On July 25, 2008 Gary Harpst's new book, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, has been named to the Wall Street Journal's Best-Seller List - #1 for Business books, and #7 for Non-Fiction books.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Take The Execution Revolution Challenge!
Six Disciplines Encourages Small and Midsized Organizations
to Take the Execution Revolution Challenge
to Take the Execution Revolution Challenge
Interactive Tool Provides CEOs with Deeper Insight into the Biggest Challenge in Business
Six Disciplines, developers of the first complete strategy execution program for small and midsized businesses, has developed a free, interactive tool that enables organizations to rate how well they execute their strategies. The Execution Revolution Challenge only takes one minute to complete, but the results will cause you to begin thinking and acting differently about how you address the biggest challenge in business: execution.
“The purpose of the Execution Revolution Challenge is to prove whether everyone in your organization is on the ‘same page’ or not, in terms of the strategy execution capability of the organization,” said Gary Harpst, founder and CEO of Six Disciplines. “Businesses are not alone in their struggle to grow predictably and profitably. Very few businesses have this mastered. Taking the Execution Revolution Challenge is the first step in understanding what you need to do differently to solve the biggest challenge in business.”
Harpst encourages every person within an organization to take the Challenge. When completed, the tool provides CEOs with a crystal clear view into the level of strategy and execution alignment within their organization.
“After an organization takes the Challenge, most CEOs come away with a sense of urgency that something needs to be done differently, in order to execute strategy more consistently and predictably,” said Harpst.
“I thought we were doing well, but by having our leadership team take the Challenge, I quickly realized we weren't on the same page -- at all,” said Todd Roberts, CEO of Total Fleet Solutions, a 150-person services firm in Toledo, Ohio. “The results helped change how I think and act about executing strategy in our company. Six Disciplines has started a movement, a real revolution in the way we approach getting things done.”
“The purpose of the Execution Revolution Challenge is to prove whether everyone in your organization is on the ‘same page’ or not, in terms of the strategy execution capability of the organization,” said Gary Harpst, founder and CEO of Six Disciplines. “Businesses are not alone in their struggle to grow predictably and profitably. Very few businesses have this mastered. Taking the Execution Revolution Challenge is the first step in understanding what you need to do differently to solve the biggest challenge in business.”
Harpst encourages every person within an organization to take the Challenge. When completed, the tool provides CEOs with a crystal clear view into the level of strategy and execution alignment within their organization.
“After an organization takes the Challenge, most CEOs come away with a sense of urgency that something needs to be done differently, in order to execute strategy more consistently and predictably,” said Harpst.
“I thought we were doing well, but by having our leadership team take the Challenge, I quickly realized we weren't on the same page -- at all,” said Todd Roberts, CEO of Total Fleet Solutions, a 150-person services firm in Toledo, Ohio. “The results helped change how I think and act about executing strategy in our company. Six Disciplines has started a movement, a real revolution in the way we approach getting things done.”
The Idea Behind The Execution Revolution Challenge
The idea behind the Execution Revolution Challenge comes from the new book Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution – Solving the One Business Problem that Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier, by CEO and award-winning author, Gary Harpst. The Challenge brings the Six Disciplines Business Excellence Model™ to life. The model illustrates that every organization, during its life cycle, moves around on a four-quadrant matrix, characterized by weak and strong strategy and execution, which indicates consistent operations and profit potential.
“The Execution Revolution Challenge illustrates that there is a revolutionary new way for businesses to move to the upper right hand quadrant, where strategy and execution are balanced and predictable, indicated by profitable growth, ” said Harpst. “Every CEO aspires to perform profitably and consistently and the Challenge helps CEOs start the baseline to begin.”
The new book, Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution is available from http://www.sixdisciplinespublishing.com/ and is also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, 800-CEO-Read, and wherever books are sold.
The idea behind the Execution Revolution Challenge comes from the new book Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution – Solving the One Business Problem that Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier, by CEO and award-winning author, Gary Harpst. The Challenge brings the Six Disciplines Business Excellence Model™ to life. The model illustrates that every organization, during its life cycle, moves around on a four-quadrant matrix, characterized by weak and strong strategy and execution, which indicates consistent operations and profit potential.
“The Execution Revolution Challenge illustrates that there is a revolutionary new way for businesses to move to the upper right hand quadrant, where strategy and execution are balanced and predictable, indicated by profitable growth, ” said Harpst. “Every CEO aspires to perform profitably and consistently and the Challenge helps CEOs start the baseline to begin.”
The new book, Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution is available from http://www.sixdisciplinespublishing.com/ and is also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, 800-CEO-Read, and wherever books are sold.
How the Execution Revolution Challenge Works
Any individual can initiate the Execution Revolution Challenge for their organization by visiting www.SixDisciplines.com/Challenge, and answering five simple questions. This individual can then plot where they think their company is on the strategy execution matrix. Doing so generates an email which includes a Challenge ID unique for the rest of their organization. By forwarding this email to every person in the organization, each employee gets to plot where they think their company is relative to executing strategy. Once everyone has taken the Challenge, team members can return to the interactive tool, and collectively see how each person rates the organization’s overall ability to execute strategy.
As more companies have their employees take the Execution Revolution Challenge, Six Disciplines will enhance the interactive tool to help companies understand how to better balance strategy and execution. A number of differing views of the results will be supported soon, including: your company vs. other companies in the same industry; your company vs. others of the same size (number of employees); and comparison of responses by role vs. others.
To sign up and take the Execution Revolution Challenge for your organization, visit www.SixDisciplines.com/Challenge.
Any individual can initiate the Execution Revolution Challenge for their organization by visiting www.SixDisciplines.com/Challenge, and answering five simple questions. This individual can then plot where they think their company is on the strategy execution matrix. Doing so generates an email which includes a Challenge ID unique for the rest of their organization. By forwarding this email to every person in the organization, each employee gets to plot where they think their company is relative to executing strategy. Once everyone has taken the Challenge, team members can return to the interactive tool, and collectively see how each person rates the organization’s overall ability to execute strategy.
As more companies have their employees take the Execution Revolution Challenge, Six Disciplines will enhance the interactive tool to help companies understand how to better balance strategy and execution. A number of differing views of the results will be supported soon, including: your company vs. other companies in the same industry; your company vs. others of the same size (number of employees); and comparison of responses by role vs. others.
To sign up and take the Execution Revolution Challenge for your organization, visit www.SixDisciplines.com/Challenge.
New Study Articulates Advantages of Business Coaching
A new study on coaching, "COACHING - A Global Study of Successful Practices" prepared by the American Management Association, has some valuable information for organizations that are thinking of hiring a coach.
Some of their key findings:
Some of their key findings:
- Coaching is used by only about half of today’s companies. 52% of US companies report having such programs in place, compared to 56% of international companies sampled.
- Coaching continues to gain in popularity. Among respondentswho say their organizations don’t yet have coaching programs, a sizable proportion (37% in the North American sample and 56% in the international sample) say such programs will be implemented in the future.
- Coaching is associated with higher performance, reporting two kinds of advantages: 1. They’re more likely to report that their organizations have higher levels of success in the area of coaching. 2. They’re more likely to say that their organizations are performing well in the market, as determined by self-reports in the combined areas of revenue growth, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
- Coaching is primarily aimed at boosting individual performance.
- The more a company has a clear reason for using a coach, the more likely that its coaching process will be viewed as successful.
- External training (coaching) seems to work best. Externally based methods of providing training on coaching are most strongly correlated with overall coaching success, though they are less often used.
The Need for Updating Succession Plans
A survey of more than 2,500 senior HR executives by consulting firm Novations Group has found that succession planning among American firms is not nearly where it needs to be.
Some of their findings:
Some of their findings:
- More than a fifth said that, even though they had succession planning in place, it was valueless because, as often as not, they ended up recruiting someone externally anyway.
- Another quarter admitted that, while there was work done on succession planning, it was only done in "fits and starts".
- 46% said that they updated their succession plans regularly, an absolutely critical requirement in a fast-changing, fluctuating business environment.
- 7% of firms admitted to having no succession planning in place at all.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Warren Buffet's Seven Secrets
More often than not, truth lies in simplicity.
Here's Warren Buffet's seven secrets for living a happy and simple life.
Secret # 1: Happiness comes from within.
Secret # 2: Find happiness in simple pleasures.
Secret # 3: Live a simple life.
Secret # 4: Think simply.
Secret # 5: Invest simply.
Secret # 6: Have a mentor in life.
Secret # 7 :Making money isn’t the backbone of our guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of our guiding purpose.
(Hat tip to Shilpan Patel at SuccessSoul)
Here's Warren Buffet's seven secrets for living a happy and simple life.
Secret # 1: Happiness comes from within.
Secret # 2: Find happiness in simple pleasures.
Secret # 3: Live a simple life.
Secret # 4: Think simply.
Secret # 5: Invest simply.
Secret # 6: Have a mentor in life.
Secret # 7 :Making money isn’t the backbone of our guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of our guiding purpose.
(Hat tip to Shilpan Patel at SuccessSoul)
Six Disciplines Execution Revolution Hits #3 on Amazon
This morning, the new book by award-winning author and CEO, Gary Harpst, "Six Disciplines Execution Revolution" hit #3 on Amazon.
Get your copy today from Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, 800-CEO-READ, or wherever books are sold.
Get your copy today from Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, 800-CEO-READ, or wherever books are sold.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Introducing The Gary Harpst Blog
Attention all long-time readers of Be Excellent! There's a new blog in town, and I want to point you toward it.
It's the Gary Harpst Blog - by successful serial entrepreneur, CEO and award-winning author, Gary Harpst. It's located on the informational GaryHarpst.com web site.
Gary intends to use his blog as an open forum on a wide variety of topics, running the gamut from strategy formulation and execution, to change management, planning and goal setting, communication, time management, employee engagement, activity alignment and problem-solving.
So, get your RSS reader ready and visit the Gary Harpst Blog.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Instilling Company-Wide Accountability
According to a 2007 survey of 317 C-level executives conducted by BusinessWeek Research Services, (and published by Joe Mullich for Microsoft's People-Ready Business Insights,) the biggest obstacles to successful execution of performance management are “lack of accountability” and “a culture that does not support measurement.”
"Too many people think of performance management as an exercise in scorecarding,” says Richard T. Roth, formerly chief research officer of The Hackett Group, an Atlanta-based consulting firm. “World-class organizations focus less on performance metrics than on instilling company-wide accountability.”
How can companies overcome those obstacles and develop winning attributes? Researcher's found the following attributes:
"Too many people think of performance management as an exercise in scorecarding,” says Richard T. Roth, formerly chief research officer of The Hackett Group, an Atlanta-based consulting firm. “World-class organizations focus less on performance metrics than on instilling company-wide accountability.”
How can companies overcome those obstacles and develop winning attributes? Researcher's found the following attributes:
- “Organizations achieve a competitive advantage when they develop a culture that fosters improved performance—one that holds a high respect for facts, is customer-centric, competes from a common playbook, makes data-driven decisions, and promotes cross-group collaboration, alignment, and execution.”
- "Firms that possess a performance discipline align objectives with shareholder value and radiate that message from the top through every part of the organization."
- "Performance management is not a big-bang process. It is a continuous improvement process. You are constantly tweaking, so it has to be something that you do in the normal course of business.”
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Book Review: Six Disciplines Execution Revolution
Julien Dionne, editor at Incentive, Compensation and Sales Performance Management, has published his review of the new book by Gary Harpst, Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution.
An excerpt of his review:
"I was particularly interested by this book because not only does it talk about how a business can achieve excellence, it also focuses a lot on performance management. Throughout the book Gary acknowledges the importance of performance measurement, performance measurement, business intelligence and analytics, and performance management systems. Overall, this book is straight to the point, well-organized, and as the title suggests, focused on execution."
Read the entire review here.
Coming Soon - The Execution Revolution Challenge!
Where is your organization, in terms of strategy vs. execution?
Six Disciplines, developers of the first complete strategy execution program for small and midsized businesses, is developing a free, interactive tool that enables organizations to rate how well they execute their strategies.
The Execution Revolution Challenge only takes one minute to complete, but the results will cause you to begin thinking and acting differently about how you address the biggest challenge in business: execution.
“The purpose of the Execution Revolution Challenge is to prove whether everyone in your organization is on the “same page” or not, in terms of the strategy execution capability of the organization,” said Gary Harpst, founder and CEO of Six Disciplines. “Businesses are not alone in their struggle to grow predictably and profitably. Very few businesses have this mastered. Taking the Execution Revolution Challenge is the first step in understanding what you need to do differently to solve the biggest challenge in business.”
“We’re encouraging every person within an organization to take the Challenge. When completed, the tool provides the CEO with a crystal clear view into the level of alignment within their organization. Most come away with a sense of urgency that something needs to be done differently, in order to execute strategy more consistently and predictably,” added Harpst.
The Idea Behind The Execution Revolution Challenge
The idea behind the Execution Revolution Challenge comes from Chapter 1 of the new book Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution – Solving the One Business Problem that Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier,” by CEO and award-winning author, Gary Harpst.
“The Challenge brings the Six Disciplines Business Excellence Model™ to life,” said Harpst. “The model reveals that every organization, during its life cycle, moves around on a four-quadrant matrix, characterized by weak and strong strategy and execution. The breakthrough idea is there is a revolutionary new way for businesses to move to the upper right hand quadrant, where strategy and execution are balanced and predictable, indicated by profitable growth,” added Harpst.
(Check back here soon - we'll let you know when the Execution Revolution Challenge is "live"!)
Six Disciplines, developers of the first complete strategy execution program for small and midsized businesses, is developing a free, interactive tool that enables organizations to rate how well they execute their strategies.
The Execution Revolution Challenge only takes one minute to complete, but the results will cause you to begin thinking and acting differently about how you address the biggest challenge in business: execution.
“The purpose of the Execution Revolution Challenge is to prove whether everyone in your organization is on the “same page” or not, in terms of the strategy execution capability of the organization,” said Gary Harpst, founder and CEO of Six Disciplines. “Businesses are not alone in their struggle to grow predictably and profitably. Very few businesses have this mastered. Taking the Execution Revolution Challenge is the first step in understanding what you need to do differently to solve the biggest challenge in business.”
“We’re encouraging every person within an organization to take the Challenge. When completed, the tool provides the CEO with a crystal clear view into the level of alignment within their organization. Most come away with a sense of urgency that something needs to be done differently, in order to execute strategy more consistently and predictably,” added Harpst.
The Idea Behind The Execution Revolution Challenge
The idea behind the Execution Revolution Challenge comes from Chapter 1 of the new book Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution – Solving the One Business Problem that Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier,” by CEO and award-winning author, Gary Harpst.
“The Challenge brings the Six Disciplines Business Excellence Model™ to life,” said Harpst. “The model reveals that every organization, during its life cycle, moves around on a four-quadrant matrix, characterized by weak and strong strategy and execution. The breakthrough idea is there is a revolutionary new way for businesses to move to the upper right hand quadrant, where strategy and execution are balanced and predictable, indicated by profitable growth,” added Harpst.
(Check back here soon - we'll let you know when the Execution Revolution Challenge is "live"!)
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Management and The Growth Challenge
Robert Bruner, Dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, observes:
"Economic indicators suggest that growth of the world economy is slowing. High commodity prices and fear about future conditions are driving investors and customers out of the market. What would it take to restore us to sensible growth?"
His answer? "Probably many things. But among these would certainly be good general management."
Recent research at Darden reinforces this notion in the context of the growing firm. Ed Hess, professor at Darden has been studying the role of general managers in producing long stretches of organic growth within companies.
Hess's research confirms that: ...building a stretch of strong internal growth depends on creating “a seamless, consistent, self-reinforcing alignment across strategy, execution processes, structure, leadership, culture, HR policies, accountability, technology, measurement and rewards. In other words, good growth leaders are able to think in a systems integrative mindset across functions."
Bruner's research shows that "...to be a consistent high performance company, strategy is not enough- you must be a great execution company. And to be a great execution company you need a deep bench of good servant leaders, high employee engagement, customer centricity, and a good technology platform across your company-especially your supply chain."
BOTTOMLINE: "This is the power of integration and alignment. General management is a way of thinking - a mindset which appreciates the integrative complexity of human behavior.”
"Economic indicators suggest that growth of the world economy is slowing. High commodity prices and fear about future conditions are driving investors and customers out of the market. What would it take to restore us to sensible growth?"
His answer? "Probably many things. But among these would certainly be good general management."
Recent research at Darden reinforces this notion in the context of the growing firm. Ed Hess, professor at Darden has been studying the role of general managers in producing long stretches of organic growth within companies.
Hess's research confirms that: ...building a stretch of strong internal growth depends on creating “a seamless, consistent, self-reinforcing alignment across strategy, execution processes, structure, leadership, culture, HR policies, accountability, technology, measurement and rewards. In other words, good growth leaders are able to think in a systems integrative mindset across functions."
Bruner's research shows that "...to be a consistent high performance company, strategy is not enough- you must be a great execution company. And to be a great execution company you need a deep bench of good servant leaders, high employee engagement, customer centricity, and a good technology platform across your company-especially your supply chain."
BOTTOMLINE: "This is the power of integration and alignment. General management is a way of thinking - a mindset which appreciates the integrative complexity of human behavior.”
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