Dirty Socks And The Execution Gap

SPEAKER_01 0:16

All right, here we go. JC Fowler here with my partner, James Wilson Jr. Yes. All right, James. What's something that you knew clearly needed to happen, but still didn't get done?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Man, I think it's it'll it's uh Ash will love this. Picking my socks up off the floor. Uh it's uh you know, you kind of like, oh, I'm just it'll, I'll get there, I'll get to it. Um, yeah, it's it's not a big deal. I'm coming back for it. And then I look and she's like, they still here. And I'm like, oh, you're you're right. And it's it's simple, but it's that, you know, it's that thing of how you do anything is how you do everything. And so it's like, let me let me get my socks up off the floor. She's not my maid. She ain't my mom. This is my wife. Um, let me let me do better. So we're talking dirty socks. Well, it depends. It really depends. Like sometimes it is just like, oh man, I forgot to. She, if she were here, she'd have so much to say about it. But uh, yeah, like sometimes I'll put the the we have a laundry basket and I'll put the clothes on top of it just because I'm coming back for it. Um, but then I don't come back.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Sure, you are. Yeah, sure you are. That's it, man. And that's exactly where we're going today, man. We've all been there. Uh we've talked about clarity before. Clarity helps us name what matters, but execution, where we're going today, asks a different question. The question is, how will I get this done? Because a clear plan is not the same as completed work. A lot of leaders already know what matters. They named the win, they had the meeting, they made the list, they even felt focused for a moment or two. Yeah. But then Monday came, the urgency took over, the work got messy, and things still didn't move. So that's the execution threshold. It's the gap between we know what matters and we actually got it done. Yeah. So today we're exploring why even clear plans can still stall.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, man. So let me with, you know, maybe taking away my sock example. Let me let me dive in a little bit. Like as we think about the problem, um, execution often breaks down when clarity doesn't get converted into movement, right? So so part of this is a leader can know the priority and still not have an owner, a sequence, a deadline, a decision, or a rhythm of follow through. And so that's why people often we will leave meetings inspired, leave these spaces. Oh, I really love what we're doing. And then you come back next week and nothing's moved.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Dude, confession like the more inspired I am in a meeting, the higher my anxiety raises if I don't feel like it's gonna get converted into movement. That's crazy. It's almost like the opportunity cost to say, this is awesome. We gotta figure this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know that's how I'm wired, yeah, Mike. We know how do we move it now? For real.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

See, what's crazy is I love to go to meetings when I'm inspired. Like, I if I'm a leader meeting, like we we need to leave with some inspiration. It's like, I don't mean we're gonna get anything done. It just means like, oh man, this is really great. Um, but the the truth is, this is not always, and we think about it often as a discipline problem, but it's not a discipline problem, which you just kind of named. It's a conversion problem. So the idea never became movement. The move never got an owner, the owner never got a path, the path never got protected. And so what happens is clarity matters. It's really, really important. Clarity names what matters, but execution helps us move what matters.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I really love that you laid out the move never got an owner. Yep. The owner never got a path, and the path never got protected. Yep. It's like, what happened? Why didn't this get done? And I feel like if we move along those three, which we're gonna dig into, yep, um, that's awesome. So a plan is not progress. Now we need a plan, but that's the planning stage. Yeah. We want to move into the implementation stage. Yeah, uh, planning matters, but the plan can also become a hiding place. Some of us, and and we all have different gifts in different spaces. Some of us like to live at that altitude of man, hey, we need to be planning and and strategic thinking. And I love that.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I feel like you're throwing shots over the bottom. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I just feel like this is but that's true, it can become a hiding place. Um, so we can have a good meeting, we can have a sexy whiteboard. I love a sexy whiteboard, man. I gotta tell you, I do. A beautiful strategy. Yeah, yeah. But none of that actually means execution has started. So here's a little kind of this versus that deal. A plan says, here's what we should do. Execution

Plan Versus Execution In Real Life

SPEAKER_01 4:55

says, here's what happens next. Yeah. Plan creates agreement. Yes, we're all gonna do this. Execution creates movement. Yeah. A plan can live in a document, or that sexy whiteboard. Execution has to live in a behavior. Yeah. Now, research will tell us that people are more likely to act, to make that next move if there's a specific cue and action. Cue and action. So in everyday language, it would be like, when this happens, I will do this. Good. So there's the path, there's the plan. And so until the plan becomes the next move, the work is still sitting still.

unknown 5:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

It hasn't moved. No, and it's good, man. You you have to have a plan that leads to progress. Like, not just a plan. Uh, the strategic plans are great, uh, but you also need to take a step forward, right? And often there's no owner. If there's no owner, there's also no movement, right? So a lot of work dies, we're learning that a lot of work dies in the gap between we should and who will. Like great. That that was a phenomenal idea. Who's actually gonna do this? Um, everybody agrees that this thing matters, this is really, really important, but nobody clearly owns the next move. And we've talked about it before. If everybody's doing it, there's a good chance that nobody's doing it. And this is where execution breaks down. Leaders get frustrated, teams get confused, and good ideas quietly stall. It's like this vision of good ideas often are taken to the slaughterhouse when there is no clear owner of it, right? So before the meeting ends, want to give some practicality. Before the meeting ends, owners need to be clear enough so people don't have to guess. And there are three questions that we really want to lean into as we think about this ownership piece. It's this Who owns the next move? No, not what who cares about it? Like that's great. I know everybody cares about it, but who owns the next move? Not who opinions uh are the loudest about this, not who's responsible or like like who's responsible for doing the coffee? That's great, but who's responsible for moving this thing forward? Who owns the next

Ownership Support And Return Points

SPEAKER_00 7:09

move? The next question would be who's going to help? Love that. Who's going to help? Clarify who provides input, approval, support, or resources so the owner isn't blocked. And this is so critical because oftentimes we have really great ideas and then we have somebody who's tasked with moving the thing forward, but they've never gotten some of the shared wisdom of like, oh, I actually need this person to move this thing forward. Like, I'm I'm oh, I'm just gonna drive it. No, now you've lost the trust and the credibility of your team. Not only that, you might be just going around in circles when you could have just gotten the right approval or the person to help. So who owns the next move? Who's going to help? And the third one would be when do we come back to it? This one is always helpful. I know it's something I always need to think through is it's the feedback. It's the feedback loop. So, like, what's the next checkpoint? When's the next meeting? Without a return point, even clear ownership actually loses momentum. We've gotta come circumvite, okay, how are we doing? What's happening? What's not happening? What do we need to happen?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

So I feel like these questions are great. One of the things we encounter a lot is founders, leaders, whatever will say, nobody's owning it. Like I just want them to take initiative. I just want them to own it. And a lot of times it's like a real quick, let's flip that mirror around. Sure. What conditions are you creating? Yeah. Yeah. That nobody is owning it. And sometimes it's not like a it's not like a the presence of something like, well, you're really intimidating, or you know, uh, we're afraid you're gonna snap at us, or we just don't want to work here because it's miserable. Yeah, a lot of times it's just the lack of a condition, like you're saying, there's none of this stuff. Just don't know. So what do you think? Why do you think leaders sometimes avoid assigning a clear owner? What's the obstacle there?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Man, I think there's a few of them. Uh, one is leaders uh probably at some level they are used to owning it themselves. Um it's living in their head, and so they haven't been able to clearly define even what the problem is. So we don't we don't even know what we're solving here. It's like so so sometimes leaders, we just get so in the space, we gotta make moves, we gotta make moves. Great. What are we doing? Right? Like you, you sit at a very different seat, and so you're constantly having this thing in your head, and you're assuming everybody else is living with the same thing. So I think that's one. But I think the other piece of leaders avoiding it because they probably at some level don't know because they've internalized it, they also don't know who to delegate it to. They don't know, and some of that I I've seen with leaders, it's I've got trust issues, and you disappointed me one time or two times because I wasn't clear or we weren't clear on the outcome. And so now I'm not sure if we even need to do this. So I'm just gonna let's not let's not innovate, let's not create, let's not move this thing forward because the last time this happened. So I think it's some of the track record that they've probably experienced as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

That's wild because what is actually just like uh a stunt, uh a kink in the execution system becomes like uh assigning uh negative trait to someone's character. Yep. Yep. You're like, oh, they're not reliable. It's like you weren't clear. There was no there was no execution system here. This ball got dropped and fundamental attribution error, right? We attribute to someone else their character what's really attributed to their environment or circumstance. Yep. Oh, you didn't get that done on time. You must be lazy, you must be disorganized. Oh you didn't know when it was supposed to get done because I didn't tell you, or the team didn't make it clear.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah, we didn't, we weren't clear. And then it's or I mean, this man, you bring it up a point where sometimes it's the same in an organization. Sometimes it's the same owner. Like you since nobody has spoken up, it's the same owner who's like, cool, yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it. That owner jumps in with already the stretch capacity, yeah. And it's like, well, it got done because we want to move the ball forward, but it wasn't, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't full because nobody else jumped in, or the leader didn't actually give a clear, like, yeah, hey, you're best for this role because I've actually I know my team, I understand it. You're best. There you go. This person's like, oh no, I'm just gonna jump in because I want to see it move forward.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And there's typically on a team, you're gonna have somebody that is predisposed that way, and that is a good thing, provided that's it needs to be tempered, right? So they don't just take on everything, yeah, or even like deprive other people of taking responsibility. But you're right now, all of a sudden the the fault in the execution system is burning someone out on the team, and no one even is aware. There's nobody's aware. John's gonna do it again, yeah. You know, like all this is so helpful. I think that's that's interesting. Number one, number one rule for sales, for just anybody doing anything, whether you're doing fundraising or asking people to get something done, is the number one reason people do something is because they're asked to. Yeah, it's like crazy. Why is no one doing anything? I'm like, oh man, that sounds really frustrating. Have you asked anyone to do the thing?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And then they go, Well, why should I have to ask? You know what? I don't know. Don't worry about it, but check it out. If you do ask, it's gonna right. You go, you go right to it. Yeah, I like the idea of a forcing function too, like in that in that scheduled follow-up. Like, uh, I don't care how disciplined you are, having a forcing function,

Deadlines Forcing Functions And Friction

SPEAKER_01 13:19

something that is forcing you to move by when. Absolutely. Like, hey, here's when we're you said the question was when do we come back to it? Hey, I'm gonna check in next Tuesday. All of a sudden, it's gonna happen. I forget, uh, I forget what the principle is called. Uh, it was like a word that didn't make sense to me in context. But the principle is essentially this is like people fill the space they have. Yeah. So, yeah, and and again, deadlines and reasonable work is important. But if I were to say, Oh, James, uh, can you have that to me in a week? You'd be like, Great, I got a week. So I'm gonna take a week to do it. James, can you have that to me by the end of the day tomorrow? Guess how long it's gonna take you by the end of the day tomorrow. Now, within reason, we can't be like overloading people, but that is something to think about, is when we don't operate in these, we get this like drag, like this space. It's like, yeah, well, you have six hours to do it, you have four hours to do it. Well, you could have done it in four hours, but you did it in six over time. That compounds is something huge.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, because you're you're hitting on some of the excess of this this execution. It's the sense of there's always urgency. We got to be moving all the time. It's like, wait, but if you were to take just a moment of space to actually say, when does this need to be done by? Like, when is this going? When is this mission critical? Is this the thing that's gonna actually help us move forward? Or is this just a growing frustration in me because I just I just like to move? You know, it's like, no, let me let me take a step back and say, this is important. Uh I'll go back to the sock example. It is the socks are mission critical because it actually shows my wife, like, hey, I care about you, I value you. I don't, you're not, you're not my maid, you're not, you know, and it so so now that's the force and function of like, okay, she she talked to me a few times about it. All right, let me make sure. End of the day, let me pick up the sock, put it in the dirty clothes thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

So, dude, that's so good. I I'm thinking about some of the people we work with, and we really do create the conditions for the behaviors. Like, environment is so powerful, environment is huge, and so oh, oh, the leader, you know, well, if it doesn't get done, they'll take care of it, right? Which is just well, that's because that's what's happened. They just took care of it. Or, you know, whatever. John will pick it up. It's good, man. Or my wife will pick up the socks, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. Good luck, good luck, good luck. There's a lot of friction there. There's friction in the system, and I think I think uh encountering some of that friction in the system, we should expect. Like when you put an execution plan in paper or start to live into it, the idea isn't like, oh, this is gonna flow smoothly. I heard someone once say leaders exist because problems exist. I'm like, yeah, so expect there to be problems, yep, and then you get to fix the system and and and it builds trust actually when you talk about it together rather than like it didn't work, you know, it's so and so's fault. It's like, no, why didn't it work? We discovered why. Yeah, so there's always there's always friction. But you were saying this before about uh protecting the path, right? Which I think does just take a little bit of forethought to say, hey, what's gonna make this work hard? Yeah, like what could possibly get in the way, right? Plans sound great until they meet real life. Every what Tyson said, everyone's gonna plan until they get punched in the face. Yeah, that's it. Guess what? If you are working, leading an organization, leading the team, you're gonna get punched in the mouth. I want to get punched a couple times, a couple times. It's gonna happen, man. Same round. In the same round. In the same round, seriously, yeah, man. And decisions, look, they're gonna take longer than you think. Something's gonna get confusing, someone's not gonna be available, someone's gonna get sick, the budget's gonna change. Yep. Check this one out. This will drive us nuts. The technology isn't gonna work in the way you want. Oh my gosh. Or we just we just underestimate it. And so here's how we move past that. Before saying, let's get it done, we just ask, what could stop us from getting this done? What could get in the way? And this is where like having different people in the room can be so helpful. Like, I feel like you are uniquely wired with your gift of wondering to ask those questions to kind of figure out, like, well, what if this happened? What if the what ifs are super important? Not to get into some like anxiety spiral, yep, but can we have some contingencies? Do we have some bridges? That way, uh, like you were talking about decision authority before, taking two minutes at the end of the meeting to figure out, okay, well, if this happens, what will you do? Saves them waiting on coming back to the leader. They didn't get their email, all this organizational drag. It's like, hey, if they say it's under $500, shoot for it. If they say it's over $500, go to a different vendor, like whatever it is, you say, Oh, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

It takes time, but it is so it's so helpful, man. That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

And even for employee engagement, like for people to feel like they're winning, research will tell us one of the number one things is that they're making, they feel like they're making progress.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

That's it, right? They need to feel like they're making progress. And so one of the ways is to like measure and track that. Like, hey, here's what we want to get done. Oh, I'm hitting that. Deadlines are helpful, but also if we can just take a little bit of time to think about what's gonna stop them from making progress, yeah. A lot of those obstacles are just misunderstandings. They're just like, they're just like the bureaucracy of like, oh, uh, well, I didn't want to do that because I wasn't sure. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no, no, no, no. I want like, here's the tree. Go left or go right.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Fork in the road.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

That's it. Dude, I I love, I love that imagery of people, people wanting to make progress. And some of it, again, as you think about a leader, this is just a just a side thing. But as you think about being able to track some of that progress, you're able to actually show that person when when you do get punched in the mouth, look how many rounds you survive. Dude, look how many, look how many, look, look, you you're actually winning. Like you're you're actually doing better than you think you are. And I think sometimes it feels good to hear it, but to see it, it's like, oh, all right, cool. Because there are moments when you're leading, no matter what, you're like, oh, I'm tanking this. Yeah, I'm just stinking this up big time. But to see that, no, you did this, we had this done, we move this forward. I think as an organization, it reduces some of the anxiety, it reduces some of the in the leadership, it reduces the anxiety to say, oh, we actually have made progress.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

I love that. That's like a superpower. I mean, and you want to talk about turnover, keeping people engaged. Everyone's like, How do we pay more money and getting more benefits? Da-da-da. I'm like, yeah, you got to pay people enough money. Yeah. But if people feel like they're winning, that's it. And then even when they get punched in the mouth, yeah. As a leader, you could say, no, hey, here's what we got done. Oh, man. Mm-hmm. I love it. It's good, man.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, here it is. Some of the next right step execution starts moving again when the next steps get concrete. I think we've been talking about that throughout the day. It's like, man, how do we we've got great plans, we got all these things, but we've got to get things moving by having some next steps, some concrete. So, next steps

Concrete Next Steps That Create Momentum

SPEAKER_00 20:14

are not launch the program, fix the culture, build the business, develop a team. Or I and I love these because I've written this so many times. It's been like, what are my goals or what am I gonna do? And that's the strategy. This is so great, but those are outcomes, and it's important to understand outcomes versus tasks, but those are outcomes, not next steps. Right. Some of the next steps might be send the email, make the call, pick up the socks, choose the date, name the owner, draft the outline, schedule the meeting, remove one obstacle, ask for help, close one decision. And those things, what's interesting is that they sound so remedial. They sound as leaders, we're like, oh no, I'm a leader, I'm not a manager, but those things actually move the thing forward. So I think the next step should always be clear enough to take small and and out intentional next steps.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah, clear, small next step. We really do underestimate the power of like a next step. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, oh, here's the outcome. And I love that, and I think that's important. And and and kind of the way we draw that up is we start with the outcome and then figure out okay, what are the things that need to get done to make that happen? So good. Yeah, man. All right, how are we gonna cross the threshold this week? Here's what we want you to do pick one thing that has stalled, or even just one thing that you want to get done, and say three questions. Who owns the next move? What could stop it from moving, and what is the next right step? And I'll tell you, you don't need to do this on an island. And this this works in the context of your team and your organization and your work, it works in the context of your marriage, if you're planning a vacation, like whatever it is, try this thing out, test these things. That's why we talk about crossing a threshold. It's not we don't just want to just give you a bunch of information. We want to you to experience transformation to actually cross these thresholds, and the best way to do that isn't again, isn't just a plan or an idea that is super important, but it's to take one of that and just try it out, see if it works for you and actually see see the impact.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Had a mentor of mine, he says, information plus application leads to transformation. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

All right, closing thoughts for today. What do you got?

SPEAKER_00 22:37

So you may not need another planning meeting. Um, you may need to turn the plan into movement.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

I love that. And I would just say, for me, it's take one small intentional step and see it. Name it, name what could get in the way of it, and that that is really gonna move the needle. That's good. We uh we have been uh telling you guys about this 70-minute leadership momentum accelerator, and we've just been having a ton of fun seeing the ways that is impacting people quickly. Uh, if you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just wanting to grow and you're not sure how, oftentimes these things don't come with a manual or a roadmap,

Accelerator Offer And Closing

SPEAKER_01 23:19

but we want to help create you one. Uh, it's two coaches, 70 minutes, just focused on you and identifying your sticking point, a custom roadmap, and then 30 days of text and voice access accountability to walk with you through it. And we guarantee your momentum or you don't pay for it. Here's what we believe we don't think you need a six month course. We don't think you need another 50 hours on YouTube videos learning. We think you just need a focused, small next step, and we'd love to be part of that with you. All right, y'all. Till next time. I'm JC.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

I'm James. See you later. It's good, man.