The Four

Disciplines of
ä
Execution
Quick Reference Guide
 To achieve a goal you have never
achieved before, you must start doing
things you have never done before.
#1: Defining Your Wildly Important Goals (WIGs)
Remember to follow a structured process to identify and
define the best WIG(s) for your organization. Selecting the
right WIG is crucial.

1. Brainstorm
Engage your team and peers in brainstorming a list of possible
WIGs. Engagement in this process drives commitment.

Consider the following questions:

l If every other area of operation remained at its current

level of performance, what is the one area where
change would have the greatest impact?
l What are the team’s greatest strengths that could be
leveraged to achieve the company’s overall WIG?
l What are the areas where the team’s poor performance
most needs to e improved to ensure the company’s
overall WIG is achieved?

Don’t just settle for a few ideas, gather as many as you can.
The longer and more creative the list, the higher quality the
final choice will be. And remember to think, ‘what?’ not ‘how?’
at this stage in the process.

2. Rank by Impact
When you’re happy with your list of potential WIGs, next step
is to rank them. You’re trying to find the WIG that will have
the greatest impact on the overall company performance.

The way you rank will depend on the nature of the overall
company WIG:
 l A financial goal – rank in terms of prospective revenues,
profitability, investment performance, and/or cost
savings
l A quality goal – rank in terms of efficiencies gained,
cycle times, productivity improvements, and/or
customer satisfaction.
l A strategic goal – rank in terms of service to the mission,
competitive advantages gained, opportunities captured,
and/or threats reduced.

Try to avoid the trap of prioritizing WIGs that improve the

team’s performance, but might have little to do with the
overall company WIG.

3. Acid Test Top Ideas

Once you’ve identified a couple of high-impact WIG
candidates, test them against four specific criteria:

l Is the Team WIG aligned to overall Company WIG? Is

there a clear line of sight between the candidate WIG and
the overall WIG?
l Is it measurable? If significant effort is required before you
begin measuring, eliminate the WIG for now. Time invested
in a game without a score is time lost.
l Who owns the results? The team must own 80% and not
be dependent on another team for more than 20% of the
results.
l Who owns the game – the team or the leader? Avoid the
trap of the WIG depending too much on just the leader. The
team will lose interest.
4. Articulate the WIG
Once you’ve tested and selected your WIGs, articulate them
as clearly as possible to ensure they are well understood and
simply to track. Here are a few tips to ensure your WIG is well
articulated.

l Begin with a verb. Simple verbs focus the mind

immediately on action.
l Keep it simple. Avoid vague, complex or pretentious goals.
l Focus on what, not how. The ‘how’ will come later.
l Make sure it is achievable. Set a goal that challenges the
team to rise to their highest performance level, but not
beyond it.

Remember, only 20% of your effort will go towards the WIG.

The other 80% will still be consumed by the whirlwind!

Things to watch out for

1. Say no to good ideas. There will always be more good ideas
than the capacity to execute.
2. Don’t try to make everything in the whirlwind a WIG. Look
for high impact / leverage points.
#2: Defining Your Lead Measures
Unlike lag measures, which tell you if you have achieved your
goal, lead measures tell you if you are likely to achieve your
goal. Lead measures are measures of the highest impact things
your team must do - the new behaviors that will drive success
on the lag measures.

Remember to follow a structured process to identify and

define the best WIG(s) for your organization. Selecting the
right WIG is crucial.

1. Brainstorm
Engage your team and peers in brainstorming a list of possible
Lead Measures. Resist the temptation to choose quickly.

Remember, there are two types of lead measure that you may
wish to adopt:

l Small outcomes – lead measures that focus the team on

achieving a weekly result, but give each member of the
team latitude in how they achieve it.
l Leveraged behaviors – lead measures that track the
specific behaviors you want the team to perform
throughout the week.

Consider the following questions to help you brainstorm:

l What could we do that we’ve never done before that

might make all the difference to the WIG?
l What strengths of this team can we use as leverage on
the WIG? What do our best performers do differently?
l What weaknesses might keep us from achieving the
WIG? What could we do more consistently?
Stay solely focused on ideas that will drive the WIG. Don’t
drift into a general discussion of good things to do.

2. Rank by Impact
When you’re happy with your list of candidate lead measures,
you’re ready to identify the ones that will have the greatest
potential impact on the team WIG.

Your goal is to pick two or three lead measures that will have
the biggest leverage. Avoid the temptation to try to do to do
everything. The more you try to do, the less energy you have
to give to any one thing. Narrowing the focus to a few lead
measures permits stronger leverage.

3. Acid Test Top Ideas

Once you’ve identified two or three lead measures, test them
against six specific criteria:

l Is it predictive?
l Is it influenceable?
l Is it an ongoing process, or a “once and done”?
l Is it a leader’s game or a team game?
l Can it be measured?
l Is it worth measuring?
4. Articulate the Lead Measure
Once you’ve tested and selected your WIGs, articulate them
as clearly as possible to ensure they are well understood and
simply to track. Here are a few tips to ensure your WIG is well
articulated.

l Are we tracking team or individual performance?

l Are we tracking the lead measure daily or weekly?
l What is the quantitative standard?
l What is the qualitative standard?
l Does it start with a verb?
l Is it simple?

Things to watch out for

1. They can be counterintuitive. Most leaders are used to
looking at lag measures
2. They can be hard to keep track of.
3. They can look simple with a precise focus on a single
behavior.
#3: Keep A Compelling Scorecard
The key to engagement is a big, visible, continually updated
scorecard that is compelling to the players.

1. Choose a theme
Choose a theme / design for your scorecard that displays
clearly and instantly the measures you are tracking. Give
thought to the type of charts that are most appropriate for the
data you are displaying.

2. Design the Scorecard

Once you’ve determined the theme or type of scorecard you
want, design it with these questions in mind

l Is it simple? Resist the temptation to complicate the

scorecard by adding too many variables.
l Can the team see it easily? The more visible the scorecard,
the more the team will stay connected to the game.
l Does it contain both lead and lag measures? The
scorecard must answer not only “where are we now?” but
also “Where should we be?”
l Can we tell at a glance if we’re winning? Design the
scorecard so that the team can quickly determine if they
are ahead or behind.

3. Build the Scorecard

Let the team build the scorecard. They will take more
ownership if they build it themselves. It doesn’t matter what
medium you use – you can use an electronic display, a poster
or even a whiteboard, as long as it meets the design standards
discussed here.
4. Keep it updated
The design of the scorecard should make it easy to update. If
it is too hard, you’ll be tempted to put it off when the
whirlwind strikes. Make it clear who is responsible for
updating and when the updates will be posted.

Remember, a good scorecard will be:

l Simple – easy to read quickly

l Visible – in a place where the team can easily see it
l Complete – contain all the relevant lead and lag
measures (i.e. the full picture)
#4: Create A Cadence Of Accountability
Even though you’ve designed a game that’s clear and effective,
without consistent accountability the team will never give
their best efforts to the game. To solve this, teams meet
frequently and regularly in WIG sessions - in which each
member of the team makes personal commitments to drive the
lead measures.

1. What is s WIG session?

A WIG session has a singular purpose - to refocus the team on
the WIG despite the daily whirlwind. It takes place regularly, at
least weekly and sometimes more often. The purpose is to
account for prior commitments and make new commitments
to move the WIG scorecard.

2. Why hold WIG sessions?

A WIG session has a singular purpose - to refocus the team on
the WIG despite the daily whirlwind. It takes place regularly, at
least weekly and sometimes more often. The format enables
team members to learn from each other about how to move
the lead measures and also get the help they need to keep
their commitments.

The sessions enable to team to adapt on the fly to the

changing needs of the business, and also provide a great
opportunity to celebrate progress, reenergize the team and
reengage everyone.
3. What Happens in a WIG session?
A good WIG session will follow a fixed agenda that includes
these three key themes:

l Account: Report on last week’s commitments

l Review the scorecard: Learn from successes and failures
l Plan: Clear the path and make new commitments

Remember that it’s important to make high impact

commitments for the coming week. Whilst the effectiveness
of the WIG session depends on the consistency of the
cadence, the results on the scorecard depend on the impact
of the commitment. Try to make commitments that have the
highest possible impact. If it helps, ask yourself the question,
“What are the one or two most important things I can do this
week to impact the team’s performance on the scorecard?”

Things to watch out for…

Avoid these common pitfalls that will undermine the cadence
of accountability.

l Competing whirlwind responsibilities

l Holding WIG sessions with no specific outcomes
l Repeating the same commitment for more than two
consecutive sessions
l Accepting unfulfilled commitments
... And things to embrace.

l Stick to the published schedule

l Keep the sessions brief
l Set the standard as the leader
l Post the scorecard
l Celebrate successes
l Share learning
l Don’t let the whirlwind enter
l Clear the path for each other
A Quick Overview of the Process

THE PROCESS

CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITIES

STEP 1 ! Execution begins with selecting one or two WIGs. Focusing on these vital few goals
is the key executing like a pro. Without focused effort, your team will get lost in the
whirlwind.

RANK BY IMPACT
STEP 2 # When you’ve created a list of candidate WIGs, you're ready to identify the ideas
that promise the greatest potential impact.

TEST YOUR TOP IDEAS

STEP 3 " Once you've identified your top, high-impact WIGs, test them.

DEFINE THE WIG

STEP 4 " Once you’ve selected and tested your ideas for high- impact WIGs, make them as
clear and measurable as possible.

DEFINE LEADING AND LAGGING MEASURES

STEP 5 ! Leading measures give you a sense of progress while lagging measures tell you if
you’ve achieved the goal. They mark where you are at, what’s left and provide a
precise finish line.

ESTABLISH MILESTONES & BUILD AN ACTION PLAN

STEP 6 % Establishing the how via an Action Plan with Milestones and Due Dates is a critical
part of the Execution Process. Your Action Plan is the map.

CREATE YOUR SCORECARD

STEP 7 # Creating a compelling scorecard is critical. It provides you a way to track your
progress and completion of the WIGs you’ve set.

SCHEDULE WIG REVIEWS

ONGOING $ As you progress through the work required to accomplish your WIGs, be sure to
maintain clear and open channels of communication your stakeholders (and team if
you’re working together).

The Four Disciplines of Execution is a registered trademark of Franklin Covey Co.