Execution Excellence for SATTVA - Final - Knowledgeworkz

1 Samatvam Academy, M-1/31, DLF City Phase II, Gurgaon 122 002, India. Execution Excellence by Dilbag Singh and Dr. Sunil Maheshwari Execution lies at the heart of all of human activity - commercial or non-commercial. The literal meaning of the term Execution is to bring to a successful conclusion . Excellence denotes the state or quality of being exceptionally good or extremely meritorious, and implies perpetual efforts to advance the frontiers of accomplishment. Therefore, Execution Excellence may be defined as a phenomenon of bringing an act to successful accomplishment, and surpass previous levels of in doing so. Thus, Execution Excellence involves acting in a manner so as to overachieve the objectives set out for an individual / team / organization. According to a study by Neilson, Martin & Powers (2008) that involved 125,000 people (about 25% of whom came from executive ranks) representing more than 1,000 companies, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations in over 50 countries, employees at three out of every five companies rated their organization as being weak at Execution .

2 When asked if they agreed with the statement Important strategic and operational decisions are quickly translated into action, the majority of employees answered in the negative. Each organization has the opportunity to revolutionize operations in order to deliver increased efficiency, coupled with enhanced effectiveness. Such a revolution calls for synchronizing talented people with robust processes to achieve Execution Excellence . Superior on-the-ground Execution results from a systematic process of rigorously questioning methods and techniques, following through and ensuring accountability for the human and operational processes in an organization (Bossidy & Charan, 2002). Excellence in Execution is achieved by deployment of a three-stage process sequence that helps bring about the desired alignment of people and processes to achieve the desired level of output. The three stages are: 1.

3 Organize: To arrange or systematize, to provide it with everything useful or it s functioning raw material, tools, capital and people. 2. Mobilize: To innovatively marshal limited resources and resolve any issue/problem arising in the path. 3. Harmonize: To complement and leveraging the strengths of every team member in a coherent manner. To create harmonious inter-relationships among the various stakeholders. Samatvam Academy, M-1/31, DLF City Phase II, Gurgaon 122 002, India. 1. The Organize Phase The dictionary meaning of organize is to arrange or systematize. It is the process of bringing resources together for achievement of desired goals. According to Henry Fayol, to organize is to provide it with everything useful or it s functioning raw material, tools, capital and people (Fayol, 1949). The Organize stage provides directions for achieving the objectives set out during strategic plans or customer expectation.

4 Identifying these objectives or customer expectations, preparing a plan to achieve them and constant monitoring, form the two pillars of organize phase. Planning and Monitoring are very closely related functions. The scope of their activities is actually overlapping. Without the foundation provided by planning, the monitoring of activities becomes baseless. On the other hand, planning can become a meaningless and inert exercise without any monitoring of activities relating to the implementation of plans. Therefore, planning and monitoring reinforce each other. Planning Planning refers to anticipating the future conditions and choosing from among the alternative future courses of action. It involves creation of a plan aimed at achieving the stated objectives. The planning process generally includes the following core activities (Kuttyta, 2012): 1. Forecasting: It is one of the essential steps in planning.

5 It requires is looking ahead to anticipate the opportunity, problems and conditions in a future period of time. The success of the plan depends on Samatvam Academy, M-1/31, DLF City Phase II, Gurgaon 122 002, India. the getting the forecasts right. The main objective of this step is to minimize uncertainty and to identify and evaluate risk. 2. Establishing objectives means setting the end results to be accomplished by directing efforts. The objectives must be clear, specific and informative. In order to set realistic objectives, planning team must be fully aware of the opportunities and problems that the team is likely to face. 3. Programming is establishing the activities and actions to be followed in the attainment of the objectives. This stage involves identifying and listing down all the actions that are to be completed in order to achieve the outlined objectives. All major activities are further broken down into sub-activities during this process.

6 4. Scheduling is deciding on time sequence for program steps with their respective start and finish times/dates. Careful consideration is to be given to the relationships between the activities at this stage. 5. Budgeting is allocation of resources to minimize costs. The resource allocation is done taking into consideration both the resource availability and the project time. 6. Establishing procedures means developing and applying standardized methods of performing a specific work. Good procedures are action oriented. They clearly outline the steps to be taken and their order. Well-written procedures are typically solid, precise, factual, short, and to the point. The output of the planning process is a plan. A plan has a time frame, whether it is explicit or implied. It is a commitment to action and commitment of resources. It is also a package of decisions on intended efforts to achieve some results.

7 It is a relatively static picture or blue print of action, which are partly a means of mechanism of planning and partly an end product of the planning process (Tulsian & Pandey, 2002). Monitoring Monitoring implies regular measurement of accomplishment against the standards and correction of deviation if any to ensure achievement of goals. The purpose of controlling is to ensure that everything occurs in conformities with the standards (Fayol, 1949). An efficient system of control helps to predict deviations before they actually occur. Therefore monitoring has following steps: Establishment of standards: Standards are the plans or the targets, which have to be achieved in the course of business function. They can also be called as the criterions for judging the performance. Standards are generally in form of cost, output, expenditure, time, profit, etc. Monitoring becomes easy Samatvam Academy, M-1/31, DLF City Phase II, Gurgaon 122 002, India.

8 Through establishment of these standards because controlling is exercised on the basis of these standards. Measurement of performance: The second major step in monitoring is to measure the performance. Finding out deviations becomes easy through measuring the actual performance. Measurement of tangible standards is easy as it can be expressed in units, cost, money terms, etc. Comparison of actual and standard performance: Comparison of actual performance with the planned targets is very important. Deviation can be defined as the gap between actual performance and the planned targets. Once the deviation is identified, a manager has to think about various causes, which has led to deviation. Taking remedial actions- Once the causes and extent of deviations are known, the manager has to detect those errors and take remedial measures for it. There are two alternatives here. a. Taking corrective measures for deviations which have occurred; and b.

9 After taking the corrective measures, if the actual performance is not in conformity with plans, the manager can revise the targets. It is here the monitoring process comes to an end. Follow up is an important step because it is only through taking corrective measures, a manager can exercise monitoring. 2. The Mobilize Phase Mobilization refers to the act of marshaling and aligning resources, and making them ready for use or action by an individual acting by oneself or in a group. Mental mobilization is the increased capability of the mind in critical situations to process incoming data as well as stored information to enable adaptive survival responses. The processes that are mobilized in the service of survival are enhanced sensory awareness, focused attention, rapid processing of incoming data, use of previous experience, enhanced memory, altered time perception, and temporary deactivation of emotional reactions.

10 The degree of mobilization is a function of the extent to which the people s intrinsic energy is released in action. This depends upon the degree of effort required in the circumstance, as interpreted by the individual. Situations that an individual regards as significant in relation to the achievement of goals and aspirations yield a greater release of energy than those interpreted as lacking this significance. Effective Mobilization involves Problem Solving and exercising Innovation in the course of action towards the accomplishment of end-results. Samatvam Academy, M-1/31, DLF City Phase II, Gurgaon 122 002, India. Problem Solving Problem Solving is a skill that is required of every person in almost every aspect of life. Problems are time consuming, create stress, and never seem to go away. In the typical problem solving process, most people implement a marginally acceptable or mere satisfactory solution instead of the optimal or ideal solution (Whetten & Cameron, 2007).