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At most companies, there’s no shortage of ideas. The hard part? Executing on them.
This isn’t a new challenge. Over half of employees said their company failed to act on good ideas.
It affects companies of all sizes, even Amazon. To avoid analysis paralysis, Jeff Bezos drilled a powerful mantra into his team — “bias for action.” Amazon leaders are expected to make tough decisions and act on them, even if the outcome is uncertain. Risks aren’t just tolerated — they’re encouraged.
But that’s just one strategy for turning innovation into execution. As the founder and CEO of a company that recently passed $1 billion in annual revenue, here are a few key lessons I’ve learned along the way on the art of “gettin’ r done.
Related: How to Be an Industry Leader and Innovator
1. Get customers in the loop, early and often
Companies that want to close the gap between innovation and execution will not succeed without listening to their customers.
As a teenager, I worked in Mac customer support while also developing Mac applications on the side. Watching people use software — and seeing what confused them and what didn’t — yielded a powerful insight into creating it. Getting customers in the loop makes innovation happen faster.
When I started building my POS company, I spent a lot of time with customers each week, delivering new versions of our software for them to test and then implementing their suggestions. That showed us whether we were innovating in the right direction or building features that did nothing for the customer.
Too many startups skip that step. Because they never watch anyone use their software, they don’t understand how customers actually work. That’s a big oversight, given that customer-obsessed companies grow revenue and profit about 30% faster.
As a company scales, it’s key to preserve those intimate feedback moments with customers. For example, I recently held a gathering with retail clients to learn how they track conversion of social media ads to in-store results. That meeting led directly to a product conversation with my team.
2. Take a regular, company-wide pulse check on excitement
For leaders, a big part of turning ideas into action is getting everyone’s buy-in.
At my company, we do that with a Quarterly Product Review. All product groups share what they’ve completed and are working on that quarter with the entire team, from sales to marketing to customer support. This open session is a chance for the product folks to present a project that might be a little risky — and get a wide range of perspectives on whether to pursue it.
Essentially, it’s an excitement barometer. What is everybody most enthusiastic about, and what do they think will excite the market? Just as importantly, which “promising” new ideas elicit yawns or even cringes from the larger team? Getting that feedback early on is critical.
With this kind of pulse check, part of the goal is to make your company an organism whose parts are deeply interdependent. After all, sales is relying on the success of a new product to hit its target for the year, so it’s in everyone’s interest to help each other. The more collaboration and alignment there is between teams, the better that product launch should be.
Rowing together pays off. Companies with highly aligned teams are roughly 70% more profitable than their unaligned peers. They’re also more than twice as likely to retain customers and more than three times as likely to satisfy them.
Related: Be an Innovative Leader or Risk Your Company’s Longevity
3. Extend real ownership to individual teams
Good leaders know that when it comes to moving from ideas to execution, there’s a difference between motivating people and micromanaging them.
The other day, I sat down with my company’s design team to review our mobile selling tools. Having built mobile products myself for 15 years as we grew the company, this was my forte. It would have been easy for me to take over the meeting with my vision for the product.
But that’s not how you scale a business — and it certainly isn’t how you motivate employees. Rather than seize the well-deserved ownership I’ve given the design team, I was there to encourage them by showing genuine interest in what they were doing.
Giving people ownership helps get things done. In companies that are strong on execution, roughly 70% of employees agree that everyone has a good idea of the decisions and actions they’re responsible for, versus only about 30% in those weak on execution.
4. Don’t abdicate your larger role as head cheerleader
Taking ownership is one thing, but people need to know that their leader is invested too.
When I think about good ideas that didn’t work out for our company, often it was because team members didn’t feel I was all-in with them. Leaders must be careful not to starve innovations of the energy and attention they need to move past the drawing board.
During that crucial middle stage, a project needs fuel — and I don’t just mean throwing bodies and resources at it. Here, the most potent fuel a leader can provide is enthusiasm for seeing the team succeed. That kind of excitement is contagious. People know that when they deliver, not only will it be a career win, but their boss will join them in celebrating that success.
For team members, that acknowledgment matters. Four out of 10 workers would put more energy into their work if their company recognized them more often, while six out of 10 who feel recognized are highly unlikely to look for a new job.
Related: 5 Tips for Managing a Virtual Team
5. You can never have too many dashboards
Want to excel at execution? You can’t improve something if you can’t measure it.
Our company has always had sales roots, so metrics are in our DNA. As part of that culture of accountability, our offices are packed with dashboards showing key performance indicators (KPIs). Ultimately, it comes back to ownership. People are responsible for their KPIs, and they expect their colleagues to do the same.
Across departments, all of those KPIs roll up to seven main ones representing company priorities — for example, the share of customers that have converted to using our payment tools. Thanks to that alignment, everyone is working toward goals that will move the needle.
Yes, at times the emphasis on seeing and hitting numbers can feel overbearing or even tedious. But it’s no accident that only two years after launching our payments services, it now accounts for almost 40% of our annual transaction volume.
Overall, data-driven companies have a serious advantage — in fact, they’re almost 60% more likely to beat revenue targets.
Bridging the gap between innovation and execution may not be easy for leaders, but it isn’t rocket science either. By getting team members and customers onboard and measuring results, companies can transform a good idea into a great business move.
