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Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
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Sales rank 1,304
Customers rating (based on 252 reviews)
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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 jobLarry 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.
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| Publisher | Crown Business | | Release date | 06/2002 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
| | List price | $27.5 | | Our price | $15.1 (you save 45.09%) | | Used price | from $0.81 |
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A How-To Book for the Can-Do Boss: Attempts to explain why visionaries often fail and what steps leaders must take to translate their strategies into results. (@ Business Week)
Best Book, 2005!: Tom Peter's favorite Biz Book of 2005 is Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy (& Ram Charan). Fact is, it's a 2002 book. (@ Tom Peter's Blog)
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 Not much here
A few years ago, the reading club at my company proposed this book. Immediately I yelled "Boring!" When asked why, I said, "Execution is what we do every day. I question that this will stretch us." Now I finally have read the book, and stand by my initial comment.
There is some value here, to be clear. Some interesting anecdotes. Some fascinating preening by Bossidy, who clearly sees himself, Jack Welch, and one or two others as smarter than anyone else in the corporate world. And some healthy focus on the how of moving from strategy to action, and on the importance of developing leaders.
But the book's fundamental premise, that companies fail (unless run by him, Jack or a few friends) because they don't execute, only stands because the authors subordinate strategy to execution. In other words, execution means strategy, plus moving from strategy to action. Well, I guess. I just don't see much value in that definition.
Let's keep the issues separate. Strategy matters. If you agree with that, then read Jim Collins and a host of others to figure out what matters most. How strategy is built matters. If you agree with that, this book has some useful ideas, but nothing I haven't seen in several companies. And moving strategy into action to achieve results matter. Again, this book has useful ideas, but nothing that rocks my world.
Bottom line, the book over reaches. Worth a quick scan. Definitely some good ideas. But it reads like a vanity piece. I found no intellectual rigor here, no "ah ha!" insights, no frameworks I could add to my management toolkit.
Net, as I suspected years ago: Boring!
 Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
This is a superb book. It's well written and one of the best you can read.
My two cents
An excellent book explaining the secrets to running a successful company in the simplest of ways.
The must read for every CEO and any managing working type development
As an operation manager myself, I was asked to read this book by my CEO and is one of the thing I thank him the most, as this book taught me how to apply every piece of knowledge I had into results.
Is a very comprehensive reading framed as a discipline followed step by step and with results far known.
It is maybe the resume Jack Welch type of work.
Thenks Larry and Ram for making planning come into proven results.
Alternate title: Isn't Jack Welch wonderful?
Some interesting case studies and generally useful advice. One star off for all the slobbering worship of Jack Welch. I and many of my colleagues saw the other side of him. He was like a neutron bomb -- wherever he went, the people were gone, but the buildings remained. Inside the company, he was known as "Neutron Jack." Thanks, but I won't think of Welch as any kind of role model to emulate.
Second point off for politocorrectoid smarm -- wherever possible, unidentified people are referred to as "she." This is annoying and distracting.
The execution of the book is just mediocre for these reasons. John C. Maxwell's books cover the same material and are much better, IMHO.
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