The Sanmar Group Annual Day was held on 8 February 2011 at Hotel Chola Sheraton. A business lecture by Adit Jain on “Global Balancing and India”, was insightful and informative. N Sankar’s incisive speech was on execution as the key to success.
‘Execution is the key to success’:
N Sankar
Excerpts from N Sankar’s speech on Group Annual Day :
“Implementation or execution is the key to success. I know there has bee a recent high level debate – I think it was in HBR, about which gives better results - a better plan implemented not so well, or a poorer plan implemented well. I am staying out of this debate. All I am saying is whatever plan you have, implementation is crucial.
Perhaps the day may come some time in the future when all you do is set tasks and your people automatically do them, but I don’t think I am going to be around to see that day.
And since we are now talking of Sanmar and 2011-12, let me lay this down as an imperative for Sanmar management - Implementation or Execution Excellence.
As I said earlier, I have been talking of this issue for many years. Let me quote what I said almost ten years ago at the Group Annual Day in 2002.
“This brings me to the other imperative that I mentioned, that of ‘Execution’. This in my mind is absolutely the most critical differentiating factor between the winners and the losers.
Corporate strategy, people strategies, the latest equipment and techniques, hardware, software, top quality managers – all these are available, and anybody who is interested can get them. What will differentiate the winners is how you utilise them and how well you execute your business plans and your people processes. Unfortunately, execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today. It is not sexy, it is not what the stars want to do. It is no even what senior management wants to do. If senior management believes that they should focus on the bigger issues and leave implementation to the foot-soldiers, they are living in a dream world. Leaders have to be involved in execution. Big thoughts have to betranslated into concrete steps for action, and then implemented through constant communication and follow up.
Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy
Execution must be a core element of an organisation’s culture Execution is the major job of the business leader
The last point is so important it is worth repeating – the involvement of the leader in execution. A leader who boasts that he has a ‘hands off’ style and
has empowered executives from who he gets reports on a monthly basis is not doing his job. He is not dealing with the issues of the day. The leader has to be deeply engaged in execution.
He has to be personally involved in assigning tasks and then following up for completion. I am defi nitely not making a case against delegation or empowerment.
These are essential. But, execution does not mean doing the task yourself. It involves setting task objectives for the members of your team, and constantly following up to ensure that the tasks are completed, completed on time, and completed well. I said this ten years ago and today I believe it is even more critical.”
Awardees (l to r) standing: B Raamesh, KS Venkiteswaran,SPalaniappan, K Balasubramanian, B Natraj, V Raghuraman, PR Narasimhan and Ramkumar Shankar.Directors (l to r) sitting: MN Radhakrishnan, PS Jayaraman, Preety Kumar, Adit Jain, Prasad R Menon, MK Sharma, N Sankar, V Narayanan, Vijay Sankar and V Thyagarajan..
Awardees (l to r) standing: T Veeraraghava Perumal, N Sivakumar, R Krishna Raj, J Samuel Victor, M Karthikeyan, J Naveen, K Chandrasekharan, AH Kesari Prasad, S Venkatesan, B Natraj, KR Varma, B Jeyashankar, Santosh Gangaram Akhade, Shivaprasad A Kulkarni and Sachin R Atkale. Directors (l to r) sitting: MN Radhakrishnan, PS Jayaraman, Preety Kumar, Adit Jain, Prasad R Menon, MK Sharma, N Sankar, V Narayanan, Vijay Sankar and V Thyagarajan.