the results from the things you do. So a lot of people measure the things that were done. So like at the end of the day for a business, it might be profit. And you look at that at the end of the week, the end of the month, the end of the quarter, the end of the year, whatever, you're like, oh, I had profit. But that's a lag measure. That's a result. It's like, go stand on the scale. That's a lag measure. That's a result of your diet and exercise. So when you think about lead measures versus lag measures, this discipline of leverage is incredibly important because 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities, the Pareto principle.

Are you focusing on the right ones? So what are those lead measures you need to be focusing on? The most common one that they mention in Franklin Covey is what is the most popular New Year's resolution out there? Lose weight. Lose weight! Exactly. It's funny. You can walk into any room and ask that question.

People might be like, lose weight! But you know what those people don't talk about? So that's a lag measure, is how much weight did you lose? The lead measure is diet and exercise. Simple, okay? And we know that 80% of it's diet, 20% is exercise. So again, 20%, you know, the Pareto principle here. But you got to focus on those things. But the people that truly understand how to make this happen, the magic behind it, are not those that go, all right, I need to eat better, and I need to go walk for 20 minutes on the treadmill. That's BS.

That's not going to get you anywhere. The people that truly understand this are, they know their metrics of how many calories a day can I eat, how much fat can I have a day, how many carbs can I have a day, how much protein do I need a day, how much water do I need to calories a day can I eat, how much fat can I have a day, how many carbs can I have a day, how much protein do I need a day, how much water do I need to drink a day. These macro aspects to your nutrition, they understand that,

and then they also understand what muscles do I need to work and how do I work them. Exactly. What burns the most fat, all that kind of stuff. Exactly. They have an understanding.

So the lead measures, you have an understanding of the results they create. And those results are micro results, but they lead up to macro lag measures. Yeah. And I think related to business, I would say our business is, it's very relational here. Every client that we have is based off of, you know, relationships that I've built. You know, we're not doing a lot of SEO and hacking of a system to get high volume of things. But one of the lead measures for me, right, is how many people that I'm friends with, that I connect with, that I reach out to, that I, you know, spend time cultivating, building that relationship. Because those are the things on the front end where 3, 6, 12 months later, because of that things that I did on the front end,

then business and stuff like that happens on the back end. So the lead measure for that might be, for those sales, might be the number of customers you contact every single day. And then you tweak those lead measures with what do you say to them in order to nurture them through the sales process. And then the lag measures, the results, are the sales. Exactly. The money, the profit, all that. So discipline two, leverage. The leverage of understanding what you need to do on the front end in order to gain results on the back end. Yes. Okay? Discipline two.

Discipline three, engagement. Engagement. So this is interesting because when you take a look at two teams, and the rule behind this is keep a compelling scoreboard. Get people to play for score. Now, you have a pickup game of basketball, pickleball, tennis, golf, whatever it might be. How do people play when they're not keeping score? Eh, doesn't matter. But what happens when one of the people says, let's keep score?

You're a little more competitive. It turns up the heat, doesn't it? Yeah. I like winning. So here's the interesting part, though. In this discipline of engagement, the scoreboard has to be kept by the people playing the game. So if you come in and you're, let's say you're just kind of following along in the golf cart, drinking some beer, watching your buddies swing the clubs, and you're like,

okay, we're going to keep score now, and I'm going to be the scorekeeper, and you guys are going to compete against each other. Do you think they're going to put it all into it? Like if they said, let's keep score? No, not at all. Yeah, not at all. So picture a sales team and the team, the manager walks in and says, ladies and gentlemen, and the sales team, we're now going to keep score. I'm going to keep score of who's winning and who's not. Do you feel like you're empowered to go perform at your best, or do you feel like you just got somebody micromanaging you now? Micromanaging.

You're like, oh, gosh, here's another thing we got to do, and you get irritated and be like, you know. Yeah. So there's resistance. We need to create not resistance, but we need to create this motivation behind getting the players to win. So what do they need to put out there in order to play on a scoreboard? So let them keep score.

And that is really what maximizes this engagement. So when you look at even Gallup, the Gallup organization has surveyed millions of employees about engagement. They have something called the Q12. We talk about it in the leadership factory. But ultimately, what it boils down to is, does the employee feel like they're engaged and excited to go out and perform at their highest level? Because the reality is only like 18% to 30%, 30% in a super high-performing company. So everybody, don't think your company is a super high-performing company until you've made this measurement. But it's between 18% and 30% of employees are actually engaged,

meaning they're playing on their scoreboard. We've got to maximize that number by exciting them to go play with that discipline of execution, of engagement, to try and do their best. Okay? Yeah, that makes sense. So that's number three is engagement. And number four, I love this word.

A lot of people are afraid of it, but the reality is we have to create a cadence of accountability. Accountability. And you had mentioned this earlier. How do we create this? So this discipline of accountability is discipline number four

in the four disciplines of execution. And essentially, each team engages in a simple process, call it weekly, whatever, that highlights their successes, analyzes their failures, course corrects as they need to, things like that, essentially creating a performance management system for themselves. So when we are vulnerable enough and transparent enough with each other, where we're willing to play for score and we can put up what are the results, because accountability is nothing more than accounting for the results. It's not judging. Nobody's coming in going, Mark, you sucked at that. People are coming in going, Mark, you got a five. What do you think? And you're

like, I think I can get a nine. You're like, okay, awesome. And this is fascinating because when we start limiting, this is where we limit ourselves. Accountability is like this filter where we're like, okay, I'll give you 60% of my effort, if you really get me excited. So it's about how do we unlock the potential of these people to get them to say, I can give you more by simply changing something in their head that raises that level of accountability. Good example of this. I was coaching a medical sales team. Medical sales team. And they sold test kits to women's doctor groups. And what they were doing is they would sell roughly about four test kits per women's doctor group.

And I came in and I'm like, four. How many customers does each women's doctor group have? And they're like, about 400. I go, and what percentage of these people can use this test group? Oh, about 20%. I'm like, so you're selling four and you should be selling 80? And they're like, yeah. I go, do you see a problem here that maybe you could sell more, but you're selling four? I go, so when you go in, what do you say? You say, oh, how many of these do you want? Can we sign you up for four? Whatever. I'm like,

how about this? How about you go in and say, hey, you've got 400 customers, and based on our data, you could probably use about 80 of these things. How many would you like us to sign you up for? And they're like, ah, 20 or 30. Like, okay. So they started with 20 or 30, but they went from four to 30 because they just changed their perspective of the accountability of how they came up with these numbers. So when we set sales limitations to ourselves, another example, we were selling franchises and we're like, ah, the average person can do eight to 11 a year. We're like, okay. And I looked at my salespeople. I'm like, what's the sales cycle on this? And they told me, and we went through it. I'm like, so you could actually do like 20 to 25. And they're like, yeah. Guess what? The next year, we're doing like 23. Interesting. Instead of eight to 11. And this team that was doing the 23 was,

the other teams are still doing eight to 11. They're like, what the heck? So it's all about what we put in our head for accountability. And we set our limits and we unlock our potential because we can get together as a group and create this cadence of accountability and drive each other to do better with accountability. Yeah. And I think too, if you're like a solopreneur or like a one-man band, find a coach that can hold you accountable to that or somebody who is a business leader, maybe that somebody is a little bit ahead of you that you can connect with and have that vulnerable relationship to where that you can be held accountable. Exactly. Exactly. So let's do a quick review of this.

I know we have a shorter show today, but I want to leave everybody with this. The four disciplines of execution, focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability. Focus, leverage, engagement, accountability. Think about those things, and those will help you execute better. Love it. It's great. help you execute better. Love it. It's great. Thank you so much. I got something out of this.

I hope you did too. Listen, Adam's put together, if you're struggling with maybe time management or staying on task or really understanding where all your energy is going throughout a week, Adam's put together a foolproof time system that you can get at foolprooftimesystem.com where you can evaluate yourself and understand how you can grow and what you need to do to maximize your time

and your results. So head over to foolprooftimesystem.com to download that. And remember, until next time, start with a win.