Too often teams and organizations are unclear about what the goals or top priorities really are. Coaches and players simply not on the same page. What you get is everyone just kind of running around in all directions, instead of working together toward the same goal.
Inability to take high-level goals and the strategies of an organization and then to translate those into actions is a major problem in most organizations. It’s one thing to come up with great strategies and goals, but it’s quite another to actually get them done. This is what we can call, The Execution Gap. In a landmark study done by the Harris Poll group, we discovered some revealing statistics as to why execution breaks down and why goals aren’t translated into action on the front line.
First finding, only 15% of those surveyed can actually identify their organizations most important goals or top priorities. Either there are too many goals or they change too often or they simply don’t have any. And in most cases, they are vastly under communicated. Just because the leaders are clear on what they want to achieve, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the front line where the action really happens knows what the goals are. After all, in a very real sense, the front lines produces the bottom line.
Second, people may know what the goals are but too often they haven’t bought into them. Only 19% surveyed say that they feel passionate about the top goals of their organizations. That’s only one in five. There are number of reasons for this. But the primary one is that they feel no ownership. They don’t feel that they have input into what is going to take to achieve the goal. They simply aren’t emotionally connected to the goal. No involvement, no commitment.
Third, those surveyed reported that they spend only 49% of their available work hours on the most important goals. The rest of the time is spent on urgent the far less important activities. They get so distracted by urgent things that they neglect the most important things.
Finally, people might know what the goals and top priorities are. They might even buy into them. But they don’t know what they are supposed to do about them. In fact, 51% state that they personally do not understand what they are supposed to do to help the organization achieve its goals. Goals will not be executed until everyone clearly understands what the goal is and what they themselves specifically need to do to meet that goal.
Once people are clear on what the goal is, then and only then, are they free to try new and better ways to reach that goal. So the point is, to achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you simply need to start doing things you’ve never done before.
Rocky:
Let me tell you something you already know.
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
It’s a very mean and nasty place
and I don’t care how tough you are.
It will beat you to your knees
and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain’t about how hard you hit.
It’s about how hard you can get hit
and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done!
Now, if you know what you’re worth,
then go out and get what you’re worth.
But you gotta be willing to take the hits.
And not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be
because of him or her or anybody.
Cowards do that and that ain’t you.
You’re better than that.
And before you go any further
I just wanna talk very briefly about that’s what everybody does.
I have a really good friend famous John Credeli.
He was down in South America.
He was working with some kids at camp.
And they have gone down to the field one day.
And they were cutting down the bush load of bananas.
And he goes to rip one of the bananas off the bushels
So he cracks open this banana.
All these little kids that are around him start cracking up.
There are like “You open your banana wrong.”
He’s going “What are you talking about?”
Then another camp counselor comes over.
And sits down next to him and he said “What’s wrong?”
And John said “I don’t know all the kids are laughing at me.”
And he goes “Why?”
And he said “Well, the kids say that I open my banana wrong.”
The other counselor says “Well, son you do.”
And he goes “What are you talking about?”
And he said “Nature shows us the path of least resistance.”
And the easiest way to open the banana is actually from the other end
where the flat tip is.
All you have to do is just pinch the end of that banana and it will naturally
part and as soon as you want to you just pull it back
and it takes all the strings with it
And you won’t get the wishy-squishy thing going on
if you struggle with the stem side.
So as soon as he tells me this I so wish I had a banana right now.
And sure enough I got home and I tried it and it works
And I always get emails later from people that go
“Oh my gosh, Terri that banana thing works”
I’m not lying, Why would I lie?
Of course it works.
And then I got to myself
Isn’t this weird?
Because I live in the United States of America.
And we’re pretty progressive country.
How come people don’t know this?
And all our lives, we’ve been brought up, for the most part, most of us
to open our banana that way.
That’s what we do.
But it doesn’t mean that’s the best way.
Just because that’s what everybody does,
doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do things.
There are different ways that are faster and more effective and they can be just as simple.
They’re just gonna feel different.
They’re just gonna be different than what you’re currently doing.
Jimmy James: Not doing the shoot? What are you crazy?
Tha-That’s free advertising for the station.
Honey, free advertising, that’s something you just can’t buy.
Lisa: However cute I may or may not be really has nothing to do with my competence as a journalist.
Jimmy James: Oh yeah? I won’t bet there isn’t a single licensed bloom master on the swedish bikini team either but tell you what
those girls really know how to sell some beer.
Lisa: Oh yeah, but that’s advertising.
You know, advertising is inherently deceptive.
Jimmy James: I’m sorry, WHAT?
Lisa: Advertising is deceptive.
Jimmy James: Lemme tell you something little miss.
Advertising pays our bills, alright?
Advertising pays your salary, advertising is what made this country great.
Lisa: O, Ok, maybe I misspoken.
Jimmy James: What was the constitution of the United States?
Lisa: Uh.. Documen..
Jimmy James: No, it is an advertisement and advertisement for liberty when in the course of human events
I’m telling you that’s right up there with “Put a tiger in your tank” and “Where’s the beef”
Don’t you understand?
I’m sorry, I gotta get some air.
Dave: I think maybe you should apologize.
Lisa: Oh, he’s not serious.
Jimmy James: Hell it wasn’t for advertising you know what you two could be doing, huh?
You two’d be giving out Sesame Street tote bags during PBS pledge except they won’t say Sesame Street on.
No, no, they wouldn’t say that if they said that, that would be…?
Lisa: Ad..
Jimmy James: ADVERTISING! That’s right! Hell if you two
had your way with it probably wouldn’t have made the Sesame Street, would there?
Would there?
Lisa: Dave?
Dave: Just reading some ads not involved at all.
Jimmy James: Yeah, that’s right.
There’d be no Ernie, would there? No, no there would be no Bert.
Bye bye. Bye bye to Grover. Bye bye, to Cookie Monster.
No, there’d be no Snuff-a-lot because there’d be no trash can, there ain’t no Oscar to grouch.
Jimmy James: Not to mention Kermit the damn frog!
Jimmy James: What?
Lisa: I will do the photo shoot.
Jimmy James: Oh, well you know, don’t want you doing anything you don’t wanna do.
PP: DSP, I just have one last question before I call Rob Norman and Matt Spiegel.
PP: If you’re placing exchange orders in a transparent fashion, and you don’t arb the media?
PP: Then why is my tier one inventory suffering?
PP: Why would it be necessary to cut off the networks?
DSP: Audience targeted media optimization is complicated…
PP: That’s not what you said. You said you weren’t arbiting a media because of the transparency. You said you were transparent. And I said “Totally transparent?” You said “Is there any other kind?” I could have the IAB secretary read back to you…
DSP: I know what I said I don’t have to have it read back to me like I’m an idiot.
PP: Then, why the big margin? DSP?
DSP: Sometimes you have to take a position in the inventory.
PP: No sir, you made it clear just a minute ago you’d never arbitrage like the networks. So your margins and evaluations shouldn’t be that high, should they, DSP?
DSP: You, snotty little bastard.
Prosecutor: Your honor, I’d like to ask for a recess?
PP: I’d like an answer to the question, Randal.
Judge: The IAB will wait for an answer.
PP: If your agency partners place buy orders based on proprietary data segments then why did my prices suffer? DSP? You bought look alike segments on cheaper sites because that’s what your agency told you to do. And when my pricing suffered, you made an excuse. You claimed the audience segments were bad, you blamed the data aggregators. And you gained the exchanges and pocketed the difference.
PP: DSP, did you cheapen my CPM?
Judge: You don’t have to answer that question.
DSP: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
PP: I think I’m entitled to.
DSP: You want answers?
PP: I want the truth.
DSP: You can’t handle the truth.
DSP: Son, we live in the world with Ads and those Ads have to be bought by firms with technology.
Who’s gonna buy it? You? You, Mr. Media Agency? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.
You scoff at audience segmentation. You curse the DSPs. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. And while the hype in our sector is excessive, it drives efficiency. And my valuation while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drive efficiency. You don’t wanna know the truth cause deep down in places you don’t talk about it IAB meetings. You want us auctioning your inventory. You need us auctioning your inventory.
We use words like Data, RTB, Exchange. We use these words as our back bone of life spent buying media. You use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to someone who sells targeted advertising under the very blanket of optimization that I provide and then questions the manner in which I optimize it. I would rather you just say thank you and went on your way
Otherwise, I suggest you build an algorithm and do it yourself.
Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.
Name: Masato Bud Uesu Location: Tokyo, Japan Twitter
| Facebook | email Profile: CTO, Glam Media Japan, K.K. Watching the alpha geeks, sharing their stories, seeing the future unfold. Disclaimar: This is my personal blog and anything spoken here doesn't reflect my corporate views in any ways.
