September 2, 2010

Five HUGE Things Not Taught in Business Schools

“O(B) = f(XX). The blueness of one’s ocean (think competitive advantage as defined in the popular book ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’) is directly proportional to one’s eXcellence in eXecution/XX. If one finds a strategic blue ocean one will ..... be copied,immediately; the ONLY defense, possibility of sustaining success is XX/eXcellence in eXecution.”—- Tom Peter’s from his latest book ‘The Little BIG Things’:

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”—- Peter Drucker

If these gurus speak forcefully and often about the need to execute, it is clearly a competency we need to equip our business school grads with.

Hence the top five academic - real world Relevance Gaps:
1. EXECUTION
2. EXECUTION
3. EXECUTION
4. EXECUTION
5. EXECUTION

OK perhaps a bit of overkill on my part but the point has to be made: this is a CHASM OF GIGANTIC PROPORTIONS!

Execution Teaching Topics:
> Be Anal about Execution! Anality is Strategic. Covet this competency.
> The Strategic Game Plan document must be 1/8” thick on the plan essence and 2” thick on execution.
> Theory is great, but without pristine (even inelegant) execution it produces ZERO results hence is worthless. How about evaluating the performance of a business school on the extent to which their ‘stuff’ has been successfully put into practice?
> Planning on the Run mobilizes a ‘Plan B’ mentality. No ‘Plan A’ has EVER worked the way its authors had intended. Plan >> Execute >> Learn >> Adjust >> Execute ...
> Recruit doers whose passion is to actually get things done. Anti-Pontificators Wanted! Left-brained Specialists not so much.
> Cut the CRAP. Blow up the thing that are no longer relevant to your strategy and/or prevent you from making progress. The ‘Grunge’ (thanks Tom Peters) must go in an organization, otherwise you get stuck in the present and can’t move forward.
> CEO’s - Chief Execution Officers are critically in need. Real strategic stuff. Execution Leaders will determine the success of any plan.
> CEO needs to be the Strategy Hawk who lives and dies by the success of strategy implementation.
> Cross-functional teaming. Results are delivered across the organization not through silos. If people are not working effectively together, dysfunction is created and results aren’t.
> Teach ‘the politics of execution’ in an organizational world full of biased people, power seekers and personal motives.

Curriculum designers: there you have the new course list to enhance the relevance of your graduates when they enter the business world.

Cheers, Roy

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Posted 9.2.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment