How a president and her team improved execution

Does getting your executive team executing efficiently seem impossible? It’s not. We see this all the time with the companies we work with.

In my previous tips “Is your executive team executing efficiently?” and “A great book to fix execution drama: Metronomics,” we established the four proven practices that bridge the gap between commitment and disciplined follow-through. This article shares the story of one client who successfully mastered that journey.

I have had the privilege of working with Arcora, a human transformation partner. Arcora provides Employee Assistance Programs, Business Assistance Services, and Workplace Coaching to companies across Canada, also working through employee benefits companies and their benefits advisors. Their effective, results-focused services and caring, responsive experience help their benefits partners and advisors differentiate in the market, grow their client base, increase client retention, and fulfill their purpose of caring for people.

I began working with President Shandy McLean and her team to help them grow to penetrate the Canadian market by expanding their network of benefits partners and advisors. While their day-to-day services were excellent, they wanted to get aligned around a plan for growth and improve their ability to execute on the changes and improvements that would be needed to make it happen. After an initial kickoff and annual planning session, Shandy and her team got started implementing the four business practices we suggest to improve execution efficiency.

A Monthly Operating and Financial Forecast

They soon implemented their first monthly operating and financial forecast. This projection, based on anticipated client volumes from their benefits partners, was initially intended to set clear expectations for the ownership group and serve as a quarterly reporting tool.

The senior executive team soon began using it monthly to track results, immediately see where assumptions were or weren't being met, and understand the variance drivers. This helped them make frequent, necessary decisions to consistently meet or exceed targets.

The key operational shift was realizing we needed to adjust their annual planning to precede the financial forecast submission to the owners. This ensured the annual plan guided the financial forecast, not the reverse.

Quarterly Targets and Priorities

With a monthly operating and financial forecast established, the team could easily pull numbers to set clear monthly and quarterly volume and financial targets,  essential for checking that results were on track.

We also initiated the practice of setting 90-day priorities for change, improvement, and growth each quarter, drawing from their annual priorities in their One Page Strategic Plan.

Initially, these priorities were 'rough'—ambiguous goals, a mix of company-wide and department-level focus, and a general feeling of overload. This is a common starting point.

To address this, the team got more rigorous: they got clearer on their ultimate aim for each priority, created detailed action plans to understand scope and contribution, and distinguished true senior executive Company Priorities from department priorities and day-to-day work. This newfound clarity supported the senior executive team and their own team members in executing company-wide changes and departmental improvements with greater confidence and accountability.

An Executive Team Meeting Rhythm

The Senior Executive Team fully embraced quarterly planning, making these sessions a standard part of their operating rhythm. In the second year, we adjusted the quarterly planning to get more rigorous with quarterly priorities.

The team also adopted a full communication rhythm to solve problems and keep their quarterly plans on track:

• 10-Minute Daily Huddles for quick synchronization, team cohesion, and issue identification throughout the week.
• 90-Minute Weekly Meetings were initially implemented to keep priorities on track and resolve larger issues or blockers. They then adjusted these weekly meetings to also proactively check whether key quarterly targets would be met.
• Half-Day Monthly Meetings to discuss progress, resolve larger issues, explore opportunities, apply new business practices, and adjust the quarterly plan.

Initially, both the Senior Executive Team and the broader Leadership Team members attended the quarterly planning and monthly check-ins. This was because the initial annual planning session included a broad group of leaders from which the senior executive team was then selected. The joint group continued to meet for quarterly planning and monthly checkins to keep the newly formed leadership team bought into the change and to help inform the senior executive team, who were mostly newer to the company.

However, over time this structure proved sub-optimal: it clouded accountability, muddied the planning, and hindered true senior executive team cohesion by making the group too large for focused debate.

The CEO and Senior Executive Team shifted to conducting company quarterly planning and monthly check-ins on their own. They introduced shorter, separate monthly meetings with the Leadership Team to gather input, share decisions, and guide change. Limiting quarterly planning to the Senior Executive Team proved critical for tightening up their plans and improving their execution.

A Results Tracking System

Initially, the broader leadership group used a simple document to capture plans and support status updates. Once the focus narrowed to the Senior Executive Team, they adopted a proven Results Tracking System.

This system was vital for efficiently capturing and tracking results, monitoring progress on targets and priorities, and helping the team stay on top of execution between their daily huddles, weekly, monthly, and quarterly sessions. The system added a final layer of discipline, tightening their quarterly planning and execution by demanding clear articulation of targets, priorities and plans, as well as clear status updates.

Despite an initial learning curve, the team quickly appreciated how the new system made their plans and progress clearer, and helped their execution get more manageable, effective, and efficient.

With improved execution, Shandy and her team at Arcora have made great strides in making the key changes and improvements needed to make their exceptional human transformation services available through more employee benefits plan companies and advisors across Canada.

So, where can you begin to get your executive team executing more efficiently? Start with the foundation: get acquainted with the Monthly Operating and Financial Forecast. We’ll cover that in detail in the next 5 Minute Growth Tip.

Watch / Listen to the Video

If you are a prairie CEO who wants to grow a thriving company, team and life more quickly, more easily and with less stress and headache, please contact me here.