TACTICAL WORK

Truly successful executives are those who can thoroughly mine the intersection of efficiency and effectiveness to maximize their value and that of their team’s—whether that team is a small group or an entire division, department, or organization.

Recall that effectiveness is doing the right things; efficiency is doing things right. The ores from which you smelt the alloy of both, doing the right things right, are the tactics by which you get things done and achieve strategic execution at the right time in the right place.

As a rule, you don’t simply stumble across productivity—and it doesn’t strike you out of the blue like a gift from Heaven. Purposeful productivity of the type you need boils down to four keys: Excellence, Planning, Effort, and Quality.

COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE

To achieve your goals requires nothing less than a commitment to do incredible work. Think of this attitude as leavening in a cake: without it, your team won’t rise to the occasion. It’s your responsibility to encourage team commitment to excellence in every way possible. Build an experienced, talented group, and then make each team member feel that visceral need to create a product or service that will carve out a large slice of the market share.

Typically, a commitment to excellence arises through factors such as these:

• Leadership by example

• A culture of mutual cooperation

• Motivation

• Employee empowerment

• Full engagement

INTELLIGENT PLANNING

Planning comprises the basic batter of your productivity cake, the body that gives the leavening something to act on. That means giving your folks enough time for their research, work, and strategic thinking. Look at what’s going right (so you can continue it) and what’s going wrong (so you can fix it). This leads to informed step-by-step planning, followed by goal setting and a point-by-point productivity plan. Do your deep thinking, set your milestones for each piece of the project, and only execute once you have enough information to do so—not a moment sooner or later.

FOCUSED EFFORT

Here’s the heat that provides the energy and synergy that turns your goopy batter into a structured, final product. Your teammates will conduct the execution on the front lines; your primary job is to facilitate their progress and keep encouraging them. Clear away obstacles, elicit their advice, tap the knowledge of those outside the project, insert necessary changes with minimal disruption, block distractions, and keep an eye on the competition. Arrange the environment so your people can sink safely into the task at hand, becoming so focused they lose touch with the rest of reality for a short time.

INHERENT QUALITY

Once you’ve carefully selected, thoroughly mixed, and baked your productivity ingredients, a delicious result is inevitable. But remember: the final quality depends on you and your careful, heartfelt guidance. Some say cooks are only as good as their ingredients; I say cooks are only as good as their sense of purposeful productivity.

Remember, the balance of your tactical ingredients will vary according to the type of work you do. As Steve Gangwish, Vice President of CSS Farms, pointed out in our interview,

We don’t talk about working hours… . You just do whatever it takes to get the job done. When we do hire people from outside who don’t know our culture, we’re very open and honest about the time commitment of this job and what farming takes, and we definitely don’t want to have any surprises there.

However you slice it, well-prepared tactical work guides, supports, and refines your final product: productivity. Like a catalyst in chemistry, it’s not exactly a part of that product, but without it, the final result would not exist.