Execution The Discipline of Getting Things Done

As the title suggests, the book is centered on the principle of execution. Takeaways: -CEO's can't simply preach an organizational vision and delegate. They themselves have to be heavily involved with the business. -At factory tours, ask tough questions of the managers present. It shows interest, and those that are good workers will relish the opportunity. - Hire the right people. Look for not just brains, but resilience and the ability to manage and work with others. - Executing well, like the jobs done by Dell and Welch, require a heavy involvement in the business, understanding and fully executing the corporate strategy, and outsourcing parts that are not the core competencies of the company.

A thorough, practical book for tying your goals and strategy to day to day execution. It's written from the perspective of a huge company with many business units, but I had no problems tying it to my relatively small (200 people) startup, and it gave me a real grounding in how big the gap was between where we were and where we needed to be. It didn't provide enough practical advice to actually help me solve those problems, but with a better sense of what they were, they were much more tractable.