Isn't Execution underrated?

All the self-help books that I have read so far, always emphasise heavily on the importance of having a good vision. Recently, I had attended a brainstorming session with a group of friends on why vision was appreciated and acknowledged only after it had been executed? I may have a vision about a goal, for instance, I may have the vision to touchdown on Moon by, say 2025. But then if I do not work towards it or find ways to actually make it happen, nobody would acknowledge me as a ‘Visionary’. Instead I would rather be termed an ‘Impractical Idiot’. Vision is vital and should be given its own priority, I agree. But then don’t you think execution is being underrated there? What do you think would really happen if somebody was really good at executing everything on a day-to-day basis, but didn’t have any real vision for the distant future? Will they have a successful career? Also, what would happen to those people who are really good visionaries, but poor implementers? If you could choose only one – vision or execution, which would yield better results? Let us analyse that together.

Stephen Covey, in his , 7 habits of highly effective people, had successfully articulated the importance of combining vision and execution/strategy.

For those of you who are not familiar with the above theory, let me write few sentences on how the quadrants are to be interpreted. Along the X-axis or the horizontal axis of the graph, we have vision. And along the Y-axis or the vertical axis, we have operations. People with really good vision would fall in any quadrant towards right (either B or C) and people who are really good at execution of work (operational excellence) would fall in any quadrant on the top half (either A or B). And people who overlap on both (Quadrant B) are the ideal, best candidates.

Those who fall in Quadrant A are the people who are quite successful and happy with what is happening in their day-to-day life, but are not quite sure about what their near future would be. The people who fall in Quadrant C have great vision on what lies ahead or what they want their future to be; but are vague on how to get there. Quadrant B is clearly the “magic quadrant” where one not only has a clear and vivid vision about the future, but also has extreme clarity on how to get there in style. And people in quadrant D will find it extremely tough and hard to survive in today’s world.

If you haven’t done this before, maybe you should ask yourself on which quadrant you belong to? Just as I mentioned a while ago, you can still be highly successful even if you are in Quadrant A. Let me give you some examples of people who fall in Quadrant A. We must have come across lots of small time businesses that have been running quite successfully for years. I am certain that this might remind you of those stores in your hometown from where you have been buying for years now. Do you think that they had a strong vision? I doubt! (of course, all of them would have had the vision to make money). But why are they successful then? Probably they have been successful because they have been delivering their tasks diligently on a consistent basis with lots of discipline and punctuality.

I would like to compare and contrast the careers of two successful professionals who matter to me the most – my parents. When my parents had met for the first time, back in 1978, my father has confidently told this to my mother,” I am working as a State Government Clerk now. When I retire, I would do so as a Deputy Collector.” And he did live up to his word. If you backtrack my father’s career, you would see that all through his life, he had been in the magic quadrant B. So if you are in that quadrant, that is great. You are destined to do greater things in life.

Now let’s take a look at my mother’s career. She too was a clerk in a nationalized bank in 1978. And she did not have a clear vision (career wise) to say something similar to what my father had said. She worked in the same bank for 36 years and retired. And today when she turns back, she says that she has had an exceptional career. Financially, pretty much throughout their respective careers, my mother earned more than my father (Banks pay far better than the Kerala Government jobs). So according to me, she must be really proud of what she did with her career too. All she did was focus on what she had in hand, worked diligently with lots of discipline and commitment to her work, consistently. She had really enjoyed what she did without getting bored. She clearly wasn’t looking for specific roles or titles or heights in the organization, in fact she hated promotions because of the distant transfers that would bring along. In that sense, she wasn’t a visionary (of course she had her own reasons to why she had other priorities in life).

The reason to have compared these two careers that I have closely observed is due to the fact that there are umpteen number of people like my mother, very much in quadrant A, worried about a lack of vision. To those in that quadrant, all that I have to say is, “That’s alright – don’t worry so much”.

However, if you are in quadrant C, please re-evaluate and make sure that you correct yourself and get back on track. Don’t lose the today focusing so much on your tomorrow.

Wishing you all the best in this journey!