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Chapter 22Tracking and ConsequencesHow to Identify and Recover from Setbacks

What Everyone Is Thinking

We don't seem to follow through on things around here. We talk about important stuff we need to do, but if we miss a deadline nothing really happens. I don't think we are very good at execution.

You cannot execute a transformation throughout the long Middle without something going wrong along the way. As a leader, you need a strategy for addressing the problems and gaps, and getting the program moving forward again.

When Nothing Happens

Many executives ask for my help by saying, “My team isn't good at executing.” So I get to observe execution issues at many different types of companies.

One of the things that many companies seem to miss is the connection between execution and consequences. The reason why many organizations have so much trouble making strategic progress and doing what they intend to do, on time, is because when they fail to meet a deadline…nothing happens.

The date comes and goes and no one talks about it.

People who were on the hook either assume that they have been granted more time, or it wasn't that important to begin with. And then there is no new focused deadline established because no one is talking about it at all.

If you don't address the very first deadline slip on the strategic thing, the urgent tactical demands of the moment take over, and strategic progress becomes a low priority and a distant memory. People will say, “Aha, I guess we are not ...