The book that shows how to get the job done and deliver results . . . whether you're running an
entire company or in your first management job 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 advisor to senior executives and boards of directors a man with unparalleled
insight into why some companies are successful 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 delivered 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 Executive magazine.
Accomplishments such as 31 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 strategy and operations result in a business based on intellectual
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 marketplace the economy and the competition. Once the right people and strategy are in
place they are then linked to an operating process that results in the implementation of
specific programs and actions and that assigns accountability. 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. Putting
an execution culture in place is hard but losing it is easy. In July 2001 Larry Bossidy was
asked by the board of directors of Honeywell International (it had merged with AlliedSignal) to
return and get the company back on track. He's been putting the ideas he writes about in
Execution to work in real time.
