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"Without execution, there is no competitiveness" is the most popular saying in all enterprises at this stage! Execution, or the ability to achieve goals, can be seen as a necessary condition for enterprise success. So how can enterprises improve execution? Enterprise execution is reflected through the behavior of employees. Many factors determine employee behavior, such as personal character, educational background, work experience, desire for success, religious beliefs, moral standards, legal awareness, company culture, and rules and regulations. From these complex factors, we can find that all factors ultimately affect employees' attitudes or abilities, changing their behavior by influencing these two aspects. Success is the result of the combined effect of attitude and ability, with attitude being more important than ability. The combination of a positive attitude and low ability at most leads to mediocrity, while a negative attitude combined with high ability can create a group of troublesome cynics or saboteurs. If a person has a positive attitude, they will proactively learn and practice, consciously improve their abilities, and move from mediocrity to success. The influence of ability on attitude is not as obvious. Therefore, attitude is the root of individual success and also the root of improving enterprise execution.
Based on over a decade of team management experience, the author has identified the following five core factors affecting marketing personnel's execution:
1. Sense of Mission: Governing by Non-Interference If we conduct a public opinion poll asking, "What religion do you believe in?" Most people will say, "I believe in Buddhism." In fact, the vast majority of Chinese people do not believe in any religion but rather pragmatism. There are roughly four attitudes towards work: First, "Whoever provides food is the mother," lacking patience and loyalty, frequently changing jobs. Second, "Work according to pay," doing only as much as the company pays for, otherwise feeling at a loss. Third, "A means of livelihood," which is the mentality of most people, following the middle way, neither active nor passive. Fourth, "Treating work as a career," aligning personal goals with the company's development. The highest level of positive attitude is "selfless dedication." To reach this height, there is only one path: establishing "corporate faith," making employees regard work as a noble mission.
However, building faith is not an overnight task; there is much work to be done in the process. This includes: 1. Top-down propaganda, faithful replication, and leading by example; 2. Consistent execution; 3. Making business models and processes serve the corporate faith; 4. Using HR tools to reinforce corporate faith. Through these means, the corporate mission, vision, and core values are implanted into employees' minds, becoming their "DNA." Only then is the establishment of corporate faith initially complete. Employees with faith will unreservedly dedicate their strength to achieving corporate goals, and such enterprises undoubtedly possess a tremendous force. The four levels of positive attitude also represent four levels of execution intensity. To reach higher levels, there is still a long way to go, and the construction of execution remains a heavy responsibility.
2. Recognition: Unity of Purpose from Top to Bottom There are three types of responses to tasks: first, those who identify with the task will go all out; second, those who accept it will operate with a sense of responsibility; third, those who do not identify with it will passively resist or do nothing. "The general in the field may refuse orders from the king." Marketing personnel are scattered across various regions, making it difficult for headquarters to fully monitor their behavior. Many people act according to their preferences and feelings, lacking a correct and comprehensive understanding of headquarters' strategies, often leading to inaction or even passive resistance. Therefore, establishing smooth communication channels and achieving unity of purpose from top to bottom is key to building an efficient execution team. As employees, one should not passively accept tasks; instead, proactively report and communicate any doubts to superiors at the first opportunity. By understanding goals and tasks from multiple perspectives and obtaining resources from superiors, effective execution is greatly facilitated.
3. Organizational System Promotion: Turning Pressure into Motivation Organizational execution is the enterprise's strategic implementation capability, the comprehensive ability to successfully achieve organizational strategy through effective integration of various resources. The strength of organizational execution directly determines the degree, speed, and adjustment speed of strategy realization. Execution and strategy complement each other. Without a good strategy, the stronger the execution, the more disastrous the failure may be. Without strong execution, even the best strategy is like flowers in a mirror or the moon in water.
Organizational execution consists of four basic elements: the mentality of internal members, tools necessary for organizational management, role cognition of individuals within the organization, and reasonable management processes within the organization. These four elements combine and interact to form organizational execution. The mentality element, as the first element of organizational execution, is the primary factor affecting organizational behavior and the internal driving force for transforming organizational capabilities into organizational practice.
Even if an enterprise establishes a standardized organizational system, clarifies work roles and responsibilities, and refines key business processes, problems such as unclear responsibilities, lack of communication, weak process promotion, and vague work standards may still arise during actual operation. The reason is the lack of awareness and skills to transform work responsibilities and business processes into a management system.
The core of the marketing management system is the institutional system. Enterprises should formulate systematic key marketing management systems based on overall marketing plans and key business requirements, clarify work standards in business operations through strict norms, and effectively evaluate work results, thereby ensuring the correct implementation of marketing plans and key businesses. However, many enterprises' marketing management systems lack clear direction, have low relevance to the overall marketing plan, do not reflect key business requirements, and are difficult to promote in actual execution. In fact, the implementation of marketing management systems should not be all-encompassing; it must be built around key businesses.
4. Power Source: A Reasonable Performance Appraisal System Business owners often hope to improve marketing personnel's execution through training, but they fail to realize that in an environment lacking fair reflection of contribution value, marketing personnel cannot effectively accept the company's demands for continuous improvement. In fact, these business owners overlook the true driving force of marketing system execution—performance appraisal. Without this system in place, execution will not automatically emerge.
5. Professional Competence: Good Iron Makes Good Steel Soldiers have no constant form, water has no constant shape; the only constant in the market is change. Facing a fiercely competitive and complex market, marketing personnel must cultivate their internal skills to respond to any situation and remain invincible. First, develop good learning habits. There are many ways to learn, such as improving theoretical literacy through extensive reading, professional training, summarizing and analyzing in work practice, and enhancing insight through thinking. Training is everywhere; one just needs to be attentive. Second, improve overall quality and personal charm. Practice has proven that in business cooperation, the other party first accepts the person, then the company, and finally the product. Third, thoroughly study the industry, become professional, and gradually become an industry expert. Fourth, enhance skills, make good use of various marketing and management tools, and integrate various resources to achieve goals. One of my bosses, a well-known entrepreneur, once told me that his business secret was to turn customer cooperation into a teacher-student relationship, guiding customers to develop in sync with the company.