“What do you think of your team’s execution?” Coach John McKay was asked.  “I’m for it!”  McKay replied.  The expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished that season winless and McKay captured the hearts of coaches everywhere with that comment.

Whether it is in sports or in business, leaders often spend endless hours preparing strategies to insure success, only to see those plans fail due to poor execution.  Whose fault is it?  Is it the players’ fault?  Is it the leaders’ fault?

I'm For Execution!

The answer is YES!  But, ultimately the leader must shoulder the responsibility for the failures of the team.

  • If the player can’t execute the plan because it is poorly designed – it’s the leader’s plan.  Therefore, it is the leader’s responsibility.
  • If the player can’t execute the plan because the player doesn’t understand it – the leader didn’t communicate the plan well.  Therefore, it is the leader’s responsibility.
  • If the player can’t execute the plan because the player doesn’t know how – the leader didn’t coach the player well.  Therefore, it is the leader’s responsibility.
  • If the player can’t execute the plan because the player is incapable of it – the leader hired the wrong player.  Therefore, it is the leader’s responsibility.
  • If the player WON’T execute the plan because the player has character issues – again, the leader hired the wrong player.  Therefore, it is the leader’s responsibility.

Now that I have placed ownership of the strategies AND the execution squarely on the shoulders of the leader, what can the leader do to improve?

Have A Scoreboard

Two books I read and reread recently claim that an effective scoreboard is essential to producing results within all levels of an organization.

The Three Signs Of A Miserable Job – Patrick Lencioni

The Four Disciplines Of Execution – Chris McChesney and Sean Covey

I am not going to summarize each book in it’s entirety.  But one of the Three Signs Lencioni discusses is Immeasurement- People don’t know how they are doing.  One of the Four Disciplines is Keeping A Compelling Scoreboard.

Before I read these books, I wrote a blog about this same subject:  Be Careful What You Measure

Five Keys To A Good Scoreboard

  1. Simple:  A good scoreboard doesn’t communicate everything – only the essentials.
  2. Predictive:  A good scoreboard ONLY tracks activities that lead to reaching the team’s most important goal (Winning).  It doesn’t just show the whether the team won.
  3. Easy To See:  A good scoreboard is always in front of the players.  It is not revealed by the coach periodically.
  4. By The Players:  A good scoreboard measures activities the PLAYERS believe will lead them to victory.
  5. For The Players:  A good scoreboard is designed for the players benefit not the coach’s benefit.

A good scoreboard is essential to execution.  McChesney and Covey point out that high school students play a different brand of basketball when they are keeping score.

Without keeping score, the game is a joke and people lose interest.  But, when they start tracking the score, a new level of intensity and engagement occurs.

When the scoreboard is on, this happens naturally.  The coach doesn’t need to yell out the score.  The players look up and see the score and play accordingly.

The Bottom Line:

I developed a great number of sales and marketing strategies that failed due to poor execution.  I learned the hard way that a simple plan, executed with extreme vigilance will always beat a Harvard MBA level plan poorly executed.

One key as I found, and these authors describe, is often the use of an effective scoreboard.  The findings in these books have data to back up their conclusions.  I only have my experiences.

When my team had a simple and predictive scoreboard that was easy to see which they developed for their benefit and not mine, we out executed everyone else. 

That is the type of execution all leaders covet.  The other type of execution is a great punch line.  Thanks to John McKay, we have one of the greatest football quotes of all time.

Thanks to Patrick Lencioni, Chris McChesney, and Sean Covey we have a proven method to reach our individual and team goals through better execution.

Question:

What is your most important goal that you need a scoreboard for?