Executive Toughness and Focusing on Process

When leading any team to victory, you can’t underestimate the value of strategy or that burning desire to win built deeply within yourself and everyone else on the team.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
D. Brown Management
January 5, 2019 2 minute read
Share

While these are the most visible and exciting parts of the story, they represent a very small part of the whole picture.  

Quote: The problem lies in the fact that they are so focused on those results that there is less and less emphasis on the process of what it takes to achieve those results. John Wooden. Book: Executive Toughness by Dr. Jason Selk.

Whether in the military, sports, or business, few failures can truly be attributed to a failure of strategy or the team really not wanting to win bad enough. The book Executive Toughness describes this well.  

Consistently winning comes from rigorous and daily practice of hundreds of details over years.  

The reason behind many of these details will be completely misunderstood by those going through it the first time.  

Craig Mullaney describes this very well in The Unforgiving Minute:  A Soldier’s Education. 

A great coach (or manager) has the stamina to stick with the rigorous training, providing small corrections to the process along the way.

Think of a contracting business like you would a project. Consider a few major outcomes on your scoreboard.

Which one are you the most unhappy with? 

Drill-down on that outcome metric until you have the equivalent of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and can see the Critical Path.

Production Tracking - Having Fun and Winning
Contractors will get the most out of their teams by building a culture around the fun of the construction game and how fun playing a game is and how good winning feels. How fun are you making your projects?
Related Article
Making Decisions Effectively
What would it be worth for your company if you could accelerate the development of your leadership talent?
Related Article
Fixing a Messy Teenage Bedroom
Most parents will teach their kids how to keep a clean bedroom through a combination of leading by example, training and daily management until the kids form their own good habits. Lean tools like 5S are the organizational equivalent.
Related Article