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Guest: Spencer Shaffer, a coach at CEO Coaching International. Spencer is a four-time CEO and entrepreneur with a wealth of experience across engineering services, energy, technology, and software-as-a-service business models. He’s also been a YPO member since 2006. Over the past 26 years, Spencer has led numerous business transformations through M&A, scaling operations, leadership development, and change management. He is passionate about building people, teams, and cultures.
Quick Background: The very best companies make the hard work of daily execution and consistent progress look easy. But to lead a company to that place where every cog is in sync and every flywheel is spinning, the CEO has to master three essential elements that keep people and processes heading in the same direction.
On today’s show, Spencer Shaffer dives into how these three essential elements combined with his top tactics for driving powerful execution will Make BIG Happen.
Keys to Impactful Execution from Spencer Shaffer
Having a strong focus on clarity, alignment, and accountability, coupled with Spencer’s other tactics will drive impactful execution.
1. Clarity
“ Execution doesn’t happen without a clear vision and focus on people and culture,” Spencer says. “It’s important to start with alignment to a vision and then setting key initiatives and ensuring accountability at every level within the organization. The formula that I always love and have used for years within my organizations is: Clarity + Alignment = Success. If you ask any of my leaders or employees, they could repeat that formula back to you. And if your team understands where you’re headed and why, execution will naturally follow.”
One company where Spencer put his formula into action was an engineering firm that focused on maximizing energy efficiency. Each employee knew that if they could help one client — one building — maintain that sweet spot between costs and consumption, then they had done their part that day to push the company a little closer to BIG. When employees can see how the work they do is connected to the company’s overall vision, it creates feelings of purpose that can motivate a workplace even more powerfully than a paycheck.
“People there came to work to save the world,” Spencer says. “They were excited to show up every day and execute on the strategies we had.”
At the CEO level, leaders have to balance their clarity around achieving the BIG vision over time with clarity on what they need to get done today. Spencer recommends that CEOs always put one thing at the top of their daily to-do lists and get that one thing done, no matter what, before any other shiny objects grab their attention. And if, on a given day, it’s hard to rank all those post-it notes and pending phone calls, start with your company’s most valuable resource.
“My people were the most important thing to my organization,” Spencer says. “They’re my greatest asset. And if I had a people problem that I needed to address, I made sure to do that early because I didn’t want situations to linger. I wanted to address them as early as possible. So for me, the people situations went to the top of my list.”
2. Alignment
“Predictable communication, alignment, and trust are important,” Spencer says. “Leaders often assume that everybody knows what they know, but that’s rarely the case. Regular structured communication is critical to ensure that everyone is aligned with the company’s vision and goals.”
Maintaining a consistent meeting rhythm is vital to keeping every level of the organization in sync. In CEO Coaching International’s Make BIG Happen System, that starts with the BIG annual planning session to reflect on the previous year and set goals for the year ahead. Those goals, and their associated daily, actionable, and measurable activities, should be reinforced throughout the year in quarterly alignment sessions, monthly reviews, weekly leadership discussions, and daily huddles.
“All of those meetings ensure clarity, structure, consistency, and transparency,” Spencer says. “They create predictable touch points for both the leadership and employees, and that helps build trust and drive execution.”
No one company is going to have the exact same meeting rhythm. The important thing is to find a consistent heartbeat that your organization can align around and that’s consistent with the CEO’s execution goals. The cornerstone of Spencer’s preferred weekly rhythm is for the CEO to “Own the Bookends” of every week.
“Mondays and Fridays are the most important days for me,” Spencer says. “Monday is when you set goals and ensure alignment for the week. And on Friday, I bring the team together to review challenges, celebrate the wins and successes that we have, deliver strategic updates, evaluate our progress on major projects, and determine new actions based on what we’ve learned. If you can own the bookends, the Mondays and Fridays, the rest of the week becomes more focused and productive. It created a trickle-down effect because my direct reports would have similar meetings with their direct reports, and it quickly became a culture within the organization.”
3. Accountability
If, as Spencer argues, people are a company’s most important asset, then most CEO’s probably aren’t reviewing their people enough. Ask yourself:
- Who is in charge of what?
- Are leaders meeting key deadlines?
- Do all of your teams have the support they need to execute consistently?
- Is each team’s meeting rhythm reinforcing accountability?
“Reviewing the org chart weekly is important,” Spencer says. “It ensures that I have a clear understanding of the talent within my company. It also allows me to give consistent feedback and evaluate how people are performing in their roles. This regular process ensures that we have the right people in the right positions and that our team is equipped to execute on the goals that we have. It’s also a great way to identify gaps in talent and opportunities for growth.”
One simple way to put your org chart under a microscope is to rate your c-suite executives and team leaders: A, B, C. Can you coach up the B’s? Why are you settling for C’s in some of your company’s most important seats?
Another popular method is using a 9-Box Grid to identify where performance and potential meet for all of your key players. CEOs can also zoom out and plot whole teams on the grid to see where company-wide execution could be falling short.
But as important as your gut assessments are, CEOs need robust data to make the best decisions for their companies. AI-powered scoreboards can help CEOs distinguish between past success and tangible progress towards BIG so that your vision — and your resources — remain focused on the next step.
“I think this is where companies get stuck in the execution of their strategy,” Spencer says. “Scorecards are important. The lagging indicators are important because we have to celebrate success. But what I really think are important to track on the scorecard are those leading indicators, like financial performance. What are the measurable leading activities that generate the activities and the outcome that we hope for? How are we treating our customers? What are the KPIs around customer satisfaction and net promoter score, customer retention rate, customer acquisition costs, or lifetime value? What are the activities that we need to do in order to drive those KPIs and those results? How is employee engagement? How is employee turnover? I feel like these KPIs provide a balanced view of the business’s health and performance across essential areas, helping leaders make informed decisions. There’s a big difference in looking at what drives the business and looking at how we did in the business.”
Top Takeaways From Spencer Shaffer
1. Your vision has to be BIG enough to inspire and specific enough to drive daily progress.
2. Your communication should keep every part of your company aligned on BIG goals.
3. Your scoreboards need to acknowledge wins and encourage even more winning.
Links:
I Can See Clearly Now: Define Your Vision for the Company – Without a clear vision in place, how will your team know what to work toward?
3 Ways to Build Accountability in Your Organization – If you’re struggling to trust your team to do what you hired them to do, what you’re missing is accountability.
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, CEO Coaching International has coached more than 1,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries and 45 industries. The coaches at CEO Coaching International are former CEOs, presidents, or executives who have made BIG happen. The firm’s coaches have led double-digit sales and profit growth in businesses ranging in size from startups to over $10 billion, and many are founders that have led their companies through successful eight, nine, and ten-figure exits. Companies working with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have experienced an average revenue CAGR of 31% (2.6X the U.S. average) and an average EBITDA CAGR of 52.3% (more than 5X the U.S. average).
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