Installing the 4 Disciplines of Execution to Increase Students’ Engagement and Creativity

                                                                             By Jose Moreno

Overview

            Executing a strategy requires a significant change in human behavior of the majority or all of the people in the team or school. School staff needs their commitment of hearts and minds to endure in the midst of the daily hard work.

​

            When an organization changes to achieve a goal that has never happen before, it requires teachers to start doing something different, that has never been done before.  At least 65% of the teachers require significant behavioral changes in order to be successful on the strategy initiative.  Every teacher needs to understand the root causes of weak execution and the objectives, because the further from the top of the organization, the lower the clarity. This is where the problem starts and the fundamental issues with execution have always been right in front of us. Also, the lack of clarity, commitment, accountability and collaboration increase the difficulty of strategic execution.

​

            The real enemy of execution in any organization is our day job (whirlwind) or the urgent. Where we spend more than 80 % of our energy to run the operation on a day to day. However, the organization needs the strategic goals (important) to move the school and to progress according of the requirements of the world. This is the real challenge to execute the most important goals in the midst of the urgent to create significant results and catapult our students to their future.

 

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important Goal (Getting Clear)

            The more we try to do, the less we actually accomplish; the team or the school needs to focus on less so that we can achieve more.  We have to select one or two extremely important goals or wildly important goal (WIG) (Figure 2) In order that our school reduce the disengagement and the boredom of students. We need to implement two mayor strategies goals that are give students more choices and creative activities on the lessons to help students self-differentiate their learning and ownership (Figure 1).  However, it is important that all of our administrators and fellow teachers stay on board and understand well what this initiative is about and why is it so.  Together, we can adopt the crystal -clear WIGs, lad and lead measures, compelling scoreboard, support the innovative plan by modeling, and pursuing to implement the initiative. Because, people will be more motivated if we are closely involved in the 4 discipline of execution (4DX) work session. The WIG is the most important goal to carry out the organization’s mission. Unfortunately, only 15 % of employees know well the WIGs in an organization.

 

            The most powerful WIGs are created together by leaders and teachers using brainstorming activities to find the possible WIGs of the school and then select one or two; the most relevant to move the school forward. When leaders do not involve the teams, they do not have commitment and ownership.

   

Agenda

Weekly Questions

*What were your struggles and successes according with the scoreboard?

*What did you accomplish this week?

* What is our plan for next week to accomplish the WIG?

​

Discovery Questions:

*What are the greatest strengths of the team that can be leveraged to ensure the WIG is achieved?

*What are the areas where the team’s poor performance most needs to be improved to ensure WIG achieved?

*Which one area of our team’s performance would we want to improve most in order to achieve the WIG of the organization?

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measures

(Launch and Adopt)

            Some actions have more impact than others when reaching for a goal. This is why we have to identify those actions with higher collision with two kinds of measurement lag and lead. First, the lag measure (sub–WIG) track the success of the WIG and require the most of our time (Figure 2). Such us course exam, STAAR test, graduation rates, descriptive data, evaluation scores, adequate yearly progress, and final observation; all of these measures are summative in nature and provide information to diagnose a trend after it has started. They are called lags because by the time we see them, the performance that drove them is already passed. You cannot do anything to fix them. In other words, a lag measure tells you if you have achieved the goal.

​

            While, lead measures (leverage) are different because measure the highest impact thing we must do to reach the goal of the new behavior, in order to drive to the lag measures or tells you if you are likely to achieve the goal. Examples of Lead measures are professional development, participation rate, technical support, calendar, and expectations. The lead measures need to be predictable of achieving the lag measure and it can be influence by the school staff or team members (Figure 2) Lag measures are the most important things we have to accomplish. While lead measures are what will get us to the lag measures. Once we identified the lead measures, they became the key leverage points for achieving the goal. Teachers have to think of a lead measure as a level that move the wildly important goal (WIG) and avoid falling into the trap of fixating on a lag measure that they cannot directly influence. This happens frequently because lags are easier to measure and they represent the result we ultimately want.

​

            In the launch stage teachers need intense involvement from leaders, but this not guaranteed to go smoothly. To be successful, we have to recognize that require focus and energy, specially from leaders. We need to focus on the implementation of the 4DX process diligently; and we have to identify the models, the potentials, and the resisters teachers to personalize the assistance.  On the adoption of the lead measures we need to be diligent about supporting the process to avoid the whirlwind which will quickly take over. The most important thing is to focus first on adherence of the process, then on results; make commitments and hold each other accountable in weekly WIG team meetings or PLC in order to track results on a visible scoreboard; make adjustments, invest in the potentials through additional training, mentoring, and answer any issues with resisters and clear the path for them.

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This graphic organizer shows that the 4DX is an orderly pattern of conducts of lead measures (vital behavior) that tell you if you are likely to achieve the goal; then the lag measure (Measurable Result) tells you if you have achieved the goal; and the wildly important goal (WIG) is the most important goal to carry out the organization’s mission.

 

Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard (Optimization)

              The highest level of performance always comes from people who are emotionally engaged and the highest level of engagement come from knowing the score.  The scoreboard that will drive the highest levels of engagement with the class needs to be designed simple and only for students (Figure 3), while the teachers’ scoreboard is quite different and complex.  Students love to see the results instantly as well as the feedback.  Why is this important? If the scoreboard is not clear, the game we want students to play will lose interest to other activities. If the student does not know whether or not they are winning daily, they will probably disengage. The scoreboard drives better performance, implements strategies, encourages good class management, and ensures that we have right measures to keep learners engaged. If we don’t keep scores, it is only a practice.

​

            The crucial moment for teachers is to see that the lead measure works and they feel like winners. Once, they achieve it; they became more purposeful, more engaged; they shift to a 4DX mindset.  They produce results that make a difference such as optimize teachers’ performance. They take ownership of the process and increase the level of engagement and energy. On this process of optimization, we have to encourage and recognize creative ideas, and collaboration for moving the lead measures, even if some leads work better than others.

 

​

 

 

 

    

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability (Habits)

              This discipline is where execution really happens and is based on the principle of accountability, otherwise the goal naturally disintegrates in the whirlwind.  We require regular and frequent weekly meetings of teacher’s teams that owns a wildly important goal (WIG) no longer than 20 minutes.  Where the members hold each other accountable for producing results, despite the whirlwind.  This discipline is the most crucial stage in the process to change school behavior, because 70 % of the strategies that fail are due to poor execution of leaders and teachers.  Teachers and administrators are busy and stay on the whirlwind year by year and the organization does not move forward significantly.  Why is the cadence of accountability so important?  Well, teachers must be able to hold each other accountable regularly and rhythmically each week at the same time, where everyone asks the question: “What are the most important factors on the scoreboard?”

 

            Teachers will report in two minutes, the results from previous week commitments on how they moved the lead and lag measure on the scoreboard and what is the teacher’s own commitment for the coming week? With this initiative, the plan is adapting as fast as the lessons are changing and the team can direct the energy to the WIG without getting block by the shifting whirlwind. In short, the ultimate aim 4DX is not just to get results, but to create a culture of excellent execution.

​

            Once the new behavior become a habit in the day - to - day operation, teachers can set new goals in order to formalize 4DX as the operation system and help individual team members became high performers by tracking and moving the middle. Each team needs to engage in a simple weekly process that highlights successes, analyzes failures, and course-corrects as necessary, creating the excellent performance management system. 

​

​

                                        

 

 

 

​

 

​

 

Moving the Middle

            It is very important to identify the models, the potentials, and the resisters. The models are the top performers and the most engage that represent 20%. The resisters are the teachers that tell you immediately why the initiative will not work and represent around 20%, and the potentials are those with the capacity to be top performers whom represent 60 %. The members of the potential group are the most important leverage for improving the initiative. In order to move the middle toward the summit of performance. We have to be consistently motivating new and better behavior along with consistent results. However, they require focus, discipline, and over time to implement 4DX and to make it stick stage by stage.  

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

                 

                                          

4DX vs The Influencer

            Both are structurally different but they work well together. For example, the lead measure in 4DX is the vital behavior in the influencer model; the lag in 4DX is the measure in the influencer model; and the WIG is the results.  If we integrate both we can obtain the best results, specially when creating change despite the whirlwind.  The difference consists of the influencer model focusing on paying attention to the heart and the mind. While 4DX is a direct approach to prevent goals getting lost in the lag measure activities. I believe in using both in order to be more versatile and successful. We have more tools to create changes in the organization and hold teachers accountable on the weekly meeting and scoreboard. It is clear to me that the implementation of the initiative is slow and challenging. However, I am confident that modeling the execution of the lessons and allowing choices and creative enrichment activities pays off in the engagement and ownership of students. 

​

References

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013) Influencer: The new Science of Leading Change. Second Edition. New York, McGraw-Hill Education. 

 

Harapnuik H. (2019, Aug 9) WIGs Lag & Lead Measures

Retrieved from   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNjjCQhSxHE&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Lanke, E. (2014, May 3) The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling

 Retrieved from   http://ericlanke.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-4-disciplines-of-execution-by-chris.html

 

McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012) The 4 Discipline of Execution: Achieving  your wildly important goals. New York, Simon & Schuster

 

McChesney, C. (2012, March 9) Goal setting.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUy290KbTA&feature=youtu.be

 

McChesney, C. (2012, Apr 19) Executive Overview of The 4 Disciplines of Execution

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZR2Ixm0QQE&feature=youtu.be

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​