Businesses always seem to take longer to succeed than an entrepreneur expects. Seth Godin once said that overnight success in startups takes about six years, and Seth is an optimist. Thus we all look for shortcuts. Execution shortcuts would be hidden strategies to achieve the endgame sooner, without losing 40 to 60 percent of the financial potential along the way.
The short answer is that there is no magic. But there is consensus from the experts that human dynamics are more the key and the problem, rather than any particular business strategy or tactic. The classic book, “The Execution Shortcut,” by Jeroen De Flander, a well-respected writer and speaker on business strategy execution, offers some good insights and examples.
If you aspire to get a better return from your strategy, De Flander and I agree that you must learn to position your strategy to capture the head, heart, and hands of your constituents. They need a full sense of awareness of where you are going, to care deeply about it, and maintain the highest energy to drive it. Here are ten ways he offers for an entrepreneur to enhance his/her strategies:
- Facilitate small choices that get you closer to the finish line. Provide prioritization guidelines to align day-to-day choices with the big choices. To make the right big choice, everyone needs to know who to focus on, and how to offer unique value to customers in the chosen segment. When to say no is also a critical part of any strategy.
- Keep the big choice clearly visible in all your actions and communications. People shorten and package messages all the time, causing message distortion which can hide the core of your big idea. So don’t pass messages down the line. Talk directly to every key constituency often, and make your messages as sticky as possible.
- Draw a finish line so key people know the real objective. Capture the core of your strategy and show everyone in an inspiring way what strategy success looks like. Everyone works harder when they know who’s winning and the distance to the end. The right finish line also motivates and gives purpose to those traveling the execution road.
- Define lead indicators, and regularly re-measure distance to the finish line. Everyone needs a limited set of lead indicators to provide feedback, and allow recalibration based on things learned along the way. Remove old signposts to prevent confusion, and work to prevent information overload.
- Share strategy stories for stickiness and heart connections. Story wrappers add context and emotion to the strategy to make people feel and remember the core message. People want to see what kind of small choices they have to make to contribute to the big choice.
- Climb the micro-commitment ladder with full engagement. Don’t settle for small commitments on big things. Go after big commitments on small things. The highest rung on the commitment ladder is “Yes, I will get it done no matter what.” This is the only level that represents full ownership of the task, and execution responsibility has really shifted.
- Go beyond self-interest to boost belief in others. The key to success is belief. Celebrating small successes along the road make people believe they can achieve a big success at the finish line. Success is a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing people to dig deeper, recover faster, and keep going longer.
- Constantly tackle complexity as your business grows. Complexity is the CO2 of the modern business world – the biggest performance killer in organizations. Embrace simplicity to create the most productive working environment. Be constantly on the lookout for best practices and tools to improve your strategy execution.
- Experience the power of habits to automate decisions. Each overt decision we make demands mental strength, and when there are too many decisions to take, our reserves run out. Remember how draining your first day on a new job was. Quickly the small decisions become habits. Group habits become your company culture.
- Find your 7-day rhythm. A daily rhythm or schedule creates habits faster, but is unrealistic in most business environments. A 7-day rhythm provides regular repetitions, and follows a more normal business flow. Be sure to connect decision horizons and find a spot for strategy in everyone’s weekly agenda.
We have all seen businesses and startups with great ideas that never seem to reach the finish line, while others with more mundane solutions seem to take some hidden path to success. In my experience, like that of De Flander, the difference is almost always related to the entrepreneur and their execution strategy, more so than to the solution provided.
So, the next time you talk to a potential investor, spend more time on your execution dynamics and less time on the product pitch. I suspect it will be a shortcut to at least the funding phase of your startup, and probably long-term business success as well.