"There is no greater waste of time than doing efficiently that should never have been done." - Peter Drucker
The 4 major shifts that a startup needs to make, in order to be successful for the scaling-up journey. 3rd Shift is from Individual Productivity to Human Execution System. When you are a startup, its important that everyone is productive, but once you have some masses of human beings, it's about making sure that the company is productive. Most companies fail to cascade their strategy into their organisation, because they don't build their Human Execution System. It's easier to build one when you have 100 people than when you have 1000.
Watch this short 3mins video that talks about this shift...
TRANSCRIPT:
Moving from Individual Productivity to Scalable Human Execution Systems.
Now that you know your Strategy, you will need to to know “how” to execute it with your human execution systems.
Most companies fail to cascade their strategy, because they fail to build a human execution system.
To have a One, is to have a rapiding growing number of engaged human beings, working together and committed to overcoming challenges so as to hit 90day priorities consistently that will move the company towards its BHAG, as efficiently as possible.
Since a company is really just “human beings doing things”, and since you cannot control or change them, you’ll need to curate this social system, so that they will blossom and it does not necessary means you need to have ping pong tables or beers in the fridge.
As a company grows, it gets more difficult to get the right balance of enough stability to get things done and the agility to change. It is definitely easier to install a human execution system, when you have 100 pple than when you have 1000, it ensures that even when your goals or strategy change, when you scale from 10 mil to 100m, your teams have the habits and ability to execute with confidence & speed.
These are some 4 examples that your human execution system is not working:
You have motivated, inspired people who are committed and all working very hard, but the results you desired are constantly out of reach. All working more and full of activity but not reaching goals or we don't have enough resources to get things done.
You have committed people, all really happy and busy, but the cash is running thin, and it seems like not everyone is pulling their weight.
It is getting more and more difficult to make things happen, the communication problems are exacerbating, rework are increasing due to miscommunication, schedules are slipping, everyone is working hard, but in their own groups.
With the constant stream of new recruits coming, it is beginning to feel like a different company, and constantly reinventing the wheel of how things get done around here.
To build a human execution system, you need the 4 key ingredients of structure, process, culture and accountability.
With anything that has scale, human beings need structure & process to help them navigate through complexity to know who and what they need to do to get things done, and confusion creates unnecessary delay.
You can have a fantasy or wishlist about yr company on your website or how to get things done on your intranet, culture is how you “REALLY” behave and how things “ACTUALLY” get done around here.
So, work on your reality, not your fantasy.
Another word for accountability is ownership, and it's a psychological state and not a logical one, just see how someone behaves differently when they take care of their own baby vs someone else.
With these 4 ingredients of structure, process, culture and accountability, you will need to put them together through the 3 execution disciplines to install your human execution system.
So, ask yrself, are you building a human execution system to execute your strategy and are you doing it efficiently?