What Really Matters in the Mechanics of Execution: Creating a Culture with a Sense of Urgency

By Ernie A. Cevallos

Business leaders are often asked the question “What keeps you up at night?” The more direct and better question should be “What are the most urgent things you need to accomplish? Nothing should keep you up at night if you have a clear conscience, are in good health, and get some exercise. What should keep you up every waking minute is a great sense of urgency to accomplish your main objectives, and what you promised others you would do. Unquestionably, a most important trait of effective leadership is an unshakable, incessant, and ever-burning sense of urgency—and the associated need for speed, focus, and coordination.


To illustrate the point, the recent world track and field championship in Osaka, Japan produced memorable moments for both the US male and female relay team runners. The sense of urgency to win gold was in total alignment with their actions that converted powerful strides, perfect hand-offs of the baton, and drive to beat the clock into flawless execution. Sounds like execution is easy in the sports and business arena, I suggest it is not! If execution were simple in the business world, why do so many businesses fail to deliver? If physicians had the same success rate as executives, the medical schools would have been shut down long ago.

Effective managers are rediscovering that business is about having a well developed sense of urgency and execution focus across the organization. We have all been reminded that it's not enough to get the order, you have to deliver it; that having a good product or service does you no good if you can't market it well; and that uninspired employees lacking a sense of urgency will not allow a business to achieve its goals. Needless to say making companies work is serious stuff, and a pivotal aspect of growth is the mechanics of execution. Management has always been and continues to be among the most complex, risky, and uncertain of all human endeavors. Indeed, how could anyone have ever thought otherwise?

How do you tame the business beast? Process is the Clark Kent of business management—seemingly mild and modest but actually incredibly powerful. Without a good process to communicate expectations, enroll employees to commit, monitor the progress, provide feedback, make adjustments as necessary, and make accountability part of the culture things can decay into a spiral of missed goals and deadlines. Process is the way in which the abstract goal of execution and putting customers first gets turned into its practical consequences. Process is the tool that empowers a leader to manage all the activities and behaviors that must work together to achieve a common goal.

Without rigorous attention to creating a sense of urgency and execution focus, achieving even minimally acceptable performance—much less anything better—is difficult. A business cannot consistently deliver the performance levels that it is capable of, or meet the demands of customers when leadership fails to address this fundamental aspect of managing a business.

Finally, processes are not ends in themselves. They have a purpose that transcends and shapes all their constituent activities. We don’t enroll employees to a future vision, monitor business metrics, provide feedback, or create a sense of urgency to keep ourselves busy; we do it to create the expected result. A good process is a prerequisite for repeatability, and to cultivate a culture with the right mind set and behaviors. Leading by example and helping to instill a culture with a sense of urgency and insatiable execution focus is win-win proposition for all.