I hear a constant refrain from other business leaders and clients – the one about the company that had talented leadership and skilled people, a promising vision, solid strategies and good products – a company that should be successful, but isn’t. Such companies flounder for a while, then start the death spiral, at which point the board fires the CEO. 

In 2000, 20 percent of the CEOs of the top 200 companies in the Fortune 500 were fired. Today the average tenure of CEOs has declined to four or five years. I’d call that an epidemic, wouldn’t you?

Yet, during the past 20 years, management theories that are supposed to be cure-alls have proliferated: Value-chain analysis, Six Sigma, management by objectives, Theory Z, decentralization, zero-based budgeting, quality circles, Total Quality Management, “excellence”, restructuring, diversification, portfolio management, management by walking around, matrix management, intrapreneuring, one-minute managing, Level 5 Leadership – none has reversed the deterioration of competitive performance. On the contrary, many of these management fads seem to only be a distraction.

Why is this happening, you ask? Most failing companies put the blame on “factors beyond our control”: low-cost overseas manufacturing, international predatory pricing, the federal government’s handling of the economy and natural resources, poorly educated workers, or the demands of labor unions. Occasionally, the braver souls admit to screwing up, but give the excuse of bad strategy, lack of capital, or production issues.

The true reason that no business leader ever wants to talk about – at least to the outside world – shows up as a nagging feeling that something’s wrong, but it’s impossible to describe in one sentence. You just know in your gut that the company isn’t capable of putting it all together, that its ability to achieve results is slowly slipping away.

When a company fails, fingers are pointed at many symptoms, but it takes some tough digging to get at the root causes. Oftentimes, it wasn’t a bad strategy or a difficult competitive situation, but a lack of commitment, a deficiency in execution – a breach of engagement.

When there’s a gap between promises and results, something’s missing. The gap between what a company’s leaders say they want to achieve and the organization’s ability to achieve it is the crisis that’s been sweeping across our businesses for the past 20 years.

I would say that the quality of each [person’s] life is the full measure of that [person’s] personal commitment to excellence and to victory…whether it be [sports], whether it be business, whether it be politics or government.”

 – Vince Lombardi

Vince Lombardi called this missing element “commitment.” Some business leaders and authors call it “execution” or “accountability”. Some plain-talking folks like me call it “making things happen.” Whatever you call it, caring enough to pay the price for success is a unique quality possessed by only a few organizations. It really burns me when business leaders make up phony excuses for failure, such as blaming a poor economy or the fast rate of change in business today. If the economy were really the cause, every business would have failed during the recent economic malaise (and therefore every company would be growing as the economy recovers). And change has always been a factor in business, so don’t use that old weak crutch!

Blaming a bad strategy is just as annoying. Usually even a poor strategy, if executed well, has better results than doing nothing at all. But strategies are going to fail if nobody acts on them. I’ve always said that strategic plans are just interesting words on paper until an engaged, focused group of people takes action to implement them.

Action, implementation, details, reality – that’s the stuff of an engaged organization and its management. Engaged organizations operate in reality, knowing the value eroders and value creators in their business. They know their people well enough to put them in the right places at the right time, and their people are skilled and trained enough to know their industry and their business well. When they talk about strategies, goals, and processes, they can discuss specific steps they need to take in order to make things happen.

Being part of a football team is no different than being a part of any other organization. The objective is to win, to beat the other [person]. You think that is hard or cruel – I don’t think it is. I do think it is a reality of life that [people] are competitive, and the more competitive the business, the more competitive the people. They know the rules and they know the objective, and they get in the game. And the objective is to win, fairly, squarely, decently, by the rules – but to win.”

 – Vince Lombardi

That Lombardi quote does not describe many of the board meetings I’ve participated in: Annual operating plans are being presented, and the sales and marketing folks explain how they are going to increase sales by 10 percent, the production managers explain how they are going to decrease costs by 15 percent, and the research and development team gives its spiel about the new products that will both increase sales and improve profit margins. Most of the board members (or should I say bored members?) nod their heads in agreement – yadda, yadda, yadda. Few ask challenging or probing questions that would indicate they care about winning in the marketplace. And that folks, is a breach of engagement.

Directors who are engaged, on the other hand, asks questions that force management to think about what it is doing. For instance, if the industry is growing 7 percent and the company is projecting 10 percent growth, what will the company be doing that’s different from its competitors? Which products will provide this growth? Who will purchase these products, and how will the company get the attention of those customers? How will competitors react, and what does the company plan to do to counter their changes in strategy?

An engaged CEO will ask the production managers what changes they will make to their processes, how they will motivate their employees to do those things, how progress will be measured, and how vendors will be motivated to cooperative with price negotiations. The CEO will ask similar probing questions of the research and development team, customer service, finance, and other departments. The point is that nothing happens by itself – real, meaningful progress is made when an organization is engaged enough to discuss the intellectual challenges of implementation. In other words, when you have the right people focused on the right details at the right time, the engagement breach is closed.

Each of us, if we would grow, must be committed to excellence and to victory; even though we know complete victory cannot be attained, it must be pursued with all one’s might. The championships, the money, the color – all of these things linger only in the memory. It is the spirit and the will to excel, the will to win; these are the things that endure.”

– Vince Lombardi

Cultivating an engaged organization with the “will to excel, the will to win” that Lombardi describes starts in the CEO’s corner office. If the CEO doesn’t give a damn about details or deadlines, why should anybody else? One of the most important jobs of a business leader is to model the example of what being engaged means. Leaders must show the way by having their entire heart and soul wrapped up in the details of the company’s daily business. Engaged leaders should be able to carry on robust conversations about the company’s strengths and weaknesses and hold people accountable for doing what they said they were going to do.

I’ve included quotes from Vince Lombardi (1913-1970) because he is regarded as one of the best coaches of all time, and an engaged coach is what an engaged CEO should be. Good coaches don’t stand by the sidelines, glancing at the play-book now and then. Rather, they are involved with their players and assistant coaches, giving encouragement and constructive criticism wherever needed after every play. They meld a group of players into a team with a common goal of winning by getting involved with execution and focusing on details.

Lombardi had the words “Run to Win” inscribed on one side of his Super Bowl ring. It They came from a biblical verse that Lombardi gave to his players the week before the Super Bowl game, a quotation from the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 9:24): “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run to win.”

Too many business leaders are armchair coaches, delegating the details of implementation down the management hierarchy. It’s appropriate to delegate, but not to detach. Effective leaders both expect and inspect. By your example, you can close the breach of engagement. Make implementation, execution, and action the mantra of your organization. And when you do, your people will run to win.