CEO Question- How Do I Get Everyone to Execute Daily?

This question came up in a CEO meeting a few days ago. This CEO of a multimillion dollar horticulture company was struggling with getting everyone to make progress on their projects and meet specific goals.

I asked a few questions such as:

What is driving them to get things done? Is there an end goal?

Is the structure set up for them to succeed at the project completion or are there too many other priorities?

What’s the reward for execution?

His answers were telltale as to why his team was not executing on high priority projects daily. The most successful projects have a well laid out project vision, timeline, accountability agreements and rewards for outcome. This Gen X CEO admitted that although he had indicated to his leadership team that the project he was referring to was high priority he was constantly throwing other high priority items at them. He also acknowledged that he had not set up a defined reward for getting to the target.

We talked about actions he could take to get everyone back on track to focus on the project and execute towards completion daily.

Action #1- Hold a brief and focused meeting to reframe the project and indicate vision, timelines, actions, accountability and introduce a reward for the teams completion.

Action #2- When the CEO tries to give them a competing priority they have the right to say to him, “does this override the project you want me to work?” this allows for quick analysis of priorities for both parties.

Action #3- The CEO is to check in weekly on project progress- recognize and reward outstanding personal performance with small incentives.

These three actions although small- make a significant difference in getting everyone to commit to daily execution on a project.