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Ruthless Consistency: How Committed Leaders Execute Strategy, Implement Change, and Build Organizations That Win
When all is said and done, a lot more gets said than done. What is the antidote to this? Ruthless Consistency. According to Harvard Business Review , “most studies still show a 60-70% failure rate for organizational change projects―a statistic that has stayed constant from the 1970s to the present.” Drawing on his 20+ years of experience as a strategy and execution consultant specializing in midsize companies, Michael Canic helps committed leaders drive the odds in their favor. In Ruthless Consistency , he identifies the three surprising reasons most strategic change initiatives
The book then introduces an intuitive yet comprehensive model for success. Simply put, leaders who develop the right focus, create the right environment, and build the right team―consistently―are leaders whose organizations win. Finally, it details each element of the model and offers ready-to-apply processes, practices, techniques, and tools to make it happen. It’s a must-read for every leader who wants to implement change successfully.
The book then introduces an intuitive yet comprehensive model for success. Simply put, leaders who develop the right focus, create the right environment, and build the right team―consistently―are leaders whose organizations win. Finally, it details each element of the model and offers ready-to-apply processes, practices, techniques, and tools to make it happen. It’s a must-read for every leader who wants to implement change successfully.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published August 11, 2020
53 people are currently reading
188 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 20, 2021
Great book! If you're looking to develop and sustain a strategic management process - read this book!
Leaders who develop the right focus, create the right environment, and build the right team––consistently––are leaders whose organizations win. Here are some fun facts from the book:
"When All Is Said and Done, a Lot More Gets Said Than Done"
If you want to play the odds, bet on failure. That’s what’s likely to happen when you execute strategy or implement organizational change. Published failure rates for strategic planning, for example, range from 70 - 90%. The same is true of any strategic change initiative (SCI). Mergers and acquisitions? Up to 90% fail. Lean Six Sigma? Between 60 - 90% fail. Software and systems projects? Over 70% fail. And how costly is all this failure? For IT projects alone, the worldwide cost has been estimated at up to $3 trillion a year. It gets worse. When SCIs repeatedly fail, you create a track record of failure. You create an expectation of failure. You create an acceptance of failure. And you create a culture of failure. Failure becomes the norm. The tragedy of repeated failures is how they poison organizational culture. It becomes easy for people—starting with you—to rationalize anything other than success. And it becomes all but impossible to get people to believe in and support the next SCI. The culture of failure becomes self-perpetuating.
To be ruthlessly consistent you have to do 3 things: Develop the right focus. Create the right environment. Build the right team. Continually. Every SCI always comes down to those three things.
Developing the right focus means identifying and articulating why your organization must change, what you intend to achieve, and how you intend to achieve it.
Stop Strategic Planning - To develop and sustain the right focus, strategy has to be a process, not just an event. The goal isn’t just to develop a plan or even implement a plan. The goal is to institute a system that ensures strategy is an ongoing, managed process. The Strategic Management Process has 4 phases: Assess, Position, Plan, and Implement. Strategic management = strategy + execution.
Keep the amount of things you focus on small and put an enormous amount of energy behind them. Create a rigorous evaluation model to prioritize your SCIs.
Put the “Exec” in Execute - Eliminating those activities allows us to free up time for the strategic work. Operationalizing your SCIs requires Execution Plans. The goal is to institute a robust, repeatable process for assessing, developing, and implementing strategy.
Creating the right environment means aligning every organizational touchpoint, so that your team can and will execute on the right focus. What matters is what they perceive, what they believe, and what they feel. Seeing through their eyes. Thinking in their minds. Feeling with their hearts.
Why the right environment before the right team? Because most leaders have a team in place. And until you create the right environment, you won’t know for certain whether you have the right team. When you create an environment in which people are aligned, equipped, coached, supported, and valued, you create a culture of engagement, a culture of performance.
Everything Starts with Heads and Hearts - Implementing strategic change depends on people. You can have plans and goals and timelines and meetings, yet none of it matters unless you engage the hearts and minds of your people and align them with what you want to achieve. It’s not about buy-in; it’s about want-in.
There are three times to engage your employees: before, during, and after you’ve developed your Strategic Framework. For all that’s been said and written about having a sense of purpose—as important as that is—what’s even more important is that you connect the dots between purpose, goals, and each person’s role—what is expected of them. What ignites purpose is when they clearly see how what they do as individuals contributes to the big picture, to success.
You’re Not a Manager; You’re a Coach - There’s a critical distinction between being a manager and being a coach. Coaches take responsibility for the performance of their team and each team member. Coaches view their role as helping team members perform at their best, helping them learn, improve, and grow. You don’t motivate people. You create an environment in which the right people will be motivated. And that doesn’t mean the same environment for everyone. The Golden Rule of Coaching is that different approaches have different effects on different team members at different times. Great coaches are adaptive.
Building the right team means securing the right collection of talent to make it happen. You have to have the right team. How do you build it? It comes down to processes. Yes, processes. Robust and rigorous processes for attracting strong talent and selecting the best candidates. Not necessarily the most capable individuals but the most capable team members. Then, having a process to evaluate and strengthen those processes.
Distractions are what lure your attention; distractibility is how you respond. Manage yourself by prioritizing your priorities, taking breaks, and committing to being 100% present.
Leaders who develop the right focus, create the right environment, and build the right team––consistently––are leaders whose organizations win. Here are some fun facts from the book:
"When All Is Said and Done, a Lot More Gets Said Than Done"
If you want to play the odds, bet on failure. That’s what’s likely to happen when you execute strategy or implement organizational change. Published failure rates for strategic planning, for example, range from 70 - 90%. The same is true of any strategic change initiative (SCI). Mergers and acquisitions? Up to 90% fail. Lean Six Sigma? Between 60 - 90% fail. Software and systems projects? Over 70% fail. And how costly is all this failure? For IT projects alone, the worldwide cost has been estimated at up to $3 trillion a year. It gets worse. When SCIs repeatedly fail, you create a track record of failure. You create an expectation of failure. You create an acceptance of failure. And you create a culture of failure. Failure becomes the norm. The tragedy of repeated failures is how they poison organizational culture. It becomes easy for people—starting with you—to rationalize anything other than success. And it becomes all but impossible to get people to believe in and support the next SCI. The culture of failure becomes self-perpetuating.
To be ruthlessly consistent you have to do 3 things: Develop the right focus. Create the right environment. Build the right team. Continually. Every SCI always comes down to those three things.
Developing the right focus means identifying and articulating why your organization must change, what you intend to achieve, and how you intend to achieve it.
Stop Strategic Planning - To develop and sustain the right focus, strategy has to be a process, not just an event. The goal isn’t just to develop a plan or even implement a plan. The goal is to institute a system that ensures strategy is an ongoing, managed process. The Strategic Management Process has 4 phases: Assess, Position, Plan, and Implement. Strategic management = strategy + execution.
Keep the amount of things you focus on small and put an enormous amount of energy behind them. Create a rigorous evaluation model to prioritize your SCIs.
Put the “Exec” in Execute - Eliminating those activities allows us to free up time for the strategic work. Operationalizing your SCIs requires Execution Plans. The goal is to institute a robust, repeatable process for assessing, developing, and implementing strategy.
Creating the right environment means aligning every organizational touchpoint, so that your team can and will execute on the right focus. What matters is what they perceive, what they believe, and what they feel. Seeing through their eyes. Thinking in their minds. Feeling with their hearts.
Why the right environment before the right team? Because most leaders have a team in place. And until you create the right environment, you won’t know for certain whether you have the right team. When you create an environment in which people are aligned, equipped, coached, supported, and valued, you create a culture of engagement, a culture of performance.
Everything Starts with Heads and Hearts - Implementing strategic change depends on people. You can have plans and goals and timelines and meetings, yet none of it matters unless you engage the hearts and minds of your people and align them with what you want to achieve. It’s not about buy-in; it’s about want-in.
There are three times to engage your employees: before, during, and after you’ve developed your Strategic Framework. For all that’s been said and written about having a sense of purpose—as important as that is—what’s even more important is that you connect the dots between purpose, goals, and each person’s role—what is expected of them. What ignites purpose is when they clearly see how what they do as individuals contributes to the big picture, to success.
You’re Not a Manager; You’re a Coach - There’s a critical distinction between being a manager and being a coach. Coaches take responsibility for the performance of their team and each team member. Coaches view their role as helping team members perform at their best, helping them learn, improve, and grow. You don’t motivate people. You create an environment in which the right people will be motivated. And that doesn’t mean the same environment for everyone. The Golden Rule of Coaching is that different approaches have different effects on different team members at different times. Great coaches are adaptive.
Building the right team means securing the right collection of talent to make it happen. You have to have the right team. How do you build it? It comes down to processes. Yes, processes. Robust and rigorous processes for attracting strong talent and selecting the best candidates. Not necessarily the most capable individuals but the most capable team members. Then, having a process to evaluate and strengthen those processes.
Distractions are what lure your attention; distractibility is how you respond. Manage yourself by prioritizing your priorities, taking breaks, and committing to being 100% present.
February 2, 2021
The beginning and the end were great. The middle was a typical business book. I am more interested in self-improvement. The advice was great
February 16, 2021
The content and information is straightforward and most of the advice is very specific, can be useful and relevant, even though I am not at C-suite level
October 18, 2021
No non-sense guide!!
March 2, 2023
This book wrecked me by opening my eyes even more to inconsistencies in senior leadership in corporate America. I highly recommend for any leader but especially people leaders. Check your ego at the door.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews