“Success begins with preparation but ends with execution”
In a previous article titled, “The 3 Highly Effective Habits of Business Success”, I outlined 3 key habits necessary for preparing for business success.
The article stressed the importance of learning, thinking and planning as crucial factors in the preparation for success both in business as well as in life.
In this article however, I will be discussing the 4th highly effective habit of business success.
This concluding article is in response to the feedback I got from my readers, most especially Elise of Elisesreview blog and Brenda of Mindrecipes.
They both pointed out the need for a 4th habit of business success which as a matter of fact, I had considered including in the first article but had a rethink when I realized I had written up to 3000+ words already just explaining the first 3 highly effective habits.
Therefore, I encourage you to join me once again on this unusual journey as we explore the 4th habit that brings about business success. As always, I urge you to share your views, thoughts or questions in the comment box below this article so as to help expand the knowledge therein.
As you’ve just seen, this article is a derivative of the feedback gotten from those who didn’t just read, but also contributed to the overall relevance of the article by leaving a comment behind. Always bear it in mind, knowledge shared, is knowledge expanded!
EXECUTION – the art of producing results!
The 4th highly effective habit of business success is execution. The great Isaac Newton once said, “All objects are at a state of rest until an external force is applied”.
Meaning; without taking action, everything else remains at a standstill. Every great accomplishment either in business or in life came as a result of certain actions executed by certain people in a certain way at a particular period in time. Nothing simply just happens by itself, people make things happen by taking certain calculated actions.
This is why execution is such a critical element in the composition of highly effective habits that brings about business success. This is because in the final analysis, it’s not what you know, thought, and even planned about that ultimately brings about success; rather it’s the eventual actions you took that brought about the success.
So without the presence of the 4th habit of execution, business success will only remain an imagination and may never become a reality.
Why is Execution so damn important?
Preparation which involves the cultivation of 3 highly effective habits of learning, thinking and planning helps you begin the process of achieving business success, but without execution, which involves putting into action all that you’ve learnt, thought about and laid out in a logical plan, all you’d ever accomplish is remaining in the process but never actually achieving success.
Preparation is getting ready for the game, while execution is getting into the field and playing the game. You see, you can prepare all day long, but if you never make it to the field and actually start putting to use all the skills you’ve acquired from practice (preparation), your chances of succeeding are not only slim, but absolutely non-existent.
It is only execution that has the potential to deliver success. That is, the measure of your preparation is the outcome of your execution. We know how well you’ve prepared when we see how much you’ve accomplished.
Until your actions (execution) produces certain results (outcome), all your learning, thinking, and planning (preparation) is regarded as effort (activity). In other words, until your execution produces certain outcomes, all your preparation is just activity. And activity (effort) is not a yardstick for measuring success, productivity (outcome) is.
How do I mean?
Each of the 3 highly effective habits of business success; learning, thinking and planning previously discussed produces certain outcomes which increases the odds of succeeding. They indicate how close or far you are from your predetermined destination, goal or objective. For example,
- the outcome of learning = knowledge (acquisition of information)
- the outcome of thinking = insight (comprehension of situation)
- the outcome of planning = strategy (formulation of action)
As you’ve probably noticed, none of these 3 outcomes of knowledge, insight and strategy clearly points to or suggests a yardstick for measuring success. They are only tools or indicators of success, they are only predicting the possibility of success occurring.
They don’t in anyway produce an outcome that will clearly reveal success or not. As a result, there’s need for one more habit, the habit of execution which will ultimately produce an outcome through which success can be objectively measured. Therefore,
- the outcome of execution = result (valuation of success)
After all is said and done, success is measured by results. Results are the feed backs you get from execution that makes valuating success possible. Without execution which ultimately produces results, it’s impossible to assess success. Making sure that your execution has the potentials to produce results is the subject matter to which we now turn.
How to Execute for RESULTS!
When it comes to executing for results, two factors are fundamentally necessary. They are;
EFFECTIVENESS – doing the right things
Before you begin to do what it is you need and should be doing in your business, be sure to ascertain that you are about to do the right thing(s). Often times, because of the pressure that the world of business mounts on us entrepreneurs, we tend to trade what is important for what is urgent.
We run after the good things at the expense of the right things. The irony is this; good things are not always the right things, but the right things are always good things. Therefore, never be in a rush to execute that you forget to align your actions with your predetermined objective(s).
Effectiveness is not so much about doing several things; it’s concerned primarily about doing the right things. Those set of activities or actions that contribute to the overall purpose or mission of your business.
Effectiveness is about remaining true to your core. Never letting the rush to get things done, influence what is being done. Effectiveness is never relenting to ask; “are we headed in the right direction?” “How does this action impact where I am headed?” “Is it getting me closer or getting me farther?”
EFFICIENCY – doing things right
Having made sure that you are on the right track (doing the right things), you want to be sure you’re doing them right. It’s not sufficient to be doing the right things if you go about doing them wrongly.
Your actions must be in alignment with your objectives (effectiveness) and those actions must be well taken (efficiency). The focus of efficiency is about managing the process of execution.
How well are you implementing your knowledge, insight and strategy? While effectiveness bothers about, on what activities are you implementing your knowledge, insight and strategy?
In the world of business, effectiveness is a leadership priority, knowing what to pursue as a business and what to overlook.Knowing what market to enter and which to stay away from. It’s about picking the right battles to fight.
Efficiency on the other hand, focuses more on management, knowing what tactics to use, what formation to employ and how many soldiers are needed for every battle. To understand efficiency, you must never fail to ask this question; “how well are we being effective?” In other words, “how well are we doing the right things?”
I have written an unusual article on how to build an effective organization, avail yourself with it by clicking here;
The Leadership role of every CEO
In conclusion
The 4th highly effective habit of business success is Execution and it entails effectiveness + efficiency. This means, success is about getting desired results by doing the right things and making sure they are consistently being done in the right manner.
In other words,
Execution (actions) = effectiveness (right actions) + efficiency (taken rightly) = success (desired result)
Has your business IQ increased as a result of reading this article?
32 Comments
Excellent post! Taking action and working towards the goal seems to be really difficult for many people.It is so easy to prepare for something but the results are only going to come if you take the first step and take action.Many people expect instant results but it does not work that way.
Nothing is much harder when it comes to achieving success, than the ability to consistently take the required actions achieving success constantly demands. You’re right Tom, many would rather continue preparing than stepping out there to take the 1st ACTION step achieving success requires.
Thank You for your contribution and welcome to naijapreneur!
It’s nice having you here with us 🙂
Hey Tito, EXCELLENT post! And thanks for the mention! Love how you broke execution down into the 2 leading factors of efficiency and effectiveness. I can safely say that my business IQ has improved as a result of reading this article 🙂 Keep up the good work!
I guess it’s simple courtesy to give honour to whom honour is due, you made the post happen Elise and thus deserved the mention. As always, thanks for your contribution. You sure do know how to make one’s efforts a lot more appreciated 🙂
Hi Tito,
Very nice post! Execution and taking action are important. Without action, we really won’t achieve success and our goals. Thanks for sharing
Thanks Dia for joining us here and being generous enough to share your thoughts about execution with us. Hope to see you around again, 🙂
Awesome post bro. I love the way you nailed the post. Yeah, i agree with your points. Execution are very important bro..so every entrepreneur must not be slow at executing things. Thanks a lot for the post! will for sure read again! Have fun. 😀
Hi Sam!
Increasing our customer base as entrepreneurs is one of the forms of business Execution required for success, abi? 🙂
Thanks for coming around and sharing your thoughts with us.
Dude, I feel you man. I like the depth you bring to business.
Cheers
Hello Segun,
Good to have you back again, you’re gradually becoming ONE of US, 🙂
Thanks for your comment, quite elevating.
Hello Tito, I must agree that execution is the crucial part of success. There have been many great plans developed but they crashed on the implementation and execution.
I think there are two main reasons why execution is so hard. First of all it is most of the time connected to some kind of change (and people usually hate changes of any kind). So they are often naturally refusing execution of plans.
Another reason could be that although the plan looked great on the paper, reality is always different. Are we prepared to deal wit all the obstacles?
Nice to have you around Adam, and thanks for joining in on the entrepreneurial conversation going on in our growing community here on naijapreneur.
Execution is crucial to achieving success of any kind and you nailed it by pointing out that refusal to change and complexities of reality are the two reasons that sometimes affects execution. What then do we do?
Here are a few suggestions;
(1) On Refusing to Change, make sure you involve those who would be executing the plan in the preparation of the plan. No involvement, no commitment. You cannot hand over plans to people and expect them to run with it when you didn’t involve them in cooking it.
(2) Confronting reality: truly, plans will never cover up for all that reality will present. Plans are just at most 60-80% compatible with reality. But they help us better confront reality since we’ve already gotten a certain part of reality covered in our plans, what then that doesn’t go according to plan can be adjusted based on the feedback we get from reality. Therefore, make your plans as flexible as possible. Always give room for modification, no plan is self sufficient by itself, you must modify as you implement your plans. Flexibility in your planning is the key to dealing with the harsh feedback you get from reality.
I hope this has been helpful to an extent? Definitely would love to see more of you around, yours is the longest comment reply I ever made so far here 🙂
Tito,
Thanks for commenting on my site. I am glad we were able to connect because the detail in this post is inspiring. I thank you for taking the time to provide the information you have in such depth. I wouldn’t do any justice trying to paraphrase it but know that you have given me some info that will change the way I do business and execute in the future. Great work man. I really enjoyed this.
Thanks so very much Frank for your comment, they sure made a difference. On behalf of all the unusual entrepreneurs who are members of this budding community, I gladly welcome you to naijapreneur! We hope to see more of you around and promise not to cease developing your business IQ.
Execution is definitely the most important habit. There’s no use of anything else if you do not execute your plan. However, if you do something, you will learn or achieve something. Add execution to the three previously discussed habits, and you have got a perfect plan to success!
Great post! Retweeted.
Hey Ishan,
It’s so nice to have your presence here and even nicer that you decided to share some insight with us about the importance of execution. Thank you for joining us and also helping to spread our unusual message to your followers.
Execution, truly is the crown of the highly effective habits of business success, because it’s the only habit that produces a means of estimating success -RESULTS.
Hope to see more of you around Ishan, you are welcome once again to our budding community of unusual entrepreneurs. 🙂
This is a great article man. The funny thing is, I have one in the making that is so similar. Of course it has its differences, but the over arching theme is pretty much the same. You’ll see!
Execution is the final measurfe to bring you to results you aspire. I’ve witnessed many people, including myself, get caught up in the stages prior – but when it’s time to execute – go gun shy. Wonderful job and it’s written excellently!
Hey JK,
I will definitely be on the look out for your version of execution, i’m so sure you would do a great job too. I will just link it up with this post as a resource link. Thanks for dropping by and sharing your insight too.
Hi Tito! I like how you laid it all out very simply with formulas such as Execution (actions) = effectiveness (right actions) + efficiency (taken rightly) = success (desired result). Very informative and excellent information. Thanks! Loving blessings
Hey Andrea,
So nice of you to grace our budding community with your presence and comments. On behalf of everyone, I say a big thank you!
I sure do hope to see more of you around, 🙂
Hi Tito,
I am new here.
I like how you have summarized execution – Effectiveness and Efficiency. For many people who encounter problems it is because they are not doing the right things. When I think about it, if you did not identify the right things to do, it basically means your planning preparation was screwed up. So just back track and start again. But it sure will help if you run your action plan through some mentors before execution. I am guilty of that many times. Learning the hard way I guess.
Doing things right to me is simpler. Once the right things are identified, it is only a matter of finding the discipline to get things done in the best and most diligent manner. I recommend just focusing on 1-3 right things to do each time. Once your start forget about the others. Case in point for me, commenting on other people’s blog is one of the right things for me to do everyday. I have developed the habit of just focusing on that person blog without allowing all the hyperlinks floating around to engage me. Once you click, you can be gone.
Cheers
Hey Jimmy,
Thanks for stopping by and really leaving some thoughtful comments behind too, great insight there!
It is true what you, better to focus on executing one action at a time than trying to multitask them. The more you try to juggle more than one thing at a time you lower you effectiveness and spend more time because your focus would have been compromised.
Also, checking up on a mentor before we execute is equally a great way to lower the risk of making mistakes. Since they know better, they help make our actions smarter!
Great to have you around. Have you grabbed your own copy of our FREE ebook?
You should! 🙂
Hi Tito,
Just wanted to leave a comment after reading this post. I have read several of your posts but never commented on this platform.
The mind-boggling thing about this article, reading it 5years later is how relevant and timeless the habits you talked about still are. Heady stuff.
Like I have been telling you for awhile you are a ? Starter and I am honored to call you a friend and a member of my team.
Looking forward to the evolution bro. More power to your elbow. ?✌✌?