The 4 Disciplines of Execution

Chris McChesney

📚 GENRE: Business & Finance

📃 PAGES: 352

✅ COMPLETED: September 16, 2024

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Day-to-day tasks and unanticipated urgent projects often prevent leaders from having the time and energy to identify and execute long-term strategic goals. The Four Disciplines of Execution aims to change that. Chris McChesney covers FranklinCovey’s 4DX framework, revealing a four-pillar blueprint leaders can use to help their teams execute important “big picture” strategic goals.  

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Leaders Have Two Jobs — The first is to handle The Whirlwind, which the author describes as the usual day-to-day tasks of the job and the unanticipated urgent projects that seem to pop up out of nowhere every week. The second, and arguably the more important of the two, is to identify and execute long-term, strategic breakthroughs that will move their team and organization forward. The problem is that The Whirlwind is often so overwhelming that teams are unable to work on these “big picture” initiatives. The 4DX framework is designed to help leaders and their teams make progress on these initiatives outside of The Whirlwind. This is helpful, because accomplishing these breakthroughs often has a major impact on the organization. As a leader, don’t forget that you have a responsibility to handle both of these key jobs: The Whirlwind and big breakthroughs.  

2️⃣ Focus on “Lead Measures” — Most leaders focus on lag measures, which are things like revenue, net income, market share, and any other measurement that is delivered after the fact. Although lag measures are very helpful, there’s a problem: by the time you receive these data points, the behavior that drove them is ancient history. Lead measures, on the other hand, are measures of the one or two most impactful actions or behaviors your team can do to reach the goal. You select then track these measures closely as you go, and they are used to guide your team’s performance. Lead measures are within your control, while lag measures are not. And the consistent completion of lead measures ultimately drives you to your goal. Focus on lead measures.

3️⃣ Leadership Tip: Hold People Accountable! — As a leader, part of your job (albeit an ugly part) is to hold people accountable for poor performance and/or poor behavior. You cannot let things slide. When you do, a bunch of bad things happen: people begin to feel they can get away with not pulling their weight; you lose respect and credibility as a leader; overall team engagement and motivation plummets; and top performers begin to resent you and flee the company. When there is blatant poor performance and behavior, you have to step in and do something. Everybody else on the team can tell when somebody is not doing their part and taking advantage of lenient leadership. If you don’t step in, you risk losing the team’s respect.

Favorite Quote

“In our consulting engagements to implement 4DX, we always emphasize that leaders must do two things. First, they must sustain their current operation (the whirlwind). Second, they must drive future results (the WIG).”

Introduction

  • About the Book — The 4 Disciplines of Execution is a book written by the team at FranklinCovey, a company specializing in organizational performance improvement. The book aims to help leaders develop strategies for their teams and execute them at a high level. The execution piece is where this book is different from other business books. Execution is the focus — it’s more about how than what. More than 100,000 companies worldwide have used this training program. 
  • About the Author — Chris McChesney is the Global Practice Leader of Execution at FranklinCovey. For more than 10 years, he has led the design and development of the 4 Disciplines of Execution principles. He has also led the implementation of the principles at places like Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Frito Lay, and more. Sean Covey and Jim Huling also contributed to the book. 

Ch. 1: The Real Problem With Execution

  • Two Types of Goals — Whether you call it a goal or a strategy, every initiative you come up with to move your team or company forward will fall into one of two categories: “Stroke-of-the-pen” and breakthroughs. Executing stroke-of-the-pen initiatives is far easier than breakthroughs, because breakthroughs require your people to change their behavior.
    • “Stroke-of-the-Pen” — Stroke-of-the-pen initiatives are projects that simply require the green light from you as a leader. Examples include a new digital marketing campaign, adding a new staff member, and realigning roles on your team. If you have the money and authority, these initiatives mainly just require you telling your team to do it. 
    • Breakthrough — Breakthrough initiatives, on the other hand, require your associates to change their behavior. These are the hardest initiatives to execute because they require your people — often lots of people — to do things differently. And often, these routines you’re trying to change have been in place for decades. Examples include asking your sales team to be more consultative in their conversations with clients, asking teams to collaborate with each other, requiring your team to respond faster to customers, or implementing new software. These breakthrough initiatives often offer the biggest payoff if executed well, but they are tough. Companies all over the world struggle with executing them. 
  • Problems With Breakthroughs — One study on organizational change found that 65% of initiatives require significant behavioral change on the part of employees. That’s a high percentage, and most leaders fail to consider or plan for it in advance. This is part of the reason breakthrough initiatives are so hard to execute. A few other reasons found from the survey include:
    • Clarity of Objective — Many associates report not having a clear idea of the goal they’re being asked to execute. As a leader, it’s important to find ways to be as clear as possible. 
    • Lack of Commitment — Somehow, you have to find ways to get associates to buy in to the changes. Only 51% of people in the survey said they were passionate about their team’s goals.
    • Accountability — 81% of the people surveyed said they were not held accountable for regular progress on the organization’s goals. And the goals being proposed by leaders were not translated into specific actions — 87% had no clear idea what they should be doing to achieve the goal. As a leader, you have to make sure you are putting incremental stepping stones or “mini goals” in place and following up on them to make sure actual progress is being made. 
  • The No. 1 Killer of Breakthroughs — The No. 1 killer of breakthrough initiatives is what the authors call “The Whirlwind,” which is essentially all of the day-to-day work and urgent projects you get slammed with. Leaders and associates are so busy just trying to survive their day that they can’t plan and execute larger, “big picture” strategic goals. The urgency and pace of The Whirlwind make it almost impossible to execute any new, large-scale initiative that can move your team forward. There simply isn’t enough time, energy, or resources to handle the daily whirlwind AND execute breakthrough initiatives that often require associates to change behavior. Ironically, large-scale strategic goals often have the biggest payoff and are essential for the organization to survive and advance. The problem is that The Whirlwind prevents department leaders from having the time to think about them.
    • Quote (P. 13): “The real enemy of execution is your day job! We call it the whirlwind. It’s the massive amount of energy that’s necessary just to keep your operation going on a day-to-day basis; and ironically, it’s also the thing that makes it so hard to execute anything new. The whirlwind robs you of the focus required to move your team forward. Leaders seldom differentiate between the whirlwind and strategic goals, because both are necessary to the survival of the organization. However, they are clearly different; and more important, they compete relentlessly for time, resources, energy, and attention. We don’t have to tell you which will usually win this fight. The whirlwind is urgent, and it acts on you and everyone working for you every minute of every day. The goals you’ve set for moving forward are important, but when urgency and importance clash, urgency will win out every time.”
    • Quote (P. 14): “It’s also true, however, that if you ignore the important, it can kill you tomorrow. In other words, if you and your team operate solely from within the whirlwind, you won’t progress — all your energy is spent just trying to stay upright in the wind. The challenge is executing your most important goals in the midst of the urgent!”
  • Leadership Tip: Hire Winners — In order to have any chance of executing a new initiative, you need to have a team consisting of high performers who display a strong work ethic and are committed to helping the company reach goals. Every workplace has a mix of high performers, mid-level performers, and those who just don’t care. The more high performers you can hire, the better you will be as an organization. Sometimes, this may require being very selective in the hiring process. 
  • The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) — There are four pillars of high execution. This book will cover each of them in-depth in their own chapter. These disciplines act like a system; you can use the blueprint to pursue any goal. The disciplines have to be used in tandem and in sequence, though. At a high level, here is what each of them are about:
    • Discipline No. 1: Focus on Wildly Important Goals — The more you do, the less you actually accomplish. It’s hard for high performers to say ‘no’ to things. But you have to narrow your focus as an individual, a team, and as an organization. This pillar is about picking one Wildly Important Goal (WIG) and putting the majority of your time, effort, and attention on that goal. When you spread yourself thin by trying to pursue multiple goals, in addition to dealing with The Whirlwind every day, you will not get very good results on anything. In order for a WIG to be effective, it needs to have a starting place, a finish line, and a finish date. For example: Increase revenue from new subscriptions from $3.5 million to $4.5 million by December 31.
    • Discipline No. 2: Act on the Lead Measures — Whenever you’re trying to execute any goal, there are lead measures and lagging measures. Lagging measures are data points that you get after the fact and can’t be used to improve performance. These are things like revenue, profit, market share, customer satisfaction ratings, etc. When you receive these numbers, the performance that drove them — good or bad — is already in the past. Lead measures, on the other hand, are measures of the most impactful actions or behaviors your team must do to reach the goal. You identify then track these measures closely as you go, and they are used to guide your team’s performance. Lead measures are within your control, while lag measures are not. Most leaders fail to set lead measures for their team; they name a goal and then expect their people to get it done. But it’s critical to set lead measures that will drive progress toward the goal. Don’t focus on the goal itself; focus on the lead measures that drive you to the goal. Lead measures ultimately help you accomplish your big lag measure targets.
      • Ex. Weight Loss — Let’s use weight loss as an example of lead measures vs. lag measures. The lag measure is pounds lost. You only see this number on the scale. Two lead measures could be the specific number of calories you want to eat every day and the number of hours you spend exercising each week. You have control over the two lead measures. By hitting your targets in these two areas, you can achieve your weight loss goals. These lead measures are what you want to focus on. 
    • Discipline No. 3: Keep a Scoreboard — People play differently when they’re keeping score. This pillar is all about keeping people engaged. When you’re keeping score and maintaining close tabs on progress toward the goal, you keep people engaged and committed because they have a clear understanding of whether they’re winning or losing. The scoreboard you keep has to be simple; the team needs to be able to see it and quickly know whether they’re making progress or not. If they don’t know the score, they’re not going to care. Bowling through a curtain is fun in the beginning — but if you can’t see the pins fall, it will quickly become boring. The scoreboard allows your people to see the pins falling (or not falling). Without the scoreboard, your people will not have as much drive and motivation. It’s often this lack of not knowing the score that leads to people not caring. Side note — Nothing creates great team chemistry like winning does. People want to win. 
    • Discipline No. 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability — If you don’t hold each other accountable, the goal you’re pursuing will get lost in The Whirlwind. How do you hold each other accountable? You hold a meeting with the team every single week. It doesn’t have to last long — 20 or 30 minutes is fine. In that brief time, you will review the scoreboard, ask everybody to go around and report on their progress from the week before, and pinpoint one or two things each team member can do outside The Whirlwind in the week ahead to drive progress toward the goal. The key is to have this accountability meeting weekly. If you don’t, people will use the irregular meeting schedule as an excuse for not making progress toward the goal (“oh, we’re still doing that?”). The weekly meeting holds people accountable. Having it weekly also communicates that the project is high-stakes, and people generally perform better when they know there’s a lot on the line. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — The four disciplines of execution can be used as a system to work toward any goal you can think of. Because The Whirlwind is so demanding, it’s important to narrow your big-picture, large-scale strategic goals down to one. Then use the system to make progress with your team toward that goal outside of the urgent projects in your Whirlwind. It’s also important to hire winners, because hard working and driven people give every team a huge advantage. They make everything easier. 

Ch. 2: Discipline No. 1 — Focus on the Wildly Important

  • The Wildly Important Goal (WIG) — The first discipline of execution involves picking a Wildly Important Goal (WIG) to pursue. It’s important to note that we’re not ignoring The Whirlwind here. The Whirlwind is always going to be there. It’s inescapable. You’re always going to have your day-to-day work and unexpected urgent projects that take up most of your time and energy. That’s why you want to narrow your focus and pick ONE big-picture WIG to work on outside of The Whirlwind. Once you’ve picked one, your team will now have two buckets that their work falls into: their Whirlwind and the WIG. About 80% of their time will be spent on their Whirlwind, and 20% of their time should be spent progressing toward the WIG.
    • Quote (P. 176): “In our consulting engagements to implement 4DX, we always emphasize that leaders must do two things. First, they must sustain their current operation (the whirlwind). Second, they must drive future results (the WIG).”
  • Keys to the WIG — In a nutshell, a WIG is a goal or initiative outside of The Whirlwind that, if completed, will have a significant impact your team and the organization as a whole.  A question you can ask yourself to spark ideas is: “If everything remained the same, where do we need to see the most improvement?” There are a few things to keep in mind as you select a WIG to pursue:
    • Narrow Your Focus — The whole point of a WIG is to narrow your focus and select ONE goal to go for. When you and your team work toward too many goals, you actually accomplish less and it leads to poor results. Narrow your focus and concentrate on making progress toward one WIG at a time outside of The Whirlwind.
      • Quote (P. 33): “After coaching more than sixty thousand teams to apply 4DX, we have learned conclusively that if you want maximum results, you must narrow your focus to no more than one new significant goal beyond the whirlwind.”
      • Quote (P. 34): “Teams who try to focus to too many new goals at the same time usually wind up doing a mediocre job on all of them.”
    • Say “No” to Ideas — In order to narrow your focus effectively, you’re going to have to say “no” to certain ideas, even if they’re really good ones. As Stephen Covey said, “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, unapologetically — to say no to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.” And as Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said — “We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose.”
    • Specific and Measurable — Don’t be too broad with your WIG. The WIG you select needs to be specific and measurable. This means you have a current state starting point, a desired end point, and a deadline to get it done by. Use this formula: From X to Y by When. A bad example: Grow revenue. A good example: Decrease the speed of checkouts from 4:45 to 3:30 by the end of the year. Whatever you choose as your WIG, just make sure it’s something you can actually measure.
      • Quote (P. 218): “As one of our clients put it, ‘If you’re not keeping score, you’re just practicing.’ A game without a clearly measurable score will never be a game that matters.”
  • Leadership Tip: Encourage Collaboration — Coming up with your demands and telling your team to get it done is the worst way to lead people. The best way to lead involves encouraging your people to collaborate with you. You need to get your team involved in big decisions whenever possible. By doing so, you create a sense of collaboration, ownership, and engagement among everyone involved. In other words, you get people to commit and buy in to the vision. People are willing to work harder when they feel like their voice is heard and valued. Remember this: No involvement, no commitment.
    • Quote (P. 46): “The highest levels of execution are never reached when the strategy is devised solely by the top leaders of the organization and simply handed down to the leaders and teams below. Without the involvement of all, you cannot generate the high levels of commitment execution requires. . . This not only leverages the knowledge of these frontline leaders, but also gives the team a greater sense of ownership and involvement.”
  • Drive Results — The way to get promoted and earn solid raises and bonuses is to drive results. If you do your job at a satisfactory level, you’ll always find employment. But if you really want to move up the ladder, you need to lead teams and projects that drive great results and accomplish big company goals. Putting this Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) framework to use will help you and your team accomplish goals outside of The Whirlwind.
    • Quote (P. 46): “In a candid presentation, he [Dave Grissen of Marriott International hotels] addressed a group of hotel managers by saying, ‘I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you always want to have a job at Marriott, all you have to do is take care of the whirlwind. Run your day-to-day well and you’ll always have a job. But if you want to get promoted, you have to drive results. Call your shot. Pick a WIG that improves our customer experience and then move the needle, whether it’s arrival experience or event satisfaction or everything in working order.’”
  • Chapter Takeaway — The first pillar of the 4DX framework is to select a Wildly Important Goal (WIG). This should be a goal that, if completed, will have a profound impact on your team or organization. It’s critical that you and your team work toward just one WIG. The WIG needs to be specific and measurable, giving your team clear direction about the desired outcome and a target date for getting the job done. 

Ch. 3: Discipline No. 2 — Act on the Lead Measures

  • Lead Measures vs. Lag Measures — The second pillar of the 4DX framework involves acting on lead measures. What does this mean? It means selecting a few key actions or behaviors that will have the greatest impact in the pursuit of your WIG and focusing on completing those actions or behaviors. This is why they are called ‘lead measures’ — by completing them, you and your team can control your progress toward the goal. Lead measures should be measurable; in other words, you should be able to track these and see your progress via data. Lag measures, in contrast, are data points that you see after the fact. Once a lag measure (e.g. total revenue) is presented to you, there’s nothing you can do about it. The behavior that drove the lag measure has already been completed. 
    • Ex. Lag Measure — A teacher wants to improve his students’ reading scores. The reading scores are the lagging measure. Once the teacher gets a report with all of his students’ reading scores, there’s nothing he can do about it. 
    • Ex. Lead Measure — Sticking with this teacher example, two lead measures could be the number of hours of reading he assigns to his students and the number of tutoring sessions he assigns to the students. The teacher has control over both of these, and both lead measures can be tracked. By focusing on these two lead measures, the teacher can accomplish the goal of improving student reading scores. He’s taking action rather than sitting back and hoping scores improve. 
  • Lead Measures Are Predictive & Influenceable — Lead measures are actions or behaviors that, if taken, will help you make significant progress toward achieving your WIG. Every lead measure has two key characteristics. When selecting lead measures, keep these in mind: 
    • Predictive — To qualify as a lead measure, the action or behavior you’ve chosen has to be predictive of the lag measure. What does this mean? It means this: If you are successful in accomplishing your lead measures consistently, it will almost guarantee that your lag measures will improve. And when your lag measures improve, essentially that means that you’ve accomplished your WIG. Using the weight loss example again — if you hit your daily caloric intake and hours spent exercising targets (lead measures), you are almost guaranteed to lose weight on the scale (lag measure). 
    • Influenceable — To qualify as a lead measure, the action or behavior you’ve chosen needs to be something that you and your team have control over. If it’s something that is out of your control and dependent on other teams or factors, it’s not a lead measure. 
  • Lead Measures Move Lag Measures — There’s nothing inherently wrong with lag measures. In fact, lag measures are what you’re trying to positively influence by focusing on lead measures. In other words, lead measures help improve lag measures. And lag measures are essentially the WIG — they are what you’re trying to improve. When you focus on reducing calories by a certain amount every day and exercising for a certain amount of hours a week (lead measures), you will positively affect your weight on the scale (lag measure). The lag measures are the sexy numbers that tell you if you have been doing good work (e.g. total revenue). By focusing on lead measures, you can improve your lag measures and accomplish the WIG. To help visualize this, see the diagrams below. 
    • Quote (P. 55): “The second discipline [of the 4DX framework] is to apply disproportionate energy to the few actions (or behaviors) that will have the greatest impact on achieving the Wildly Important Goal. We call these actions ‘lead measures’ because they are the measurable drivers that actually lead to WIG achievement.”
    • Quote (P. 58): “Remember, a lag measure is the measurement of a result you are trying to achieve. We call them lag measures because by the time you get the result, the performance that drove it is in the past; the numbers are always lagging.”
  • Lead Measures: Work With Purpose — The point here with lead measures is that you want to have a plan of action when pursuing a WIG. What you absolutely don’t want to do is pick a WIG and then “hope” that you get there through “hard work.” By defining a set of lead measures, working with your team to accomplish them, tracking your progress via data, and meeting with your team regularly to discuss progress, you are able to have a huge influence on your lag measures (i.e. the WIG that you’re trying to accomplish). This beats waiting and hoping by a mile. 
    • Quote (P. 57): “Discipline 2 requires you to define the daily or weekly lead measures, the achievement of which will lead to the goal. Then each week the team identifies the most important actions that will drive those lead measures.”
    • Quote (P. 58): “In Discipline 2, you create lead measures, the movement of which will become the driving force for achieving the Team WIG. In the months ahead, the team will invest consistent energy toward moving these lead measures. This investment will be the key to their success. We believe that understanding lead measures will be one of the most important insights you take from this book.”
    • Quote (P. 299): “Stay solely focused on ideas that will drive the Team WIG. Don’t drift into a general discussion of good things to do rather than things that will impact the Team WIG, or you will end up with a long list of irrelevancies.”
  • Lead Measures: Track & Monitor — Because lead measures have a huge impact on whether or not you achieve your WIG, it’s critical that you track and monitor the progress you’re making on them. This is not easy. And it’s why a lot of teams don’t set lead measures; they aren’t always easy to track. It’s easy to track your weight (lag measure). It’s not as easy to track your caloric intake and hours spent exercising (lead measures). Although it’s not easy or fun, you must find a way to do it, even if it means inventing some kind of system to track metrics. Having this data will help you understand if you’re actually making progress toward your goal. And if the data shows that you’re not making much progress, you have time to adapt and make changes. The data is huge. Find a way to track it.
    • Quote (P. 60): “In the end, it’s the data on lead measures that makes the difference, that enables you to close the gap between what you know the team should do and what they are actually doing.”
    • Quote (P. 68): “The lesson in this story is that lead-measure data is almost always more difficult to acquire than lag-measure data, but you must pay the price to track your lead measures. We often see teams struggle with this, zeroing in on a high-leverage lead measure only to say, ‘Wow, getting that data is going to take real work! We’re too busy to do that.’ If you’re serious about your WIG, then you must create a way to track your lead measures. Without data, you can’t drive performance on the lead measures; without lead measures, you don’t have leverage.”
  • Lead Measures: A Case Study — A water bottling plant that the authors worked with had this WIG: Increase annual water production from 175 million liters to 185 million liters by December 31. When trying to pick lead measures, the employees initially wanted to use monthly water production. While focusing on monthly water production was predictive of annual water production, it was not influenceable. Monthly water production, like annual water production, is basically another lagging measure. The authors eventually helped the team come up with the following two lead measures. By focusing on these two lead measures, they increased their annual water production (lag measure):
    • Increase the percentage of shifts with fully-staffed crews
    • Reduce the amount of time our machines are not in use helping produce water 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Lead measures are two or three of the most impactful actions or behaviors that, if completed, will lead to an improvement in lag measures (and the achievement of your WIG). Lead measures are predictive — meaning that if you do them, you can expect to improve your lag measures. Lead measures are also influenceable — meaning your team has control over them and can act on them directly. 

Ch. 4: Discipline No. 3 — Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

  • Build a Scoreboard — The third discipline of the 4DX framework is to create a scoreboard. Why is the scoreboard important? You and your team need to have a simple, clean visual that quickly and clearly shows the progress you’ve made (or not made) toward to your lag measures (WIG) and lead measures. Why? Because you need to know where you stand in relation to your goals. There are two reasons you need to know where you stand: (i) much like sports, the scoreboard keeps your team engaged and motivated, and (ii) it allows you to make changes to your approach if you are not making very good progress.
    • Quote (P. 75): “If the lead and lag measures are not captured on a visual scoreboard and updated regularly, they will disappear into the distraction of the whirlwind. People disengage when they don’t know the score. When they can see at a glance whether or not they are winning, they become profoundly engaged.”
    • Quote (P. 77): “Great teams know at every moment whether or not they are winning. They must know; otherwise, they don’t know what they have to do to win the game. A compelling scoreboard tells the team where they are and where they should be, information essential to team problem-solving and decision-making.”
  • The Scoreboard: Five Advantages — The scoreboard charts your progress toward both your lead and lag measures using data. There are five main advantages to building and maintaining a scoreboard. Each of these contribute to keeping the team pushing toward the goal. Without a scoreboard, you lose out on all five of these advantages. Below is an example scoreboard. 
    • Visual Representation — Having a visual representation of your progress is really helpful and allows your team to easily know what’s going on. This is much better than not having any kind of visual and “hoping” that the team is making progress toward the goal, not really knowing where you stand. 
    • Engaged Teams — One of the best benefits of maintaining a scoreboard is that it keeps your team engaged in the goal. Often when a team makes a goal, it seems important in the moment, but then everyone forgets about it. They are too busy dealing with their Whirlwind and other urgent projects. The goal dies. The scoreboard provides an easy reference for team members to know where they stand in relation to their WIG and lead measures, which keeps them engaged and motivated to make progress. 
    • Accountable Teams — The scoreboard also holds the team accountable; if the team can clearly see that they’re dropping the ball, they will be more motivated to find and correct the issues and get back on track. The scoreboard doesn’t lie. 
    • Sense of Importance & Urgency — Finally, keeping a scoreboard gives the goal a sense of urgency and importance. It communicates to the team “hey, this is a serious project. We’re going to make sure we monitor progress.” As a result, your team will be more likely to make the goal a priority rather than letting it drift to the wayside.
    • Team Chemistry — At the end of the day, there is no better builder of team chemistry than winning. By keeping a scoreboard and showing your progress, you build team morale. People love to win. 
      • Quote (P. 85): “In our experience, nothing affects morale and engagement more powerfully than when people feel they are winning.”
  • Presenting the Scoreboard — There are a couple of rules to follow when building your scoreboard. First, it needs to be simple. The more complicated it is, the more likely you’re going to lose people’s interest and attention. Second, you need to display it in a place where everyone can easily see it. If it’s sitting in a corner in your office, it’s not going to help anyone. Third, it needs to show your progress toward lead and lag measures (your WIG). You need to be present both in a very simplistic way. Finally, you need to be able to tell in an instant if the team is winning or losing. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Build a scoreboard that displays the team’s progress toward your lead and lag (WIG) measures. The scoreboard should be very simple and allow the team to easily see if they’re winning or losing. There are several really great benefits that come with a scoreboard. Take the time to do it right. 

Ch. 5: Discipline No. 4 — Create a Cadence of Accountability

  • WIG Meetings — The fourth and final discipline of the 4DX framework is to schedule weekly WIG meetings. Why? These meetings hold the team accountable. Without them, the team will lose sight of the goal and let it fall to the wayside. They should be held on the same day and time every week, and they should last a maximum of 30 minutes. During these meetings, each member of the team goes around and reports on the progress made toward the commitments he or she took responsibility for in the previous WIG meeting. 
    • Quote (P. 91): “This consistency [of the weekly WIG meeting] is critical. Without it, your team will never establish a sustained rhythm of performance.”
    • Quote (P. 91): “It is truly amazing what you can accomplish by the simple discipline of meeting around a goal on a weekly basis over an extended period of time. There is nothing quite like it. Frankly, we’re amazed that this discipline isn’t practiced more frequently.”
    • Quote (P. 100): “Without the steady rhythm of the WIG Session, there will always be things team members know they should do, but never do with real consistency.”
  • How to Structure WIG Meetings — There are three basic elements of a WIG meeting. Each of these elements should take about 10 minutes apiece to run through. The three elements of a WIG meeting include the following. Also see the photo below for some sample language that you should be hearing from your team in each of these phases of the meeting. 
    • Review the Scoreboard — First, you’ll take a look as a group at the scoreboard to evaluate overall progress toward the goal. This is another reason why it’s really important to track your lead and lag measures on the scoreboard — you should be reviewing this data as a team in your weekly WIG meeting. If you’re not where you want to be on the scoreboard, discuss any changes in approach. 
    • Accountability — Next, every member of the team takes a turn reporting to the group the progress they made toward the two or three actions they committed to in the previous week’s WIG meeting. As the leader, you should be the first to share. 
    • Plan — Lastly, every member of the team will go around and name one or two commitments that they plan to work on in the coming week. These actions should be things that help the team make progress toward your lead measures. They should be very specific, not vague. And the assignments should come from each member of the team, not handed down by you. A key question to get people thinking: What is the one thing you can do this week that would have the most impact on the scoreboard? By driving progress toward your lead measures, you in turn drive progress toward your lag measure (WIG). Each individual will then report their results to the group at the beginning of the next week’s WIG meeting. In this way, the WIG meeting holds people accountable; it makes every team member commit to an action and report to the group the following week. If you’re slacking, you’re going to be exposed. 
      • Quote (P. 96): “Now let’s take the example of Tomás, a member of a sales team whose lead measure is to send out two new proposals each week. Tomás knows that his list of prospects is running low, so for this week, his commitment might be to acquire names and contact information for ten additional prospects, ensuring he has enough to successfully move two of them to the proposal stage.”
  • Leadership Tip: Hold People Accountable! — As a leader, part of your job (albeit the ugly part) is to hold people accountable for poor performance and/or poor behavior. You cannot let things slide. Because when you do, a bunch of bad things happen: people begin to feel they can get away with not pulling their weight; you lose respect and credibility as a leader; overall team engagement and motivation plummets; top performers begin to resent you and leave the company. When there is blatant poor performance and behavior, you have to step in and do something. Everybody else on the team can tell when somebody is not doing their part and taking advantage. If you don’t step in, you risk losing the team’s respect. I’ve seen this unfold firsthand.
    • Quote (P. 90): “Unfortunately, when leaders fail to address performance and behavioral issues, this undermines the entire team, leading to lower quality and weak organizational culture. It sets a dangerous precedent as people start to learn that there are no real consequences for poor behavior or performance. Without accountability, engagement wanes and resentment can build in members of the team who are negatively impacted. Leaders lose their credibility, and top performers leave.”
  • Leadership Tip: How to Hold People Accountable — Holding people accountable is one of the most difficult parts of being a leader. But it has to be done, and there’s an art to doing it. When it comes to holding these tough conversations, you should try to follow this formula:
    • Demonstrate Respect — Start by showing respect for the person you’re addressing. An example: Jeff, I want you to know that the event last week was a huge success, and without you, it could have been a disaster. Everyone on this team understands how hard you worked and how important this client is to us. Thank you for everything you did.
    • Reinforce Accountability — Next, transition into the hard part of the conversation: bringing up the issue at hand. An example: Jeff, I also want you to know how important your contribution is to this team. Without you, we can’t reach our goal. This means that when we make a commitment, we have to find a way to fulfill it no matter what happens during the week.
    • Encourage Performance — Finally, end by encouraging the person. An example: Jeff, I know you want to help us follow through. Can we count on you to catch up, by fulfilling last week’s commitment as well as the one you were planning on making for next week? 
  • Leadership Tip: Clear the Path — As a leader, one of your duties is to help your people out. At every workplace, there is friction that prevents people from getting things done as quickly and easily as they want. These roadblocks are usually out of people’s hands, which makes them really frustrating to deal with. The long, wild copywriting review process is an example. Ask the people on your team how you can make their lives easier. Consistently ask them if there’s anything you can do to help clear their path and reduce friction.
    • Quote (P. 98): “In fact, as the leader, you should often ask each team member: ‘What can I do this week to clear the path for you?’”
  • Leadership Tip: Three Reasons People Disengage — It’s not easy to keep people engaged in their job. Passion for the work is the No. 1 predictor of employee engagement and motivation, but most people aren’t passionate about what they do and don’t want to work at all. Although it’s hard to keep people engaged, knowing a few of the reasons why they might disengage can help you a little bit as a leader. In his book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Patrick Lencioni lays them out:
    • Anonymity — Employees feel their leaders don’t know or care what they are doing
    • Irrelevance — Employees don’t understand how their job makes a difference
    • Immeasurement — Employees cannot measure or assess for themselves the contribution they are making. In other words, there’s no easy way to tell with numbers and data how well they are doing their job. When an employee works in a role where they can easily show with data the value they bring, it leads to raises, promotions, and praise. When the role they work in doesn’t involve metrics of any kind, it can be hard for them to show how much value they bring. This can be frustrating for the employee. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — In order to hold team members accountable and prevent the goal from falling off to the wayside, hold weekly WIG meetings. In these meetings, every member of the group will report progress from the previous week, the team will evaluate the scoreboard together, and everybody will commit to one or two actions to work on (outside of their Whirlwind) in the week ahead. The consistency of these meetings is crucial; hold them at the same day and time every week to create rhythm. 

Ch. 6: Choosing Where to Focus

  • Leader of Leaders: Organizational WIG — This chapter outlined how to use the 4DX framework from the perspective of a leader who oversees managers. The greatest challenge for leaders of leaders is selecting a primary WIG that each manager then works toward with their own team-focused WIG. Choosing a strong primary WIG is really important because it will dictate what the teams select as their WIG — all team WIGs will focus on accomplishing the organizational WIG. As discussed in chapter two, the primary WIG for the organization should be centered on the No. 1 thing you want to improve as a company. A question you can ask yourself to spark ideas is: “If every other area of our operation remained at its current level of performance, in which one area would we most want to achieve significant results?”

Ch. 7: Translating Organizational Focus Into Executable Targets

  • Leader of Leaders: Battle WIGs — This chapter is also for leaders of leaders. Once you’ve selected your primary (i.e. organizational) WIG, you can, if necessary, choose 2-3 sub-WIGs (i.e. “Battle WIGs”). These Battle WIGs are 2-3 areas that will contribute to achieving the organizational WIG. All of your teams then select their own team WIGs that align with one of the 2-3 Battle WIGs. Important note — Battle WIGs aren’t needed for every organization; it depends on how big the company is and how the departments are organized. If the company is small enough, you could just have a primary WIG and team WIGs that work toward it. 
  • Don’t Select Too Many Battle WIGs — A common mistake is to select a ton of Battle WIGs that contribute to the organizational WIG. Although there may be many factors that can help you achieve the organizational WIG, you want to keep things simple and focused. You want to narrow it down to 2-3 Battle WIGs, otherwise you have too many points of focus. You become spread too thin. For example, while working with the Gaylord Opryland resort, the authors helped their leadership group narrow down their list of Battle WIGs from 17 to 3. A key question when determining Battle WIGs is this: “What is the smallest number of battles necessary to win the war.” Once Battle WIGs are selected, all of your teams should then pick their own team WIG that aligns with or contributes to completing one of the Battle WIGs. The diagram below of the Gaylord Opryland resort’s WIG layout can help understand this chapter. 
    • Quote (P. 136): “First, it reminds everyone that the only reason for Key Battles (sub-WIGs) to exist is to achieve the Primary WIG. Second, and even more critical, it helps leaders pinpoint the Key Battles most essential for success by determining the fewest possible battles necessary to win. This is critical for maintaining focus.”
    • Quote (P. 137): “Having to define the fewest possible battles necessary to win forces leaders to think strategically about which victories are absolutely necessary to achieve the primary WIG.”
    • Quote (P. 145): “In the end, does the structure of Primary WIG and Key Battles seem simple? Yes. And that simplicity is the key to a successful implementation.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Battle WIGs aren’t needed for every organization. You could just have a primary WIG and team WIGs that work toward it. As a leader of leaders, don’t select too many Battle WIGs! 

Ch. 8: Getting Your Leaders on Board

  • Leader of Leaders: Team WIGs — This chapter is also for leaders of leaders. Once the organizational WIG and underlying Battle WIGs have been selected, it’s time to let your team managers decide on team WIGs. Every team WIG needs to align with either one of the Battle WIGs or the organizational WIG. Importantly, you need to allow your team managers to work with their teams to select a team WIG. In other words, you should not be dictating team WIGs. Give your team managers the freedom, flexibility, and trust to select their team WIG. You can then veto it if it doesn’t align well with the organizational WIG or one of the Battle WIGs. It’s really important to let the managers and their teams select their own team WIG; they will have a better understanding of what they can do to drive success and it shows that you trust them, which increases engagement. 
  • Leadership Tip: Transparency, Understanding, and Involvement — There are many keys to strong leadership, but three that should always be part of your style are: transparency, understanding, and involvement. More on these below:
    • Transparency — Always be transparent with your team. Don’t just tell them that a decision has been made about something; explain to them why the decision was made. Explain the logic and reasoning behind the decision. Tell them about the other options that were considered and why you went a different direction. Being transparent also involves admitting to the team (at times) that you don’t have all the answers and asking them for input and feedback. By being transparent, you make people feel valued and respected. Nobody likes a boss who makes decisions (especially dumb ones) and doesn’t explain the reasoning behind them. It makes the team feel like they don’t matter or can’t be trusted.
      • Quote (P. 152): “When we prepare leaders for this moment, we coach them to share the logic of how they got to these decisions. We also coach that it’s important to outline the other options that were considered and rejected, and any lingering concerns or questions they still have. Leaders with a transparency mindset share their concerns openly, freely acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers, and actively encourage feedback from others no matter where they reside on the organizational chart. Speaking to your fellow leaders with this level of transparency both shows and elicits respect.”
    • Understanding — Before you make decisions, take the time to talk to your team and ask them for their opinion. Doing this makes them feel valued. You can understand their position, even if you don’t agree. Even if what they want is ultimately not what you end up deciding to do, you at least took the time to gather their input and understand their position. Nobody likes a leader that makes decisions without including anybody else’s input.
      • Quote (P. 153): “When leaders are unwilling to adopt an understanding mindset, they often project an air of ego or insecurity, neither of which creates the influence you need.”
      • Quote (P. 154): “In the end, it’s far more important to members of your team to feel understood than it is for their ideas to be adopted.”
      • Quote (P. 158): “To secure this [understanding] mindset, a great practice is to restate feedback questions or statements before trying to answer them. Restating the feedback both ensures the feedback was heard and demonstrates respect to the person offering it.”
    • Involvement — In many ways, being transparent and having a mindset of understanding will make your team feel involved. But it’s important to reiterate this point. As a leader, you want to encourage a culture of collaboration with your team. Whenever possible, include your team in decisions and high-stakes projects. When you do, you show that you trust them and value their opinion, feedback, and skillset. Nobody likes to feel like they are there just to take orders. Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. Make it a big part of your leadership style. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — As a leader of leaders, once you’ve decided the organizational WIG and the Battle WIGs, it’s time to let your teams select their own team WIG. These team WIGs should align with the organizational WIG or one of the Battle WIGs. It’s really important to let the managers and their teams select their own team WIG; they will have a better understanding of what they can do to drive success and it shows that you trust them, which increases engagement. 

Ch. 9: Project Execution With 4DX

  • Using 4DX With Projects — In addition to using it for goals, you can incorporate the 4DX framework into the way you manage projects. It’s fairly straightforward — you don’t need to use numeric targets when crafting your WIG and lead measures; you can instead break the project into pieces and use those as lead measures. Knocking out each lead measure brings you closer to completing the project. 

Ch. 10: Sustaining 4DX Results and Engagement

  • Leadership Tip: Give Credit Where Credit Is Due — As a leader, look for opportunities to recognize your people for doing good work. This could be a public shoutout in front of peers. It could be a private conversation. It could be a nice gesture like a surprise letter with a gift card. It doesn’t really matter what you do; just make sure you are recognizing people when they deserve it. A few tips: (i) be personal and avoid business speak; (ii) be very specific and call out the thing that was done well; (iii) say only what you genuinely mean. When you receive praise from people above you, it makes you feel good and energizes and motivates you to keep working hard. In one Gallup survey, 82% of people said recognition motivates them more than rewards. As a leader, make sure you’re doing this. 
    • Quote (P. 190): “Genuine recognition, based on performance, is one of the most powerful drivers of human performance. A Gallup survey found that 82% of employees say recognition, not rewards, motivates them to improve their job performance. While no one is saying rewards aren’t important, it’s stunning to see such a high percentage saying recognition matters more.”
    • Quote (P. 191): “Formal recognition has a place in most organizations and is valuable. But you don’t need a company meeting or a crystal statue every time you want to convey this message. In fact, it’s actually better if it’s spontaneous, informal, and authentic. Whether your style is to pen a handwritten note, send an email, voice your appreciation during a meeting, or simply have a private conversation, recognition is one of the most powerful tools you possess as a leader of leaders.”

Ch. 11: What to Expect

  • Implementing 4DX — Remember, what makes achieving big goals and breakthroughs difficult is that they normally require a change in your team’s behavior. This is what the 4DX framework is designed to help with, but it won’t be easy to implement. If you follow all of steps outlined earlier in the book, you have a chance. There are typically five phases that occur during the implementation process: 
    • Getting Clear
    • Launch
    • Adoption
    • Optimization
    • Habits 
  • Leadership Tip: Lead With Love — The best leaders genuinely care about their people. They believe and invest in them. They want the best for them. They go out of their way to help them grow and develop. When somebody feels that a leader above them cares about them and their future, it makes them work harder. As a leader, try to love and care about your people. 
    • Quote (P. 283): “When a leader sees more potential in you than you see in yourself and helps you to grow and develop, it’s beyond encouraging, it’s transformational.”