It's Not Rocket Science. Dave Anderson
p>Dave Anderson
It’s Not Rocket Science
Cover image: Man Flying with Rocket Pack © iStock.com/CSA Images
Cover design: C. Wallace
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2015 by The Dave Anderson Corporation. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Anderson, Dave, 1961-
It's not rocket science: 4 simple strategies for mastering the art of execution/Dave Anderson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-119-11663-9 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-119-11664-6 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-119-11665-3 (ePub)
1. Management. 2. Leadership. 3. Organizational behavior. 4. Organizational effectiveness.
I. Title.
HD31.A5479 2015
658 – dc23
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• A huge thanks goes to my LearnToLead team for picking up the slack for me while I focused on completing this book on time, and for continuing to grow our company at a pace that defies logic.
• Special thanks goes to my wife, Rhonda, and daughter, Ashley, for their support and encouragement throughout the process. You two are amazing teammates in life and business.
• To Shannon Vargo and Elizabeth Gildea at John Wiley & Sons: After 11 books together you all get better and better. We made this deal with one 20-minute phone call: no agents, multiple meetings, or other unproductive nonsense. Thank you for your enthusiasm and for your regard for my time.
• A big thanks goes to Ryan Cota, my friend and copy editor, who came out of “copyediting retirement” to whip this book into shape.
• To our many friends and clients around the globe who make what we do in our company and with our Matthew 25:35 Foundation possible: May God bless you abundantly in your leadership walk.
FOREWORD
When you read a Dave Anderson work, it is like having a chair set for him in your conference room, boardroom, or locker room. He can take all of the issues facing leaders, companies, and teams today and bring clarity and purpose to them. It's Not Rocket Science is like having a manual for how to execute the daily steps we have to take, knowing these steps constantly change. Circumstances may change but our discipline to execute under pressure and produce results cannot. Dave gives real-time, real-life ways to make this happen regardless of the size or scope of what you lead.
Although there are numerous way to describe what you receive from a Dave Anderson book, inspiration, vision, confidence, and go-to strategies all come to mind. In It's Not Rocket Science Dave ties it all together into a process that helps us execute relentlessly on a daily basis. Once we get the vision and strategy right, the only way we can convert them into results is by leading our team with an effective execution process.
As a coach, our team's ability to win games comes down to our ability to execute under pressure. The steps to get to that point are strenuous, complex, and ever changing. Coaching basketball is no different from holding other leadership positions in that it is never easy because change is constant. Dave Anderson has taken the potential complexity of how to master the art of execution and presents it in four very clear and detailed steps. Any leader's job comes down to daily execution that moves you toward winning results. And that's exactly what It's Not Rocket Science will teach you how to do.
PREFACE
In my decades of teaching and practicing sound leadership principles, I have become convinced that the last thing most organizations need is another goal or vision they will miss because one or more of the following conditions exists:
• They can't execute to reach it; the execution process is nonexistent, poorly defined, or inconsistent.
• The leaders mean well but aren't competent enough to get the job done.
• The culture isn't strong enough to align with the vision.
• The team isn't capable of executing at the necessary level; members lack the talent, training, process, or guidance to get the job done.
It's Not Rocket Science is divided into parts that will address each of these issues, providing a basic, effective, and actionable blueprint for building a great organization of any size, in any arena:
The chapters in this part provide a step-by-step process, master the art of execution (MAX), for effective execution that most organizations lack. When I teach these principles in my live seminars, I'm often told that a structured execution process is the something that leaders intuitively knew was both missing and holding them back from greatness.
This part will also introduce several new terms that apply to the MAX execution process. A glossary of terms in the back of the book serves as a quick reference for the new execution language you'll learn in Part One: the ultimate few goals (TUFs), MAX, MAX acts, personalized