GETTING STUFF DONE: WINNING THE GAME OF FLAWLESS EXECUTION
Roxanne Emmerich, CSP, CMC

Recently a Keynote Speaker at BISA's Community and Regional Bank Forum, Roxanne Emmerich, President of The Emmerich Group Inc., works with financial services professionals and specializes in extraordinary breakthroughs in culture and performance for financial institutions. Her unique approach blends profit-rich sales culture systems, kick-butt marketing, enlightened, no-excuses leadership development, along with strategic ironclad templates and systems.

Execution. It's the name of the game. Execution is what separates those who merely have lofty ideas from those who end up winning the game. It's about taking strategies and making sure they are implemented with power.

Creating a culture of execution is a leadership issue. It combines creating a "no-excuses, get-it-done" culture with the systems, processes, and accountabilities that ensure things are done consistently and done well.

People do what gets measured and audited. That's both the good news and the bad news.

Because bank exams focus on the operational parts of the business, those things get done and with fairly strong consistency. That's the good news.

The bad news—a.k.a. the OPPORTUNITY—is that the service, sales, and spirit components of banking hardly ever receive any systemization, audits, compliance exams, measurement, or rewards—or repercussions for non-compliance. Is it any wonder that banks do a better job at operations than they do at culture, sales, and service?

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!

"Moments of Truth" are those critical times when a customer forms an impression of you, deciding whether your offerings and their standards see eye-to-eye. If you create systems roll-outs around those Moments of Truth, followed by mystery shopping, celebrations, coaching and more hoopla to complete execution, you can get to nearly 100 percent compliance on each Moment of Truth.

If you create systems for sales to make sure rate inquiries NEVER receive a rate quote but always a question that breaks the preoccupation with rate," followed by powerful needs questions and a powerful job of shopping, measuring, celebrating, and ascertaining 100 percent compliance—just imagine what your rate of conversion of those inquiries would be!

If you build in rituals of celebration—quarterly hooplas where you celebrate and reward the success in strategic focus areas, daily huddles in which each person shares a success and all applaud, or the creation of a team to create aliveness and fun while focusing on key strategic initiatives—magic begins to happen.

In addition to the areas of sales, service, and culture, you also need systems and accountabilities to make sure that your defined key initiatives get accomplished in a timely manner. Such systems ensure that all of your team members are working on the things that matter most without being distracted with the minutiae.

It is critical that every organization starts this process by being very clear with all team members about the 3-5 key initiatives and the 3-5 key results that are to be completed each quarter.

Each team member should have a quarterly plan, including a timeline for their contributions to achieving the overall objective. They should bring the plan to their supervisor each quarter to make agreements and list exactly what they accomplished in the last quarter and how it compared to the plan. Your low performers will have no place to hide and will need to shape up or start shopping their résumés.

Use weekly planning meetings in which each attendee declares focused results following a clean process that wastes no time and you will create magic. These meetings create the engine to keep people focused on doing the right things and getting results in the areas that matter. It also reveals the "stealth slackers"—those who are otherwise masterful at hiding and looking busy.

Top performers know how to get the right things accomplished. Top performing leaders also know how to get their people focused on doing the right things. They know that accepting no excuses from their team members means permitting no excuses from themselves as well. They need to go to war with their own "lack-of-execution demons."

For an organization to thrive in these highly competitive times, it is more critical than ever that leaders build an environment where their word is law. Only by conveying that attitude can they expect others to be held to the same standard.

And what if you are the culprit of poor execution? CHANGE. Change now. You are simply operating on a set of poor habits and will need to fight for your own growth. Start by reframing each project in your mind.

When something important needs to happen and you think it's not possible, ask yourself this question: "If my life depended on it, how would I make sure this happened?" With that frame of reference, you'll be amazed at the miracles you will produce regularly.

Then: Use templates and checklists to hold yourself to the completion of your key projects.

The truth is, having a life that works DOES require you to live your commitments. Miracles are supposed to happen, but they require a steadfast ironclad system of execution and a leader who is committed to making the miracle happen.

Be the miracle!