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4 Disciplines of Execution: Getting Strategy Done Paperback – 1 August 2015

by Sean Covey (Author)

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The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
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The Four Disciplines of Execution is about a simple, proven formula for reaching your goals as a business or individual.

In Covey's experience, the thing that most undermines the ability to execute goals is what he calls the Whirlwind: those urgent tasks that must be done simply to keep an organization alive. As Covey shows, the only way to execute new, important goals is to separate those goals from the Whirlwind.

The Four Disciplines allow leaders to create a strategy that requires a change in behaviour. Only by ensuring that everyone on the team understands the goal, knows what to do to reach it and knows whether progress is being made, will a leader produce consistent breakthrough results while sustaining the urgent work of the Whirlwind.

The Four Disciplines of Executionare:1. Focus on the Wildly Important; 2. Act on the Lead Measures; 3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; 4. Create a Cadence of Accountability.

For more than a decade, Covey has been studying what it takes to achieve important goals, and in this book he shares success stories from a wide range of companies that have implemented the Four Disciplines to result in greater profits, increased market share and improved customer satisfaction. This way of thinking is essential to any company that wants to not only weather, but thrive in this economy.

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Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster UK
Publication date

1 August 2015
Dimensions

19.7 x 2.4 x 13 cm
ISBN-10

0857205838
ISBN-13

978-0857205834
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Sean Covey
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Product description

About the Author

Sean Covey is a business executive, author, speaker, and innovator. He is President of FranklinCovey Education and is devoted to transforming education throughout the world through a principle-centered leadership approach. Sean is a New York Times bestselling author and has written several books, including the Wall Street Journal #1 business bestseller The 4 Disciplines of Execution, The 6 Most Important Decisions You’ll Ever Make, The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, which has been translated into twenty languages and sold over 8 million copies worldwide. Sean and his wife, Rebecca, live with their children in the Rocky Mountains.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster UK (1 August 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0857205838
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0857205834
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 19.7 x 2.4 x 13 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 78,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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- 99,704 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

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About the authors

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Chris McChesney
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Chris McChesney is the Global Practice Leader of Execution for Franklin Covey and one of the primary developers of the 4 Disciplines of Execution. For more than a decade, he has led FranklinCovey’s design and development of these principles, as well as the consulting organization that has become the fastest growing area of the company.
Chris has personally led many of the most noted implementations of the 4 Disciplines, including the State of Georgia, Marriott International, Shaw Industries, Ritz Carlton, Kroger, Coca Cola, Comcast, Frito Lay, Lockheed Martin and Gaylord Entertainment. This practical experience has enabled him to test and refine the principles contained in the 4 Disciplines of Execution from the boardrooms to the front line of these, and many other organizations.
Chris’ career with Franklin Covey began by working directly with Dr. Stephen R. Covey and has continued over two decades to include roles as a Consultant, Managing Director, and General Manager within the organization. Chris launched the first 4 Disciplines of Execution Practice in the Southeast Region of Franklin Covey and today has seen it expand around the globe. Throughout this period of significant growth and expansion, Chris has maintained a single focus: to help organizations get results through improved execution.
Known for his high-energy and engaging message, Chris has become one of the most requested speakers within the Franklin Covey Organization, regularly delivering keynote speeches and executive presentations to leaders in audiences ranging from the hundreds to several thousand.
Chris, and his wife Constance, are the proud parents of five daughters and two sons. His love of family is combined with his passion for boating, water sports, coaching, and trying to keep up with his children.
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Jim Huling
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Jim Huling is the author of the #1 Worldwide Best-Selling Book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, now in its 2nd Edition and translated into sixteen languages. Jim has also been the 4DX Global Managing Consultant for FranklinCovey for more than 13 years where he has led the coaching of more than 70,000 leaders around the world.
Prior to this time, Jim served more than a decade as CEO of an organization recognized four times as one of the “25 Best Companies to Work For in America.” As a sought-after keynote speaker, Jim has given more than 500 presentations in 13 countries.
Among all his awards and recognition, Jim is particularly proud to have been presented with the Turknett National Leadership Character Award, representing CEO’s who demonstrate the highest levels of ethics and integrity.
Jim is also the author of Choose Your Life, his book on work-life integration and success that has sold consistently since 2007.
For those who know him best, Jim’s greatest calling has been as a Coach to individuals ranging from CEOs to young leaders, where he draws from the lessons of his own life and career to provide meaningful strategies and guidance. As the creator of the highly acclaimed coaching program, Find Your Fire, Jim is expanding his impact to now reach far more individuals in a more personal way.
Jim is most proud of his wonderful marriage of more than 40 years to his sweetheart, Donna, being Dad to two phenomenal adults, Scott and Sarah, and “Papa” to his three grandkids.
Jim holds a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo and is currently in his ninth year of CrossFit
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Pedders

Worth the reaf

Reviewed in Australia on 5 December 2019

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Great system easy to understand and grasp in a quick read.

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HITESH

Too small font size - hard to read

Reviewed in Australia on 20 November 2019

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Font size in book is too small

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Amazon Customer

Life changing.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 October 2021

Verified Purchase

After reading this, I bought one for my entire management team. The basic concept of a specific repeating action that ‘predicts’ a result that increases your critical kpi. So unbelievably simple but no one does it.

Valeria

Top voor team doelen stellen en behalen

Reviewed in the Netherlands on 20 February 2021

Verified Purchase

In mijn werk ben ik continue bezig met het behalen van targets en draagvlak creëren bij collega's. De principes uit dit boek vertellen hoe het behalen van beïnvloedbare subdoelen er uiteindelijk voor zorgen dat het grote doel ook gehaald wordt. Doelen behalen is een gedragsverandering van het team.

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Quentin M

READ THIS BOOK

Reviewed in France on 17 February 2021

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This book is really helpful for your team and for you.
It's not about being productive.
It's about become efficient.

Amazon Customer

4DX ... a simple and easy to implement concept

Reviewed in Canada on 27 December 2019

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I found 4DX very pragmatic and simple to implement concept ... and way more effective than Hoshin Kanri..

One person found this helpful

Wally Bock

A system that can help you improve productivity and the quality of your work life

Reviewed in the United States on 11 July 2017

Verified Purchase

I bought and read The 4 Disciplines of Execution in January of 2017 because Cal Newton gave it high praise in his book, Deep Work. At first glance, I thought it was some of the same old, same old. I waited more than six months before writing my review because I wanted to see if what was in the book really worked. It does, even though, at first glance it looks like old wine between new covers.

What’s in The Book

The authors identify four core disciplines that can combine to make any individual or team more effective. The disciplines are focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability. Here’s a little bit more about each one of them and why my initial impression was that there wasn’t much new in this book.

Discipline 1 is about focusing on wildly important goals. Well, of course. People who use goals to guide their behavior and practice some form of essentialism and zero in on the most important goals certainly will do better. It didn’t seem like there was much new here.

Discipline 2 is to leverage your lead measures. I first learned about the power of lead measures working with my friend Stephen Lynch on his book, Business Execution for RESULTS. Stephen demonstrated the power of lead measures (the acts you do to drive results) and how concentrating on them is more likely to make your results come out right. It seemed like I knew that, so what could be new here?

Discipline 3 is boost engagement by having employees keep score. This one may not be obvious to everyone, but I’ve been keeping score in one form or another for half a century. I track my daily work and results. I attach them to a simple score sheet. So, I figured I had this one. There was a new wrinkle, though, and that was the purpose of a visual scoreboard and how it’s a great way to keep track of how you’re doing.

Discipline 4 is accountability. Well, of course. If you’re leading a team, you must hold people accountable for their behavior and their results. If you’re tracking things for yourself, you should hold yourself accountable and not fudge. That seemed obvious, too.

If you looked at the table of contents for the book or poked around a bit inside it, you may have come to the same conclusion I did and you and I would both be right. There’s not much new here if all you consider are the individual disciplines. Concentrating on your most important goals will help you improve your performance. Identifying and tracking your lead measures will definitely improve your performance. And, it’s always necessary to hold people accountable for their behavior and their performance. So, what’s different?

The System’s the Thing

If all this book was a description of the disciplines, it wouldn’t be much. But the book is about how to use those four disciplines as a system. When you use them together, you get a positive synergy. Any one of the four will improve your results. Using the four all together will improve your results dramatically.

My Proof Was in the Trying

When I read the book, I was impressed, but I wasn’t ready to give it a great review until I figured out if it worked. I knew the parts worked, it was the system I wasn’t sure of.

I had to make some adjustments in the way that I worked and the way that I tracked my performance based on what I read in The Four Disciplines of Execution. When I did that, two things happened. First, my overall results improved. Second, the time I was spending to get those results dropped. This stuff works.

How the Book Helps You

The writing in this book is clear and the examples are good, but there’s one “design feature” that I really liked. This book is divided into two parts. The first part identifies and explains the four disciplines and the basic system. The second part is about how to put the system into action. This helped me and it would have helped me even more if I had a team that I was going to apply this with.

Bottom Line

The material in this book can make a difference in your performance, your team’s performance, and your overall quality of work life. But beware: you’ve got to do the work and it won’t be easy.

The hard part isn’t understanding the concepts. The hard part is breaking some habits and changing some procedures and maintaining energy while you work through those changes. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t buy the book.

The second important point is that the book is about a system. You can adopt any one of the four disciplines, or improve the way you handle each one, but to get the best results, you’ve got to use them all in a coordinated way. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t buy the book.

One more thing. This book is not about principles or secrets or magic of any kind. It’s about disciplines. That’s good because it means that people like you and like me can make it work. It will take work and, well, discipline, but we can make it work.

If you are willing to do the work and take the time and make the changes, The Four Disciplines of Execution is a book that will help you make a dramatic improvement in your performance and your quality of work life.

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4 Disciplines of Execution: Getting Strategy Done Paperback – 1 August 2015

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