Your Journey to Great Strategic Execution in 2023

How much did misalignment cost your organization last year? Misalignment comes from poor planning, and it results in poor execution and missed numbers. The missed numbers happen in many categories: poor customer delivery, lost revenue, employee frustration/bad morale, great people leaving the company, and the loss of great customers. You don't want your team looking like this one.

The solution that puts you on a journey to great execution in 2021 is: Right Planning, Right Execution, and Right Collaboration & Adjustments.

But how can you know if you are good in these areas? You need to assess your planning & execution performance, create a plan for improvement, and build your execution habits.

Right Planning

First, assess your plan quality in 4 key areas:

• 1. Focus - Does your team have no more than 3-5 team priorities (most important large projects intended for team growth)?
• The more priorities you have, the less focus your team can have. I've seen teams with 10 or more priorities in their plans, and they nearly always fail.
• 2. Financial - Does your plan help you achieve your annual financial goals?
• Even though your people are busy with activity, that doesn't mean they are working on the right things to drive the right numbers. Ensure your priorities are driving you toward achieving your financial goals.
• 3. Energy - Does your plan have enough priorities dedicated to your main business goals?
• Does each team priority have one or more supporting priorities? These are team or individual goals linked to the company goals to ensure energy is aligned to achieve success. Our software and method are the best in the world for this.
• 4. Accountability - Does each plan goal have a specific and measurable success metric, an owner, and a due date?

Our Rhythm software can analyze your recorded plans and show you where you are passing or failing each of these tests. Be sure to take advantage of that capability.

Right Execution

Next, assess your execution quality in 4 key areas:

1. Goal Updates - Are you updating your goal status weekly? Are you on track for success (Green) on each goal?
2. Action Plans - Does each goal have supporting tasks to drive it to success?
3. Status Quality - Do your status colors match the true business forecasts or actual conditions?
4. Collaboration - Do you have comments on goals that are struggling to communicate with your team the story behind the status? Are you seeking help from others both within your team and possibly in other departments to achieve success?

Our Rhythm software has an Energy Map visual that will help you easily see how well you are executing to achieve your plan.

Right Collaboration & Adjustments

Next, ensure you have a strong weekly meeting rhythm to strengthen your team's collaboration and make decisions on execution adjustments. Assess your Weekly Meeting Quality in 4 Key areas:

1. Team Preparation - Do team members plan their week and share their plan with your team?
2. Discussion - Are you hearing mostly status report-outs in meetings, or are you having "spicy" discussions to solve problems?
3. Solutions Understood - Are you discussing solutions to problems and discovering new opportunities in your weekly meetings?
4. Decisions Made - Are you deciding on solutions and acting on the decisions?

Our Rhythm method and software can help you plan for and facilitate effective weekly meetings.

Visualize Your Assessment

Create a simple table to visualize how your various teams are doing. Here is a simple example.

Then document the details of who needs help and why.

Create an Improvement Plan

Create an actionable improvement plan to get better. Be specific about Who is doing What and by When. Determine who will own the improvement plan to ensure it is implemented. Understand what you, as a leader, must do to help your team get better.

Consistency and discipline are the keys to success. This is hard work that requires regular attention and solid leadership. It's a lot like your personal health and fitness journey. You need to eat right and exercise regularly to be fit and healthy. Simple enough, but not at all easy to do. The ones most serious about results join a gym and have a personal trainer to help them achieve their fitness goals. The trainer meets you at the gym and lets you know the workout, gives direction on the movements, and checks your form as you are doing them to help you avoid injury.

Let us help you on your Journey to Great Execution in 2021. Rhythm is like your gym membership. You have a great tool to help you plan and execute, but you have to show up and use it just like you have to show up and use the equipment at your gym properly. But for many of you, you don't always know what's best to do when you show up and use the Rhythm software. You use the software, but not as well as you could.

Our Rhythm Success Team can help you just like a personal trainer helps you at the gym. We can assess your planning, execution, and weekly meetings. We can facilitate your planning to ensure you have execution-ready plans. We can provide an assessment for you (just like the one I showed you earlier) and help you with an improvement plan based on that assessment. We can help ensure you work on your plans and have great execution this year and beyond.

Now get going on your Journey to Great Execution. Assess your planning & execution performance, create a plan for improvement, and build your execution habits. Let us help you look like this team as you achieve great success and growth.