Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan

A few years back, the leadership team of my area at work had a book club, and this was one of the selections.  When my manager left a little more than a year ago and I moved into his old desk, I inherited the book.  It sat on my desk for months, until earlier this year when I picked it up and started to read it 2-3 pages at a time as my laptop booted up and logged me into the network.  The good news is that this was the perfect book for reading in this fashion, with many natural breaking points in each chapter as the focus switched between the authors delivering the information on how to “get things done” and their personal experiences around companies that did, and did not, succeed in doing so.

One quote that stuck out to me, which I would have tweeted had it been shorter than 140 characters, was “When I see companies that don’t execute, the chances are they don’t measure, don’t reward, and don’t promote people who know how to get things done.”  This was right after the promotions at my company were announced and it did explain a lot about our current situation.