Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles Burck, Larry Bossidy, Ram CharanEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-06-15
ISBN: 0609610570
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Crown Business
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780609610572
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Book Review: An Important book that captures the basis for corporate successes - EXECUTION
Summary: 5 Stars
The key point in the whole book is the first word of the title - EXECUTION. There is without question in business in this country, and to a far greater extent overseas, a failure to execute. Businesses, like people have wonderful thoughts, ideas, notions, desires, goals, objectives, and needs. Try finding the company, entity, institution that bottom line, successfully gets things done. It comes back to EXECUTION.
The authors are as professional as you can get. Larry Bossidy is a product of the General Electric system of management. He is the man credited with building the division now known as GE Capital into what it is today. GE Capital is one of the most profitable divisions of any corporation in the world, and the envy of every financial institution including Wall Street.
Bossidy was one of three men in the running to become Chairman of General Electric. He lost to Jack Welch. It is traditional that when you are passed over as Chairman of GE, you take your time, but you leave. Bossidy left to run Allied Signal, which then was absorbed into Honeywell. It was during that corporate transformation that Bossidy became associated with the techniques that you are reading in his book, "Execution-The Discipline of Getting Things Done".
His co-author is Ram Charan, who has taught at both Harvard Business, and the Kellogg School of Northwestern University. Charan has functioned as an international business consultant specializing in management. Without being mentioned, it is obvious that at some point Charan consulted for Bossidy somewhere along the way, and this is how the partnership was formed.
Why You Must Read this Book?
You read every word in a book like "Execution", because you are getting it from the horse's mouth. Even if other people can say it better, Bossidy is the guy who made the big bucks doing it. Who wouldn't want to read a book on playing golf under pressure by Tiger Woods, or how you should prepare for a big basketball game the day of the game by Michael Jordan.
Bossidy is the real deal. He has run a major corporation, and posted major results, for a long period of time. All the major players are in agreement; that this is the man you go to when you want to talk about management. Now having said that, does the book ramble, yes, could it be shorter, yes, could it better written, the answer is of course. It still doesn't make any difference. You have to read Bossidy, because even Jack Welch at GE read this book.
Here's what you will learn very quickly
1) Execution isn't everything - it's the ONLY THING
You'll remember that Vince Lombardi, the Green Bay Packer's coach use to say that winning isn't everything; it's the only thing. The same thing can be said about EXECUTION. The only purpose bottom line for a business to be in business is to execute the goals, and objectives of the corporation.
2) The difference between Dreams, and Results is how you EXECUTED
Businesses started with goals and objectives, and then you have to get to reality. Everything in between is how you execute, and the authors make clear at every opportunity those instances where corporations did well (General Electric, Dell, EDS), and those times when corporations failed (Xerox, Lucent, Kodak, Motorola, AT&T). The examples given are thorough, and make sense. You know all these corporations.
3) The importance of the talent you field
Bossidy is so right on this one. He says that he spent 40% of his time picking the players. In the end, how much can a CEO personally do, or deliver? It's true that a CEO can fairly easily blow up a corporate structure in a year or two. The two authors say the same CEO picking the right talent can deliver enviable results. They must be held to high accountable standards. You use the feedback to power the results.
4) Constant involvement with that talent
Bossidy is not a guy that leaves things to human resources. Bossidy talks about the importance of the lunch or dinner with his management team members, how he was constantly sizing them up. Could they deliver, would they execute. He is the only CEO I have ever heard of who personally would check referrals on those he hired. That kernel of information tells you everything. One could almost argue that if you put the right players into place, your job is 90% done, providing the system works.
I would like to take a moment to tell you how you work with a book like this. You need to write in the margins, you must underline, and you must question, and annotate the entire book. If you are someone that finds himself commuting either to work, or spending significant time in a car, than the audio version is excellent as well because it is in the author's voices.
Recognize that this is a book you will read, or listen to many times. There are multiple layers of messages here, and you will not capture them all with the first run through of either the book, or the audio. Bossidy is acknowledged to be one of the most successful businessmen of his era, take advantage of it, and pull everything you can out of his book.
Good luck.
Richard Stoyeck
Summary of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
The book that shows how to get the job done and deliver results . . . whether you?re running an entire company or in your first management job.Larry Bossidy is one of the world?s most acclaimed CEOs, a man with few peers who has a track record for delivering results. Ram Charan is a legendary advisor to senior executives and boards of directors, a man with unparalleled insight into why some companies are successful and others are not. Together they?ve pooled their knowledge and experience into the one book on how to close the gap between results promised and results delivered that people in business need today.
After a long, stellar career with General Electric, Larry Bossidy transformed AlliedSignal into one of the world?s most admired companies and was named CEO of the year in 1998 by Chief Executive magazine. Accomplishments such as 31 consecutive quarters of earnings-per-share growth of 13 percent or more didn?t just happen; they resulted from the consistent practice of the discipline of execution: understanding how to link together people, strategy, and operations, the three core processes of every business.
Leading these processes is the real job of running a business, not formulating a ?vision? and leaving the work of carrying it out to others. Bossidy and Charan show the importance of being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why robust dialogues about people, strategy, and operations result in a business based on intellectual honesty and realism.
The leader?s most important job?selecting and appraising people?is one that should never be delegated. As a CEO, Larry Bossidy personally makes the calls to check references for key hires. Why? With the right people in the right jobs, there?s a leadership gene pool that conceives and selects strategies that can be executed. People then work together to create a strategy building block by building block, a strategy in sync with the realities of the marketplace, the economy, and the competition. Once the right people and strategy are in place, they are then linked to an operating process that results in the implementation of specific programs and actions and that assigns accountability. This kind of effective operating process goes way beyond the typical budget exercise that looks into a rearview mirror to set its goals. It puts reality behind the numbers and is where the rubber meets the road.
Putting an execution culture in place is hard, but losing it is easy. In July 2001 Larry Bossidy was asked by the board of directors of Honeywell International (it had merged with AlliedSignal) to return and get the company back on track. He?s been putting the ideas he writes about in Execution to work in real time.
Disciplines like strategy, leadership development, and innovation are the sexier aspects of being at the helm of a successful business; actually getting things done never seems quite as glamorous. But as Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan demonstrate in Execution, the ultimate difference between a company and its competitor is, in fact, the ability to execute.
Execution is "the missing link between aspirations and results," and as such, making it happen is the business leader's most important job. While failure in today's business environment is often attributed to other causes, Bossidy and Charan argue that the biggest obstacle to success is the absence of execution. They point out that without execution, breakthrough thinking on managing change breaks down, and they emphasize the fact that execution is a discipline to learn, not merely the tactical side of business. Supporting this with stories of the "execution difference" being won (EDS) and lost (Xerox and Lucent), the authors describe the building blocks--leaders with the right behaviors, a culture that rewards execution, and a reliable system for having the right people in the right jobs--that need to be in place to manage the three core business processes of people, strategy, and operations. Both Bossidy, CEO of Honeywell International, Inc., and Charan, advisor to corporate executives and author of such books as What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards That Work, present experience-tested insight into how the smooth linking of these three processes can differentiate one company from the rest. Developing the discipline of execution isn't made out to be simple, nor is this book a quick, easy read. Bossidy and Charan do, however, offer good advice on a neglected topic, making Execution a smart business leader's guide to enacting success rather than permitting demise. --S. Ketchum
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