"Execution may very well be the best business book of the year. and one of the most useful to have come around in a long time. This smart and pithy book focuses on a simple though vexing challenge: How can the leaders of an organization exhort their people to deliver on the most important goals?... It's rare to find a book like this that blends smart practice with intelligent articulation of how to get things done. Do yourself a favor. Buy it."

----The Boston Globe

Larry Bossidy is one of the world's most acclaimed CEOs, a man with few peers who has a track record for delivering results. Ram Charan is a legendary advisorto senior executives and boards of directors, a man with unparalleled insight into why some companies are success-ful and others are not. Together they've pooled their knowledge and experience into the one book on how to close the gap between results promised and results deliv-ered that people in business need today.

After a long, stellar career with General Electric, Larry Bossidy transformed AlliedSignal into one of the world's most admired companies and was named CEO of the year in 1998 by Chief Execlttive magazine. Accomplishments such as 3l consecutive quarters of earnings-per-share growth of 13 percent or more didn't just happen; they resulted from the consistent practice of the discipline of execution: understanding how to link together people,strategy, and operations, the three core processes of every business.

Leading these processes is the real job of running a business, not formulating a "vision" and leaving the work of carrying it out to others. Bossidy and Charan show the importance of being deeply and passionately engaged in an organization and why robust dialogues about people, strat-egy, and operations result in a business based on intellec-tual honesty and realism.

The leader's most important job--selecting and appraising people--is one that should never be delegated. As a CEO, Larry Bossidy personally makes the calls to check references for key hires. Why? With the right people in the right jobs, there's a leadership gene pool that conceives and selects strategies that can be executed. People then work together to create a strategy building block by building block, a strategy in sync with the realities of the market-place, the economy, and the competition. Once the right people and strategy are in lace, they are then linked to an operating process that results in the implementation of specific programs and actions and that assigns accountabil-ivy. This kind of effective operating process goes way beyond the typical budget exercise that looks into a rearview mirror to set its goals. It puts reality behind the numbers and is where the rubber meets the road.

 Introduction

PART I WHY EXECUTION IS NEEDED

1: The Gap Nobody Knows           13

2. The Execution Difference          35

PART II THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF EXECUTION

3. Building Block One: The Leader's Seven

Essential Behaviors             57

4: Building Block Two: Creating the

Framework for Cultural Change        85

5: Building Block Three: The Job No Leader

Should Delegate--Having the Right People

in the Right Place             109

6: The People Process: Making the Link with

Strategy and Operations

7: The Strategy Process: Making the Link with

People and Operations

8: How to Conduct a Strategy Review

9: The Operations Process: Making the Link

with Strategy and People

Conclusion: Letter to a New Leader

Index