The 4 Disciplines Of Execution®. Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

 

CHRIS MCCHESNEY

Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organization?

Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it's likely no one even noticed. What happened?

The "whirlwind" of urgent activity required to keep things running day-to-day devoured all the time and energy you needed to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow! The 4 Disciplines of Execution can change all that forever.

The 4DX process has been refined to achieve three objectives:

1. High-quality implementation in the shortest possible time.
2. Maximum leader and team engagement with minimum disruption to business operations.
3. Sustainable WIG results through full process adoption (new habits).

4DX is not theory, but a proven set of principles and practices that have been tested and refined by hundreds of organizations and 126,000+ teams over many years. When a company or an individual adheres to these disciplines, they achieve superb results –– regardless of the goal. 4DX represents a new way of thinking and working that are essential to thriving in today's competitive climate.

 

The 4 Disciplines:

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

The discipline of focus requires you to go against your basic wiring as a leader and focus on less so your team can achieve more.

Discipline 2: Act on The Lead Measures

The discipline of leverage requires you to identify and act on the measures that are predictive of reaching your goal and that can be influenced by you and the team.

Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

The discipline of engagement requires you to create a players' scoreboard so that members of the team can easily tell whether they are winning or losing. 

Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability

The discipline of commitment requires you to hold regularly scheduled team meetings where members make and keep commitments to each other to execute on the wildly important goal. 

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

There will always be more good ideas than there is capacity to execute

Our research has shown that only 15 percent of employees actually know their organization’s most important goals—either there are no goals or they have too many goals.

Focus on less in order to accomplish more. Start by selecting 1 Wildly Important Goal® (WIG®) instead of trying to work on a dozen goals all at once. We are not suggesting you ignore the work necessary to maintain your daily operation. We are suggesting you narrow your focus to work on what you want to significantly improve.

Most intelligent, ambitious people don’t want to do less. Especially if it means saying no to good ideas. They are wired to do more, but there are always more good ideas than there is capacity to execute.

When you choose a WIG, you identify the most important objective that won’t be achieved unless it gets special attention. In other words, your normal course of business won’t make it happen.

To define a WIG, identify where you are now, where you want to be, and by when. Said differently, you define a starting line, a finish line, and a deadline. Psychologically it is important to have a single measure of success. This is the discipline of focus, and it’s the first step in creating a winnable game.

The Wildly Important Goal (WIG)

Practicing Discipline 1 means narrowing your focus to a few highly important goals so you can achieve them in the midst of the whirlwind of the day job.

Your chances of achieving 2 or 3 goals with excellence are high, but the more goals you try to juggle at once, the less likely you will be to reach them.

Identifying Your Wildly Important Goals

A wildly important goal (WIG) is a goal that can make all the difference. You're going to commit to apply a disproportionate amount of energy to it.

In determining your WIG, don't ask "What's most important?" Instead, begin by asking "If every other area of our operation remained at its current level of performance, what is the one area where change would have the greatest impact?"

Whether your WIG comes from within the whirlwind or outside it, your real aim is not only to achieve it but also to then make the new level of performance a natural part of your team's operation. 

Focusing the Organization

No team focuses on more than two WIGs at the same time.

• The key is not to overload any single leader, team, or individual performer.

The battles you choose must win the war.

• The sole purpose of WIGs at lower levels in the organization is to help achieve the WIGs at higher levels.

Senior leaders can veto, but not dictate.

• While the senior leaders will undoubtedly determine the top-level WIG, they must allow the leaders at each level below to define the WIGs for their teams.

All WIGs must have a finish line in the form of X to Y by when.

• Every WIG at every level must contain a clearly measurable result, as well as the date by which that result must be achieved. 

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