Neuroscientists have presented us with compelling reasons why, in the business world, we love to spend an excessive amount of time planning. Because our brains crave certainty, we want to make sure that we cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s before shifting to implementing our plans. Because so many of us are risk averse, we want to be certain that we’ve allowed for every conceivable risk before committing to the execution phase. We have an innate capacity to plan, using our pre-frontal cortices to analyze the past, predict the future and set forth comprehensive, detail-oriented plans.

But if we’re so adept at planning, why are we poor executors? A primary reason is that it is near impossible to anticipate all the inevitable curves that the environment will throw at us and, when the unanticipated events unfold, we don’t react very well. To the brain, change is pain, and so we don’t handle change well at all. When new stimuli are introduced to the brain, they are compared to exiting mental maps, and when there’s no match, error signals are sent out and the brain goes into “fight or flight” mode. This makes seamless execution of brilliant plans almost impossible.

Larry Bossidy, who wrote the brilliant book Execution in 2002, had another explanation for why we have so much trouble getting things done. In his book, Larry wrote that, “The real problem is that execution just doesn’t sound very sexy. It’s the stuff a leader delegates”. Bossidy is spot on when he writes that “Every great leader has had an instinct for execution”. But, he also writes that, “the selection, training and development of leaders doesn’t focus on making plans happen“.

We need to incorporate “getting things done” as a key component of leadership development. We need to change the current leadership paradigm from “80% planning: 20% executing” to         “20% planning; 80% executing”. We need to teach leaders how the human brain functions and why this unique organ perceives change as pain…and what to do about it. Bossidy suggests that there are seven essential behaviors that form an importantExecution,leadership,Execution, leadership and execution building block of execution:

  • Know your people and your business
  • Insist on realism
  • Set clear goals and priorities
  • Follow through
  • Reward the doers
  • Expand people’s capabilities
  • Know yourself

In essence, we need to place a premium on those people in organizations who get things done.