I think the biggest execution challenge organizations face is a miscalibration across the organization on the sense of urgency required on a particular thing/topic.
Communication helps – the clearer leadership is about priorities, the better the situation will be. But it only solves 20% of the problem because priorities are dynamic.
It is why good leadership disproportionately impacts execution. Good leadership brings good judgment – and good judgment enables high quality decisions/responses to changes in the situation to ensure the right things have the right sense of urgency.
This is also why bad leadership is disastrous for execution. Not only does this mean teams don’t have the right sense of urgency on particular item, they’re often wasting energy by urgently moving on the wrong things.
