From desk to deal: how to execute a business idea.
9/2/2002
"Many people regard execution as detail work that's beneath the dignity of a business leader. That's wrong. To the contrary, it's a leader's most important job." So says Larry Bossidy, chairman and CEO of Honeywell and a co-author of Execution. After all, if the best-laid plans can't be carried out, what's the point? Bossidy and Charan, a consultant, lay out a clear course to help managers seamlessly align the three areas essential for execution: people, strategy, and operations. (People trump strategy and operations any day, the authors add, and they give stern advice about the need to find employees who go all out.) Ultimately, they write, leaders have to be intimately involved in execution, and never be "too busy being big honchos" to go all out, as well.