My job is to disturb the system. I give people new ways to think. It’s more a matter of offering people different perspectives and influencing their thinking than trying to drive them.
– Chris Turner, Xerox Business Systems
I heard an executive give a talk at a conference recently. Every other word seemed to be ‘execution.’ It wasn’t good enough to come up with a killer idea, it had to be monetized. How? Through smart execution.
The economy is in deep recession. The big questions are: how long and how deep? We do know that it is global.
Execution is probably the most important word in business these days. This simple word distills work these days, work either as an employee or contractor. What does execute mean? Execute means ‘to carry out or to do.’ We can probably add to do: ‘on time, within budget, and with high quality.’
This is the upside of the definition that most of us associate with the word. But, there is also the downside of execute, which we normally associate with capital punishment. The downside deals with accountability of not executing according to plan.
Life Lesson Earned: Execution is all about risk management. Risk has upside opportunity and downside consequences. Recognize both so you can take advantage of the upside when things get better and learn how to mitigate the downside when things get tough.