Top Highlights

• Deadlines stimulate progress. But only if they are commitments. To hit a deadline means achieving the objective with absolutely A-level work, absolutely complete, absolutely on time, absolutely without complaint, absolutely. If you establish deadlines that everyone knows will slip, then you have no deadlines.
• SMaC. To be truly SMaC involves four basic elements: Specific, replicable processes and mechanisms that create tremendous consistency Checking and cross-checking systems to prevent catastrophic mistakes Rigorous thinking to consider a wide range of contingencies and backups Continuous evolution of SMaC based on understanding the why behind SMaC pro...
• procedures and bureaucratic policies. If people in your enterprise begin to say to new members, “That’s just the way we do things” instead of saying, “This is why we do things this way,” your enterprise is degenerating from a culture of discipline into a bureaucracy.
• AAR Question 1: What replicable new learning did we gain from what went well? AAR Question 2: What replicable new learning did we gain from what did not go well? AAR Question 3: Drawing upon questions 1 and 2, what changes can we make to our SMaC recipe to systematically improve our consistent tactical excellence?
• This leads us to a central tenet of tactical excellence: if your people aren’t executing well, it’s not their fault. It’s yours.