1-Page Summary

How often have you or your organization come up with an amazing plan, showed it off, admired it, been sure that it’s the solution to all your problems—only to have it die a slow death over the following months? The 4 Disciplines of Execution authors Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey say this isn’t uncommon, because strategy (making the perfect plan) is much easier and better-studied than execution (actually carrying out your plan). Execution requires behavioral change, which is one of the hardest things to generate in yourself, your team members, and your organization.

McChesney, Huling, and Covey’s system—or 4 Disciplines—addresses this challenge with a framework for achieving important goals in spite of the deluge of day-to-day activities necessary to keep an organization running. This deluge, which the authors call “the whirlwind,” often occupies 100% of an organization’s time and energy, making it the biggest barrier to execution and behavioral change. While they acknowledge that deluge activities are essential, they say organizations need to dedicate 20% of that time to executing important strategies through the 4 Disciplines of focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability.

Overcome the Deluge With the Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix, a time management tool developed by former US president Dwight Eisenhower and popularized by Stephen Covey, is a systematic way of prioritizing the deluge of day-to-day activities. The Eisenhower Matrix divides tasks into four categories and gives advice about how to handle each category:

Besides helping you achieve a specific goal, the 4 Disciplines also create behavioral changes that permanently raise an organization’s overall level of performance. Furthermore, the authors claim that their system works for any kind of team, no matter the team structure or the industry; it even works in personal or family settings.

McChesney, Huling, and Covey are executives and consultants for FranklinCovey, a leadership and consulting firm. The 4 Disciplines of Execution is based on their observations and methods. FranklinCovey also offers services in teaching and implementing the 4 Disciplines.

In this guide, we’ll connect the authors’ ideas with those from other popular self-help and business guides such as Awaken the Giant Within and Smarter Faster Better. We’ll also examine where the authors’ methods may be incomplete or unproven in practical settings. Taken together, this guide will provide the background and tools to effectively tackle the processes within this book.

The Wire Cable of Discipline

The authors chose the word “disciplines” to let us know that implementing these changes will require hard work and consistent effort. In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma says that we can picture discipline as a wire cable—numerous small wires braided together like a rope. Individually, each wire is weak and easily broken; when they’re all together, they create a strong cable.

In the same way, numerous small practices and habits reinforce one another to create the discipline and inner strength to carry out your plans and achieve your goals. The introduction of The 4 Disciplines of Execution says something similar: The authors assert that the 4 Disciplines’ greatest benefits come from how they all work together, leading to much greater gains in productivity than if you tried to apply any one discipline on its own. Much of this book (and therefore this guide) is devoted to practical techniques and principles you can use to start creating your own wire cable of discipline.

Discipline 1: Focus

In Discipline 1, you will choose which goals to make your top priorities—ideally one or two goals, three at the absolute most. The authors call these “Wildly Important Goals (WIGs)” in order to emphasize that they should be your primary focus. The authors add that choosing so few goals may feel counterintuitive, but narrowing your focus is crucial for success because the human mind can only devote its best efforts to one thing at a time.

(Shortform note: Although the authors begin this book by separating strategy and execution, in Section 1 they acknowledge that the lines between the two are blurred—that a good strategy must, by definition, be executable. That’s why the first of their 4 Disciplines is about setting effective goals and devoting the proper amount of energy to them, which is generally considered to be part of strategy, not execution. In other words, in order to execute your strategy, you must first make sure that your strategy is a good one.)

For an organization, senior leaders choose the main goal or goals. Then, each team comes up with its own goals to support the organizational goal.

Consider BHAGs—Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals

If you’re a senior leader choosing a goal for your entire organization, Built to Last authors Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras suggest choosing something bold, risky, and long-term: what they call “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs).”

The authors argue that such goals are highly motivating, leading to greater efforts and, therefore, better results than “safe” conservative goals. They say that’s true even though BHAGs can take anywhere from 10 to 30 years to accomplish, and even then they only have a 50% to 70% success rate. The important thing is to believe you can achieve your BHAG and put forth the necessary effort to do so.

Your BHAG should be:

Note that BHAGs are for organizational goals—they’re not appropriate for small team goals. 4 Disciplines will explain in a later section that team commitments should be short-term and revisited on a weekly basis.

McChesney, Huling, and Covey give four rules for choosing team goals:

Having laid out four rules for goals, the authors suggest choosing goals by following these four steps:

1. Brainstorm. Ask yourself what kind of change would have the most impact on your organization or team. Consider things that aren’t working and things that, if they worked even a little better, would have a large impact. Involve peer leaders and your team in the brainstorming.

(Shortform note: Most people are familiar with brainstorming, but the person who invented the process—advertising executive Alex Osborn—included a step that many people overlook: Combine and improve the ideas. In other words, many “brainstorming” sessions consist entirely of people throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but true brainstorming means looking for common ground between those ideas and seeing how they can build upon each other.)

2. Appraise. Consider the list of team goals you brainstormed. Which ones will have the highest impact on the company goal?

(Shortform note: You might reasonably be concerned about picking the wrong goal or goals—what if your appraisal is flawed, or the market situation changes? To combat this fear, bear in mind that Rework authors David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried say that the single most dangerous thing you can do in business is fail to make a decision. A bad decision—such as choosing the wrong goal to pursue—can always be reevaluated and changed; a non-decision leaves you stuck, with no feedback to help you choose a wiser course of action.)

3. Check. Make sure that the goal you’ve picked is reasonable. The authors’ criteria for a reasonable goal are: The goal must support the company’s overall goal, must be measurable, must be driven by the team rather than the leader, and shouldn’t depend more than 20% on another team.

(Shortform note: It will be tempting to set easily achievable goals that you can feel good about accomplishing, but it can be more effective to set ambitious goals, or even impossible ones. In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins explains that setting big goals inspires you to work harder than setting goals you’re confident about reaching—so long as you work with the mindset that progress toward your goal constitutes success, and falling short of the goal is not failure.)

4. Write. Choose your goal and write it in the format specified in Rule #4: “From (current situation) to (desired situation) by (deadline).”

(Shortform note: Writing down goals isn’t just for recordkeeping, it also makes you more likely to follow through and achieve those goals—20% to 40% more likely, according to one study. This is because when you write something down, you’re more likely to retain it and consider it important than if you just trust yourself to remember your goal.)

Discipline 2: Leverage

Discipline 2 focuses on getting from your current situation to the desired situation you defined in Discipline 1. McChesney, Huling, and Covey call this Discipline “leverage” because it’s about using your effort more effectively. Instead of trying to push a big, heavy goal directly, you channel your energy into related goals that you can actually influence, which in turn moves your company closer to its main goal (like using a lever to move a heavy rock instead of trying to lift it yourself).

The authors say one major problem with implementation is that people generally measure results. Butresults, or lag measures, are fixed—they can’t change once they’re measured, and they don’t give you any information on how to proceed. For example, if your goal is to save up a certain amount of money, your only measurement might be the number in your bank account: If it’s lower than your goal, you don’t learn anything about how to increase it.

That’s why McChesney, Huling, and Covey recommend that you find a way to measure your efforts, or lead measures, rather than just your results. So, if you’re trying to save money, you might measure how many hours you worked in a week and how much money you spent during that week (results). But if you focus on working more and spending less (increasing your efforts), you’ll naturally reach your goal of saving up money—this is much more effective than simply checking your bank account and hoping that it’s higher than before.

The authors explain that whatever lead measures you use must have two essential characteristics: It must be predictive (a change in the effort will yield a change in the results) and it must be influenceable (your team must be able to directly impact the measurement without relying on other teams).

So, how do you choose good effort measurements for a team or a company? The authors suggest using the same four steps that you used for goal setting.

  1. Brainstorm: Ask yourself what kind of changes would affect your team’s goal or goals. Consider things you’ve never done before, things you could improve, and things you’re doing badly that might hamper you. Look at successful companies’ measures for inspiration. Involve your team in the brainstorming.
  2. Appraise: Consider the list of effort measures you brainstormed. Which ones will have the most effect on your team’s goals?
  3. Check: Your effort measure must be predictive, maintainable, measurable, and impactful. It must have an effect on the team goal, be driven by the team rather than the leader, and it must be influenceable—your team needs to have control over it—so it shouldn’t depend more than 20% on another team.
  4. Write: The effort measure statements don’t have a strict format like a goal statement, but they should still be specific, start with a simple verb, and be concise. They should be clear about expectations—does the lead measure need to be done daily or weekly? How often, how much, and how well? Are they concerned with team or individual performance?

How Athletes Do Their Best

The focus on effort, rather than results, echoes the mindset that many athletes use to consistently play at their best. According to sports psychologist Jim Taylor, focusing on results (like winning or losing the game) is ineffective for a couple of reasons:

Therefore, Taylor instead suggests having these three goals:

All of these same principles apply to business as well: Focusing too heavily on results can lead you to make short-sighted, reactionary decisions that prevent your company or team from doing its best. It’s better to prepare as best you can for whatever challenge you’re facing, give your all, and then start getting ready for the next challenge.

Discipline 3: Engagement

In Discipline 3, the authors tell you to engage your team by making the 4 Disciplines into a game that they can win. You already did some engagement work in the previous two disciplines by consulting your team members about the team goal and lead measures. When people choose their own goals and feel ownership, they’re more engaged. They’re also more engaged when they enter a competition their team can win—humans have a natural urge to compete and love to win.

McChesney, Huling, and Covey suggest designing a scoreboard to go with the game; better yet, have your employees design and create it. This scoreboard must tell your team if they’re winning (if they’re on track to meet the goal), and it’s a constant reminder of the game you’re all trying to win. For example, the scoreboard might be a graph with two lines: one that goes from your starting situation to your desired situation over the time allotted (as stated in Discipline 1) and another that shows your actual progress toward that goal.

The authors recommend creating a separate visual for your effort measurement—perhaps a chart where each team member tracks what they’ve accomplished so far that week.

Counterpoint: Gamification Is Unproven

What the authors describe in this section is known as gamification: using gaming elements like scores, leaderboards, and achievement badges to make work more engaging. However, gamification is a relatively new idea, and it’s currently unclear how effective it is.

Gamification started with the observation that gamers will happily spend hours doing repetitive tasks—superficially similar to what they might do at work—with no tangible reward. If managers and executives could make work similarly enjoyable by applying gaming elements, the theory goes, they’d reap benefits in employee morale and productivity—the workers would be happier and the company would be more profitable, creating a win-win situation.

Unfortunately, gamification has had underwhelming results. Common criticisms of the practice include:

Discipline 4: Accountability

In Discipline 4, the authors recommend holding a weekly accountability meeting—what they call a WIG (Wildly Important Goal) session. Because achieving the goal is now a game, people are accountable to their teammates as well as the boss. When people know others are depending on them, they’re more motivated and engaged, they try harder, and performance becomes a matter of personal pride. Regular goal sessions and mandatory attendance are key to this discipline—accountability requires consistency.

According to the authors, the goal session should take place at least once a week, last less than 30 minutes, and have a specific agenda: Review the scoreboard, report on last week’s commitments (and celebrate them), and come up with new commitments.

McChesney, Huling, and Covey say that goal session commitments must influence your current effort measurements (deluge tasks—the endless day-to-day business of running the company—do not belong in these meetings). Commitments must be focused, specific, impactful, and take no longer than a week to complete. The person who makes the commitment must be able to do most of the work themselves.

The authors add that leaders should make weekly commitments too. The most effective commitments for leaders are ones that help their team achieve their individual commitments and improve their execution. For example, if a team member requires a new piece of software, a leader could secure approval for the purchase.

Accountability Requires Empowerment

To hold employees accountable for their commitments, you must first empower them to carry out those commitments. The authors say that team members should choose their own goals, and that any individual commitment must be achievable by the person who made that commitment, but they never directly address employee empowerment.

The Leadership Challenge explains how to empower employees, noting that empowerment directly leads to accountability. In brief, it works like this:

The Leadership Challenge also notes that empowered, accountable employees will be much more engaged with their work (remember Discipline 3)—because they feel responsible for their own projects, they’ll naturally go beyond their specifically assigned roles and tasks in order to achieve the best results possible.

Implement the Four Disciplines at the Organizational Level

The authors provide six steps to implement the 4 Disciplines across an entire organization:

  1. Choose the overall goal. Use the steps in Discipline 1.
  2. Choose team goals and lead measures. Use the steps in Disciplines 1 and 2.
  3. Train leaders in the 4 Disciplines. The training covers what the disciplines are, how to teach and communicate them to their teams, how to solicit feedback, and roleplay practice. The authors have free resources for doing this on their site, and also offer paid consulting and training services.
  4. Launch the program. Team leaders hold a two-hour launch meeting with their respective teams, during which they explain what the 4 Disciplines are, communicate and solicit feedback on the goals and lead measures, and explain the scoreboard.
  5. Guided execution. Someone deeply familiar with the 4 Disciplines helps everyone through the weekly practice of attending goal sessions, making commitments, and keeping score.
  6. Quarterly meetings. Every few months, leaders attend a leader version of a goal session. Each team leader will discuss their team’s progress, and they can also be recognized for their successes.

Overcome Resistance to Change

One thing McChesney, Huling, and Covey don’t explicitly address in this process is the need to get people on board with the new direction you’re taking. Major changes in company or team processes (such as implementing the 4 Disciplines) often lead to pushback from employees and team members.

Heading off that resistance—and dealing with it if it does arise—can be key to successfully implementing the 4 Disciplines and other major changes. Here’s one method of overcoming opposition to change:

Benefit From Permanent Behavioral Changes

As your team and organization move through the 4 Disciplines process, the behaviors your team members have adopted in each Discipline (like engagement and accountability) will start to become habit.

The authors say there are five stages of behavioral change during this process:

Counterpoint: Don’t Get Complacent

It’s not always enough to go through an organizational change like the 4 Disciplines and trust that the changes will stick. That’s why the business fable Our Iceberg Is Melting has another step after you reach your goal: Don’t get complacent.

Rather than patting yourself on the back and going back to business as usual, Iceberg authors Holger Rathgeber and John Kotter say there are two necessary things to make sure your organization continues to benefit from the work your team did:

Strategy vs. Execution—Or What Vs. How

There are two parts to getting results, strategy and execution. Strategy covers what to do to achieve change (the plan) and execution covers how to actually do it.

Strategy is the easier of the two and traditional business education (such as MBAs) focuses on it. To learn strategy, you study a single organization in depth. You look at “photographs” (single moments in time) of the company or executive. Then you copy what’s working.

Execution is more like a movie. You have to study it over time, and you have to study many different companies. You look at why things happen. Execution, at its most powerful, involves behavioral change, and not just your own. Execution is hard because you have to change the behavior of other people. Sometimes this is the behavior of certain people in the organization, sometimes it’s everyone in the organization. And a grudging agreement to temporarily change won’t work—you need people’s commitment and engagement.

Types of Strategies

There are two main types of strategies, stroke-of-the-pen strategies and behavioral-change strategies:

A study from consulting firm Bain & Company found that about 65% of initiatives required major behavioral changes from front-line staff, and the managers often fail to consider or plan for this. You’re more likely to hear a manager complaining about the specific employees than how hard it is to get people to change their behavior. Specific employees aren’t the reason strategy fails to execute. The system is the reason, and as a leader, the system is your responsibility.

Why Execution Fails

There are many reasons you and your company fail to effectively execute your strategies, including “the whirlwind.”

The Whirlwind

The main reason execution fails is because of the whirlwind—day-to-day operations urgently required to keep the organization running. The whirlwind takes up so much energy and focus that people don’t have energy or time left over to do new things. Urgency (the whirlwind) will beat out importance (new goals) every time. This is why most strategic goals fizzle out rather than blow up.

You’ve probably seen the effects of the whirlwind on your staff. For example, have you ever been explaining a new goal to someone and found them not really listening? While you’re talking, they’re thinking about the day-to-day tasks the conversation is taking them away from, what they might call “their actual work.” A teacher buried under essays to grade and swamped by parent-teacher conferences doesn’t have time to think about long-term goals like improving test scores.

Other Factors

Besides the whirlwind, there are some other more goal-specific reasons execution fails:

There are more subtle reasons too, such as lack of trust, bad compensation, bad processes, and bad decision making.

4DX—A Path to Execution

4DX stands for the 4 disciplines of execution. 4DX is an operational system containing the disciplines: focus, leverage, engagement, accountability. They are principles (not guidelines or practices) that help you not only achieve a particular strategy, but that create lasting behavioral change, therefore permanently amping up the performance of your team. 4DX has some ancillary benefits as well, mainly that your employees will become more engaged, and they can apply what they’ve learned from 4DX in the workplace to their personal lives.

The four disciplines aren’t new ideas or rocket science—they’re natural laws. Companies such as Weight Watchers have been successfully using similar methods for years. You’re probably already goal-setting, collecting data, creating scoreboards, and holding meetings. However, 4DX takes you beyond understanding principles to actually implementing them. 4DX prescribes a specific, particular way of applying the four disciplines that should earn you the kind of results you’ve never been able to achieve before.

The authors researched the disciplines, experienced trial and error, and have offered the following list of research to assure you that 4DX is well-tested and will work in any country or field:

Remember that the disciplines are laws of nature. It doesn’t matter if you like them or even think they’re necessary—they will act on you. You may as well learn to use them.

4DX is not designed for calming the whirlwind—it is designed to help you execute strategic goals while still maintaining the whirlwind.

There are 3 things to keep in mind while reading this book:

(Shortform note: The 4 Disciplines of Execution is organized into three parts. Part 1 defines the disciplines, Part 2 describes team implementation, and Part 3 describes organization implementation and some miscellany. For clarity and concision, we have rearranged the information so that the definition of a discipline is followed by the team implementation. We have omitted a section about 4DX software—learn more about it here.)

Defining Discipline 1: Focus

The key of this discipline is to focus on—and only on—the wildly important. Genetically, human beings work best when they do one thing at a time. Multitasking overloads our brains, and when our brains are overtaxed, they slow down. As you practice multitasking, you actually get worse at thinking and problem-solving. As a result, it’s physically impossible to be most effective when concentrating on too much at once.

You can see the harmful effects of multitasking in the workplace too. When you have too many goals, you get hit with the law of diminishing returns. If you have four to ten goals, you might achieve one or two. If you have more than ten, you won’t achieve any of them. Too many or unfocused goals also make the whirlwind worse. What might be five goals at the top of an organization cascades down to many smaller goals at the bottom of the hierarchy, creating too much to focus on. Also, conventional organizational goals often lack measurability, focus, and a deadline.

Therefore, when you want to create change, choose one, at max three, very important goals to work toward. Call them Wildly Important Goals (WIGs) to make it easy for you and staff to remember that they’re top priority. These goals should not come from the whirlwind, and this discipline doesn’t apply to the whirlwind. (The whirlwind is made up of the essential day-to-day activities that keep your organization running. If you ignored parts of it, your organization wouldn’t survive.)

Additionally, this discipline helps you more clearly communicate your strategy to your organization. Choosing a WIG forces you to translate strategy from ideas to a specific outcome. When there are only a few specific outcomes, it’s easy for your staff to differentiate what’s goal and what’s whirlwind.

Focus for Leaders

As a leader, however, you can’t simply focus on one sole thing. You can use different parts of your brain at the same time, just don’t overload them. Think of your brain like an air traffic controller. A controller must be aware of all the planes that are approaching, taxiing, or leaving, but only one of those planes is really important—the one that’s landing at this exact moment. Be aware of all your “planes” (tasks including the whirlwind), but only focus on the landing “plane” (your WIG).

Many leaders understand that focus is important, but still find this discipline hard to put into practice. There are both external and internal forces keeping you from focusing, and often the internal forces are more difficult to overcome. Here are the forces:

Four Rules for Organizational Application

4DX can be used in any context, but the authors focus on team and organizational settings. Therefore, in much of the following, the authors refer to two types of WIGs: overall WIGs and team WIGs.

The overall WIG is the WIG for the entire organization, chosen by the senior leaders.

Team WIGs are the goals of specific teams. They move the organization closer to the overall WIG, but the focus or language of the team WIGs may be different from those of the overall WIG.

Once an organization has an overall WIG, there are four rules for applying Discipline 1 across the organization:

Rule #1: No team focuses on more than two WIGs.

Across an organization, there may be many WIGs, but within a team, there cannot be more than two.

Rule #2: The WIGs at lower levels of the organization must directly help achieve those at higher levels.

Imagine the WIG at the top of the organization as a war. WIGs at lower levels are battles. The only reason to fight a battle is to help win a war. Once you have an overall WIG, consider how to achieve it with the fewest number of team WIGs (rather than making a to-do list of all the things that must be done to achieve it). This simplifies the strategy.

For example, an Internet provider had a WIG of “Increase sales from $6 to $9 million by February 28.” An outside sales team committed to raising $1 million and the major-account division committed the remaining $2 million. The technology team committed no money but improved the company’s record for uninterrupted service, which was very important to customers and helped the other teams achieve their WIGs.

Rule #3: Senior leaders can veto but not choose the lower level WIGs.

This rule combines the best of top-down (clarity from senior leaders) and bottom up (engagement). The senior leader knows what’s most important, but the team members are the people who will actually have to transform their behavior, so their input is important. If you just do top-down, you’ll have problems with engagement, and accountability might only come from authority. If you just do bottom up, the WIG might not be aligned with the overall WIG. That’s why seniors keep veto powers, in case the team-selected WIGs aren’t appropriate.

Rule #4: All WIGs must contain a measurable result and deadline, in the form of “from point A to point B by deadline.”

This format sounds simple, but many leaders struggle with it. Once they figure it out, they’ve achieved clarity and focus.

Consider a goal in the incorrect format like this one from a travel agent: “Increase customer satisfaction.” How do you measure satisfaction? What is the deadline? In short, how do you know if you’ve achieved it? Put into WIG format, the goal becomes: “Increase our customer satisfaction ratings from an average of 50% satisfaction to 70% satisfaction in six months.”

What should the deadline be? A year is a good starting point (since companies often measure things on a calendar or fiscal year). Some take six months to two years. Any project-based WIGs take around the same time as the project. The time frame must be long enough to achieve a compelling goal, but short enough to maintain enthusiasm for the vision.

Example: NASA

Here’s an example of the effectiveness of adhering to Discipline 1:

In 1958, NASA had seven very important goals along the lines of increasing human knowledge about space, improving spaceships, long-range studies, positioning the US in the space race, military applications, and cooperation with other nations. Some of these goals were measurable, but none of them had a deadline.

In 1961, J.F. Kennedy gave NASA a WIG in the correct “from point A to point B by deadline” format: put a man on the moon and bring him back before 1970.

There were three lower-level “battle” WIGs to support Kennedy’s “war” WIG:

When Kennedy announced his WIG, accountability, morale, and engagement at NASA exponentially increased. At the time, NASA didn’t have the technology to achieve any of the three “battle” WIGs, but they got it done—Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969.

(Kennedy was also a good example of saying no to good ideas. He was asked why he chose to focus on man-on-the-moon instead of other worthy goals, and he said this goal was most important.)

A Note on Project WIGs

Discipline 1 still applies to project WIGs, but you need to be careful about your point B value. The obvious choice is 100% completion, but that’s not as concrete as a numerical value such as profit or revenue. Once you factor in things like scope expansion, it might be hard to actually measure project completion. Instead, relate the point B value to the business outcome. Add to your from point A to point B by deadline.” For example, “Launch a new app by July 31, meeting 100% of the specified e-commerce functions.”

Exercise: Why Is Focus So Hard?

Most leaders know that focus is important but find it difficult to do.

Implementing Discipline 1: Focus

A WIG must challenge your team, but it must also be achievable. Don’t game your team by choosing something impossible while privately thinking if they manage 75% of it, you’ll be happy. Long-term, this will affect your ability to engage your team and produce results.

There are four steps to selecting WIGs:

Step 1: Brainstorm a List of Possible WIGs

To brainstorm, come up with ideas on your own and consult team members and peer leaders, if applicable.

Brainstorm on Your Own

Brainstorm a list of possible WIGs even if you think you already know what the WIG should be. Ask yourself, “If everything about my organization stayed the same, where would a change have the most impact?” (Don’t ask, “What’s most important?”—you’ll get distracted by the whirlwind and other people’s opinions.) Come up with as many ideas as you can. The more ideas you have to choose from, the better your final WIG will be.

To come up with ideas, look within and outside of the whirlwind, and consider your mission.

Brainstorm with Team Members

Including team members in the discussion of choosing a WIG increases their engagement with that WIG. They have different skill sets and knowledge bases than you, so they might come up with ideas you never could have. They’ll also be the people doing a lot of the work in the next three disciplines, so it’s important they be consulted.

In addition to the same things you would consider yourself, consult your teammates on the following:

(If your team is really big, you can talk to a representative group.)

Brainstorm with Peer Leaders

Peer leaders are particularly important to consult when your organization has an overall WIG. These leaders may depend on you, or you on them. While brainstorming with peer leaders, in addition to the same things you’d consider alone, ask for ideas regarding:

If your team is a support function (HR, finance, IT, and so on), wait to choose your team WIG until after the line functions finalize theirs. Then, you can use your WIG to help them achieve theirs. For example, if a sales team wants to move to a new model, HR can choose a WIG that involves helping people get the training they need.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Brainstorming

Each implementation section, throughout the whole summary, will reference the experience of the production department of a publishing house.

Maria is the leader of the production department of a large publishing house. When the publishing house started implementing 4DX, the senior leaders came up with this overall WIG: “Decrease costs from $1 million to $800,000 by the end of the year.”

The production department (and all the other departments of the publishing house) brainstormed team WIGs that would support the overall WIG. Maria and her team came up with a list of ideas such as:

Step 2: Assess Impact

Once you have a list of possible WIGs, determine the ones that have the most impact on the overall WIG.

Some guidelines:

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Assessment

Maria and her team calculated the possible savings of all their ideas. Maria now knew which WIG would reduce costs most in her department, but she was looking for a WIG that would have the greatest contribution to the entire publishing house. At-press changes were not only expensive, they also caused a delay. When books printed a week later than scheduled, the marketing department had to pay for rush rather than regular shipping to ensure books made it to events on time. Marketing would also benefit from the stock image idea. Every time a rights-managed image is used, there’s a fee. If book covers used royalty-free images instead, marketing could then reuse the image in press kits and promotion materials without any additional cost.

Step 3: Test the Top Team WIG Candidates

Test each potential WIG. If the answers to all of the following questions are yes, the WIG passes the test.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Testing

Maria and her team tested all their ideas and chose to reduce at-press changes. This supported the overall goal, was easy to measure, didn’t depend on other teams, and the results were team-driven.

Step 4: Write the WIG in the “From Point A to Point B by Deadline” Format

Start with a simple verb.

The lag measure must be expressed as “from point A to point B by deadline.”

Be concrete, precise, and simple.

Don’t put in any language about how you’re going to do it.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Statement

Maria and her team came up with this WIG: “Decrease costs for at-press changes from $4000 to $1000 by the end of the year.”

Yield

After implementing Discipline 1, you’ll have a WIG statement in the form of “[Simple verb] from [point A] to [point B] by [deadline].” If you’re applying the discipline across an organization, all of your teams will have their own WIG statement in this format, and the team WIGs will directly support the overall WIG.

Exercise: Choose a Team WIG

There are four steps to creating a team WIG.

Defining Discipline 2: Leverage

Think of your WIG’s point A as a big heavy rock. No matter how hard your team pushes against it, it’s immovable. However, if your team applies a lever, the rock shifts. The team has to move the lever a lot to move the rock a little, but the rock does move. Discipline 2 is about finding the right lever to move the WIG value from point A to point B.

Point A and point B values are also called lag measures. Lag measures are results. They tell you if you’ve reached your WIG, so they’re very important. However, as the name implies, the actions that produced these results have already happened, so there’s nothing you can do to change them. Some examples of lag measures are revenue, profit, customer satisfaction, and body weight on a scale. (The whirlwind of daily tasks is full of lag measures.)

The lever in the rock example above is a lead measure. Lead measures quantify the actions that have the most impact on the WIG. Lead measures don’t tell you if you’ve achieved the WIG; instead they forecast if you will achieve the WIG. They’re predictive of the lag measure and, because the actions that drive them are ongoing, they’re influenceable. For example, if your lag measure is your body weight on a scale, as above, your lead measures are what and how much you eat, and how often you exercise.

Because lead measures directly affect lag measures, the more you move your lead measure, the more your lag measures will move.

Most people know that the lead measures are important. The key to discipline 2 is measuring lead measures. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, everyone knows diet and exercise are factors. However, not everyone actually measures and tracks calorie intake or time spent exercising.

There are two critical characteristics of lead measures:

Why Leaders Fail to Focus on Lead Measures

Though fixating on lag measures doesn’t get results (because the lag measures are the results), leaders focus on them for two reasons:

Even when leaders shift their focus away from lag measures, they may still struggle with lead measures. Why? It’s rarely a matter of ignorance or effort—most leaders have some idea of what factors will influence their results. Leaders struggle with lead measures because:

Implementing lead measures is the hardest part of 4DX because:

Types of Lead Measures

There are two types of lead measures, both perfectly acceptable to use in Discipline 2.

Example: Water-Bottling Plant

Here’s an example of one company’s journey to find influenceable, predictive lead measures:

A water-bottling plant came up with the following WIG: “Increase bottling from 45 million gallons to 50 million gallons by the end of the year.”

At first, the company struggled to understand the difference between lead and lag measures. Their early suggestions for lead measures were to keep track of water production by day or month—these might be more frequently measured than the WIG result, but they’re still lag measures. Then, the production manager identified a problem that stopped the company from producing more water—the machines had too much downtime.

The next step was to translate the problem into a lead measure. They came up with: complete preventative maintenance on each machine once a week.

Water production increased at a rate faster than anyone expected. The plant had known that the factor they chose as a lead measure was important, but instead of focusing on only this factor, they’d been trying to tame the whole whirlwind at once. Their efforts were so spread out they had little effect on anything.

A Note on Process-Oriented Lead Measures

If your WIG comes out of a process (for example, a ten-step sales process), you might find your lead measure within the process itself. Look at the individual steps of the process. Where are the leverage points? Where is performance failing? Make those leverage points your lead measures. For example, if step 4/11 is business analysis, and this is a place that would have the most impact on the process result, look for a lead measure there.

If you try to improve the whole process at once, you’re forgetting Discipline 1.

A Note on Project WIGs

Project milestones aren’t necessarily good lead measures. They have to be predictable and influenceable like any lead measure, and they also need to take long enough and be significant enough that a team can make weekly commitments to them.

If your WIG is multiple projects, it’s more useful to choose lead measures that apply to all projects, such as procedures like project communication.

Implementing Discipline 2: Leverage

Finding lead measures can be challenging. If you’re trying to do something you’ve never tried before, you have to do new things. How do you know what these new things should be? Like coming up with a WIG, there’s a four-step process:

Step 1: Brainstorm a List of Possible Lead Measures

Like step 1 of WIG brainstorming, come up with as many ideas as possible. The most effective lead measures may not be the ones that first occur to you. Make sure you focus on ideas that will help achieve the WIG. You’re not looking for a catch-all list of things it would be good to do. Coming up with lead measures requires a bit of that Discipline 1 focus.

While brainstorming, consider:

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Brainstorming

Maria and her team brainstormed many possible lead measures, including:

Step 2: Assess Impact

Determine which lead measures will have the most impact on the team WIG. Probably all the ideas you come up with are good ideas, and you and team members feel like you should be doing all of them, but don’t fall into this trap—pick just a couple.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Assessment

Maria and her team narrowed their ideas down to these top three:

Step 3: Test the Top Lead Measure Candidates

Test each potential lead measure. If the answers to all of the following questions are yes, the lead measure passes the test. Four of the questions are the same as in the WIG test, noted with an asterisk (*).

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Testing

The production department’s lead measures passed all the tests.They were predictive, influenceable, maintainable, team-driven, measurable, and didn’t create any negative side effects. While testing, the department realized that it would be easier to remember to run preflight software if it was part of the checklist, so they combined those two measures.

Step 4: Write the Lead Measures in their Final Form

When writing your lead measures in their final form, consider the following, and be specific. The considerations that are the same as for the WIG are noted with an asterisk (*).

Individual vs. team?

Daily or weekly? (Weekly is the minimum.)

How much and how often? Come up with numerical values for your lead measures. Pick numbers that are challenging but not impossible. When making this decision, keep the following in mind:

How well? This is optional, but the best lead measures go beyond numerical values and have a quality component.

*Start with a simple verb

*Be concrete, precise, and simple

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Statement

The production department settled on the following lead measures:

Yield

After implementing Discipline 2, you’ll come out with a short list of lead measures that will drive the WIG’s lag measure.

Exercise: Find Lead Measures

There are four steps to finding lead measures.

Defining Discipline 3: Engagement

Discipline 3 engages your team by making the achievement of the WIG into a game they can win. Humans have a natural urge to compete, and people behave differently when they see an opportunity to win—they become highly motivated and engaged, and this drives a high level of performance.

The opposite is also true—it’s human nature not to try as hard as you can if no one’s keeping score. For example, consider this anecdote about an important high school football game. Hurricane Katrina had knocked down the scoreboard, but the field was fine, so the game went ahead. But because the fans couldn’t see the score, no one knew what was going on in the game, and no one cared about the game.

The authors claim that an opportunity to win is one of the most powerful ways to engage people, more powerful than money, benefits, conditions, and workplace relationships. People desperately want the opportunity to achieve.

People perform best when they are personally winning. They don’t necessarily care whether the organization or their boss is winning, they care if the team they’re on is winning.

Winning, in the context of Discipline 3, is achieving the WIG. The score is lead and lag measures.

Your team must always know the score or else they don’t know what to do to win. If they don’t know, they’re not trying to win, they’re just trying to not lose (survive the whirlwind of their daily activities). A conceptual understanding of lead and lag measures is completely different from a team that knows their score.

The leader must set up the game so it’s winnable—the lead measures must influence the lag measures.

Scoring

The score is measured on a literal scoreboard. There are two types of scoreboards, and as you’ll see, the one you want to use is a player’s scoreboard:

Leader’s (“coach”) scoreboard

A leader’s scoreboard is made up of complex spreadsheets or visuals that display leader-level data with an overwhelming amount of data. This scoreboard is so complicated that only the leader can read it or draw any conclusions from it. Leaders create this kind of scoreboard instinctively and you probably already have some version of this that contains data such as historical trends, detailed analysis, and so on.

The leader updates these kinds of scoreboards.

Employees’ (“players”) scoreboard

An employees’ scoreboard is made up of simple, visual graphs that show only the important information—where you are and where do you need to be, i.e., are you winning or losing? Leaders have to consciously choose to create (or ideally get their employees to create) this kind of scoreboard

The players update the scoreboard and it forces them to act.

A player’s scoreboard has these requirements:

The scoreboard must be regularly updated or people will lose interest and the whirlwind will overtake the game.

The scoreboard itself isn’t what engages people, the game does. For example, no one’s going to comment on how beautiful the scoreboard was at the Olympic gold medal hockey game, they’re going to comment on the game. The scoreboard is a just a reminder—a constant reminder—of the ongoing game.

Example: Production Plant

Here’s an example of the effects of a scoreboard:

A Canadian plant hadn’t hit its target production number in 25 years. The plant was old and remote, their technology was outdated, and they had quality issues (low 70s compared to high 80s in the other companies’ plants). When the leaders put up a scoreboard, everything changed. People realized they were losing, and wanted to turn that around. The night shifts and day shifts competed to be more productive. Everyone knew each other and on the weekends, when they’d hang out and play hockey, they wanted to be able to brag about their shift doing better than the other. The plant’s quality score became the best in the company and the plant massively exceeded its production targets.

Exercise: What Engages You?

People are most engaged when they feel like they’re playing a game they can win.

Implementing Discipline 3: Engagement

There are three steps to implementing Discipline 3:

Step 1: Choose a Scoreboard Format

There are several options for format:

The goal is to get team members invested in the scoreboard, so let them personalize it by adding details such as photos or other elements that represent the team. For example, engineers might set up flashing lights on their scoreboard. Personalization helps a team take ownership and makes winning about personal pride.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Formatting

Maria and her team used a trend line to show the difference between their goal costs and their current costs:

4-disciplines-graph.png

They added a chart for lead measure 1 (renaming book files) that tracked weekly individual performance:

Lead Measure: Each team member renames files for two books per week.

Team Member Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Craig 2 2 4
Emiko 2 2 4
Harriet 1 2 2
May 2 1 2
Raoul 1 3 3
Fred 2 2 3

They added a bar graph for lead measure 2 (completing the checklist):

4-disciplines-scoreboard.png

Step 2: Test the Scoreboard Against the Criteria

Test the scoreboard. If the answers to all of the following questions are yes, the scoreboard passes. Is it:

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Testing

Maria and her team evaluated the board against the criteria. The board is simple—it has only three parts. The design is visible—the graphs are visually clear and well-labeled. The board is complete—it shows the WIG, lag, and lead measures, and it’s obvious at a glance if the team is winning or losing.

Step 3: Physically Create the Scoreboard

Ideally, get the team to create the board themselves. The more they work on it, the more engaged they will be. However, if they don’t have discretionary time, you as the leader might need to do the actual creation.

It doesn’t matter what you make the scoreboard from as long as it meets all the criteria in step 2. Poster Board, whiteboard, digital, and so on are all fine.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Creation

Maria’s team made their scoreboard using book design software and printed it poster-size. They decorated it with images from their favorite books.

Step 4: Update the Scoreboard

The board must be updated at least weekly. Choose someone (or multiple people) to be the scorekeeper and make sure they understand it’s an important responsibility. Make sure everyone on the team knows when and how often updates will be posted.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Scorekeeping

Each team member records the number of files they rename per week. Maria trusts them, but periodically audits them to make sure the scores they write on the board match what they’re actually doing. The team only wins if everyone performs.

Yield

After implementing Disciple 3, you and your team will have created a player’s scoreboard that meets all the criteria and inspires your people to win.

Exercise: Make a Scoreboard

There are four steps to creating a player’s scoreboard.

Defining Discipline 4: Accountability

Disciplines 1-3 set up execution, but Discipline 4 is where it actually happens. If you were to stop 4DX after Discipline 3, scoring would happen, but only for a short while. In time, the scoreboard would become a to-do list that no one’s doing. Or, everyone would come up with their own ideas about how to do things, scattering effort in all directions. Without accountability, the game/goal will be overtaken by the whirlwind of day-to-day operations.

In 4DX, “accountability” doesn’t mean an annual performance review or getting called out for failing—there’s no negative connotation. Here, accountability isn’t top-down or organizational; it’s personal. You’re accountable to your team members (not just your boss), but most importantly, accountability becomes a matter of personal pride. Since you helped choose the WIG and lead measures, you can make commitments you have the power to carry out. Discipline 4 reconnects everyone, in a personal way, to the WIG, in spite of the distractions of the whirlwind.

The key to Discipline 4 is that the accountability is precise and regularly scheduled—a cadence.

The WIG Session

The cadence of accountability is primarily maintained by a meeting called a WIG session. This session takes place at least once a week and lasts less than 30 minutes. In it, the leader holds people to commitments they make that will increase the lead measures.

(Initially, the meetings may take longer than half an hour, but they’ll go faster as you get used to the agenda. If non-WIG-related things come in the meeting, schedule a different meeting to sort them out.)

There are several benefits to a WIG session:

Session Requirements

There are two requirements for WIG sessions:

Requirement #1: They must be consistently scheduled.

The session must be at the same day and same time every week. Never miss it—your team will follow your example and treat it with as much importance as you do. If you can’t personally attend (for example, you’re on vacation), you should:

Demand attendance. Even if the people in your organization work shifts, are geographically distributed, or have massive whirlwinds, everyone must attend a weekly WIG session to maintain accountability. To encourage attendance:

Requirement #2: They must be whirlwind-free.

It doesn’t matter how important a whirlwind issue might be, never discuss whirlwind problems in a WIG meeting. Have a separate meeting later. Maintaining the whirlwind is never a good enough consolation prize for failing to meet a WIG’s weekly commitments.

Session Agenda

A WIG session has a set agenda, and only these three things are covered:

Report on last week’s commitments.

Everyone outlines their WIG commitments from the previous week and the outcome:

Review scoreboard. (Update the scoreboard before the session.)

Look at the scoreboard and assess the lag and lead measures. Are the lead measures moving the lag ones? Discuss what the team’s learned about what’s working and what’s not, and how to adjust. Meaningfully celebrate both the team and specific individuals when there are successes. This increases engagement, as everyone likes being publicly praised.

Plan for next week.

Everyone makes new commitments for the next week. Some of these commitments might be to help team members with problems that came up in the account part of the meeting (“clear the path”). For example, you might commit to doing research on an issue and coming back next week with at least three ideas.

Each commitment must:

Team members come up with the commitments, not the leaders. The commitments must be personal. Guide your team members if you need to, but the goal is to get to a place where people understand the WIG so well they can tell you how to best execute it. Ownership creates engagement.

If a team member fails to fill their commitments, they must do so the next week, in addition to the next week’s commitments.

(Shortform note: When the agenda is first given, the order of actions is 1) report, 2) review scoreboard, 3) plan. Many of the examples, however, reverse steps 1 and 2. In the examples in this summary, the agenda order adheres to the original book’s.)

Timeline

If you are a leader, you’ll likely be attending two WIG sessions a week, one with your team and one with your boss.

It takes 3-4 weeks to get into the rhythm of weekly WIG sessions. A few more weeks later, the lag measures start to move.

The WIG session is a large part of why 4DX is more effective than conventional annual planning. No matter how detailed your annual plan, you can’t anticipate things months in advance as well as you can week-by-week. At the beginning of the year, you don’t know what commitments will be most effective based on last week’s events. (And annual plans usually have too many goals.)

Scheduling WIG Commitments

You need to schedule time to complete you WIG commitments or the whirlwind will eat up all of your time. As Parkinson’s Law says, work expands to take up all the time, space and energy it can. If you don’t schedule your WIG commitments, not only will you not achieve your WIG commitments, you’ll feel like you worked really hard all week but didn’t actually get anything done. Spend 80% of your time on whirlwind matters, and reserve 20% for 4DX.

Pitfalls

There are a few dangers to watch out for with Discipline 4. All of the following will derail your progress:

Example: Climbing Everest

This example contrasts two mountain-climbing teams, one that respected Discipline 4, and one that didn’t.

Erik Weihenmayer’s Everest team had a “tent meeting” at the end of every day. When they encountered a problem while climbing during the day, they debriefed and discussed possible solutions in the evening. For example, the first time the team practiced the dangerous Khumbu Icefall feature, Weihenmayer took 13 hours to cross it. On summit day, the team would have to cross the feature in less than two hours. After some time, Weihenmayer was able to improve the speed. He made it to the top, as did most of his team members, and they set a record for the greatest number of people from a single team to summit in one day. They all returned safely.

Jon Krakauer’s Everest team didn’t have any method for regularly checking in with each other. They had no discipline or accountability. When the team encountered difficulties, some climbers set out on their own for the summit. Even though they had harnessed some of the first three disciplines, they didn’t employ Discipline 4, and the whole expedition was a failure. Eight people died.

A Note on Creativity

WIG sessions have strict rules about the agenda and what’s allowed to be discussed, but they still inspire a lot of creativity. Coming up with weekly commitments and identifying problems generates new ideas. Every team member has to problem solve and help their team.

For example, Towne Park, a valet service, had a WIG of increasing customer satisfaction. They wanted their lead measure to be vehicle retrieval time because it was highly predictive, but they weren’t convinced it was influenceable. The valets—team members—were the ones who figured out how to influence the measure, not the leaders. The valets asked guests to call ahead when checking out. They strategically parked cars closer or farther according to guests’ checkout date. One location in Miami faced a literally insurmountable obstacle, a concrete wall in the middle of the garage that everyone had to drive around. The solution was to tear down the wall—another idea that came from a team member, an assistant account manager. If a top leader had told people to start tearing down walls, they never would have done it, but since the idea came from the people, and would help them win, they not only did it, they were excited about it.

Implementing Discipline 4: Accountability

This chapter illustrates the implementation of Discipline 4 by taking us through the agenda of an example WIG session.

Agenda Item 1: Review the Scoreboard

The leader starts the WIG session by reviewing the scoreboard. This includes:

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Scoreboard Review

Maria might say something like, “Congratulations to Craig and Emiko, who both exceeded this week’s lead measures by renaming four book’s files this week.”

Agenda Items 2 & 3—Leaders

The leader completes both steps 2 and 3 before the team members.

Agenda Item 2: Account for Last Week’s Commitments

The leader reports on her own commitments, in first person, by:

Agenda Item 3: New Commitments

Immediately after the leader has reported on her commitments (don’t switch people yet), she states her commitments for next week.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Leader

Maria might say something like, “Last week I committed to getting approval to purchase preflight software. I got the approval. Next week, I commit to running two 20-minute training sessions on the software.”

Agenda Items 2 & 3—Team Members

Agenda Item 2: Account for Last Week’s Commitments

The leader then gives each of her team members a chance to report on their commitments. They cover the same material:

If someone hasn’t fulfilled a commitment, the leader addresses it. She follows these steps:

Agenda Item 3: New Commitments

Team members state what their commitments will be for the next week. Anyone who missed last week’s commitment must do both that commitment and new commitments before the next WIG session.

Shortform Example: Book Production Department: Team Members

Emiko might say something like, “Last week I committed to having a 15-minute phone conversation with the color specialist at our printer in Malaysia. I learned some photoshop tips that will help us improve the brightness of our images, so we won’t have to make changes to dull-looking photos at press. This week, I’ll have a 15-minute conversation with the greyscale expert at our printer in India.”

How to Choose Commitments

As the leader, you have two roles at the commitment-choosing stage—you need to choose your own commitments and guide your team members in choosing theirs.

To come up with commitments, brainstorm one or two specific things that affect the lead measures. Don’t ask yourself what the most important thing you can do that week is, because you’ll come up with something in the whirlwind.

The commitments don’t have to address anything urgent. They don’t have to be new ideas—they might be things you’re well aware you should be doing; you only haven’t been able to do them because of the whirlwind. Here are some things to consider when deciding on commitments:

As the leader, you have an additional source for commitment ideas—the “system.” The most effective commitments for leaders tend to be things that improve the team’s execution (versus commitments that directly influence the lead measure). Leaders should always consider commitments around:

Exercise: Choose a WIG Session Commitment

Leaders have two options for WIG commitments. They can commit to actions that will move the lead measures, or actions that will improve the team’s execution.

Exercise: Run a WIG Session

The WIG session has a very specific agenda. Imagine you’re leading a WIG session. Recall your WIG, lead measures, and scoreboard from the previous exercises.

Implementing 4DX Across an Entire Organization

(Shortform note: The authors are part of an organization called FranklinCovey, which provides 4DX training. In this section, when they write “leader” or “coach,” they mean a person who’s gone through their training program and been certified.)

It’s more challenging to roll out 4DX on a large scale than it is to get it working with individual teams. There are three things to keep in mind:

Six-Step Process

There is a six-step process for implementing 4DX that works with 10+ teams at once. Steps 1-3 involve training with FranklinCovey and take six to eight weeks. Steps 4-6 take an additional three to four months.

Step 1: Find the Overall WIG

Leaders use the 4-step process for determining an overall WIG. The senior leader gets to make the final decision.

Step 2: Find Possible Team WIGs and Lead Measures

Each leader chooses a team WIG using the 4-step process. Here, senior leaders guide their leaders in choosing something relevant to the overall WIG, and veto ideas if necessary. Each leader chooses team lead measures.

This step is not complete until the team members have been consulted on the team WIG and lead measures.

Step 3: Certification of Leaders

FranklinCovey teachers leaders to launch 4DX. They roleplay practice WIG sessions and the launch meeting, and the leaders learn:

Once this step is completed, leaders are certified to launch.

Step 4: Launch

Leaders hold a launch meeting and kick off 4DX with their teams. The launch meeting should last two hours. 45 minutes are for presenting 4DX and the rest of the time is used to discuss everything else including:

Step 5: Guided Execution

The weekly process of making WIG sessions, making commitments, and scoring begins.

FranklinCovey and 4DX coaches help leaders:

Step 6: Leader Meetings Every Quarter

Every few months, leaders attend a meeting with their senior leaders and report on 4DX. (A quarter is enough time to see both the lead and lag measures moving.) Make sure the most senior leaders are present to increase the sense of urgency and the pressure to produce results. For example, the governor of Georgia attended the meeting for five state government agencies.

This may be the first time certain leaders meet with senior leaders, and the first time they get to talk about their ideas and be celebrated. These meetings make leaders accountable and also give them a chance for recognition.

4DX Coaches

Naming an internal 4DX coach can help make organizational implementation successful. (The authors write that every highly successful implementation they’ve seen has had a good coach.) The coach helps when there are problems with the 4DX process and guides leaders who need help with any of the disciplines. The coach also acts preemptively, to make sure the teams stick to the process and don’t get sucked into the whirlwind.

Every organization should have two coaches. It’s not a full-time job, but this helps avoid schedule conflicts. Make sure when you get a second coach, you keep the first one on so they can be consistent with each other and maintain continuity.

Coaches benefit the organization by:

When selecting your coaches, look for:

Dealbreakers

If you encounter any of the following three situations, fix them before trying to implement 4DX:

Make sure leaders have enough discretionary time to lead WIG sessions and fulfill weekly commitments. Team members also need to have the time.

Five Lessons from a Successful Organizational Implementation

The following five lessons come from Dave Grissen, who implemented 4DX across Marriott hotels.

  1. Consider your organization’s culture. How will culture affect people’s initial response to 4DX? Will you need to generate buy-in?
  2. Acknowledge that it’s harder to implement 4DX in an organization that’s already doing well. When everything’s going well, people may not see the need to make any changes.
  3. Remember that accountability is important at the leader level too—the senior leader must keep all the other leaders in line. Team members take their cues from their leaders, and if their leader isn’t treating 4DX seriously, neither will they.
  4. Make sure you have enough 4DX resources. This includes talented leaders, 4DX coaches, training materials, and systems.
  5. Remember the ancillary benefit that 4DX increases engagement. This may change your organization’s culture—for the better.

Ancillary Benefits of 4DX

In addition to helping you execute a wildly important goal, 4DX also increases engagement and creates permanent behavioral change in your team.

Engagement

All four of the disciplines increase engagement and morale, not only Discipline 3:

Discipline 1 improves morale because once there’s a WIG, even though people still have to deal with the whirlwind—the daily responsibilities necessary for running an organization—and the WIG’s challenges, they have clarity and a finish line.

Discipline 2 improves engagement because looking only at lag measures can be a frustrating end goal with no roadmap. Even if employees understand the WIG and think it’s important, if they don't understand their own contribution, two things keep them from engaging: they don’t know what to do or they don’t think they’re capable. However, lead measures are concrete, doable, and measurable.

Discipline 4 helps overcome Patrick Lencioni’s three major reasons for disengagement:

(Shortform note: To learn more about how to keep your team engaged, read our summaries of Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Ideal Team Player.)

Behavioral Changes

There are five stages of this behavioral change:

Stage 1: All aboard

With the help of your team, complete the following to-dos:

Shortform Example: Tamar leads a team of sailboat riggers. Her team’s WIG is to reduce the number of dropped items by 10% by the end May. Her team’s lead measure is that each team member must make sure 100% of their tools are tied to their harness before climbing aloft. Everyone agrees to meet Monday mornings at 7 a.m.

Stage 2: Go time

Announce the start of 4DX with a meeting or huddle. As the leader, you have to be very involved at this stage and have some specific to-dos:

For example, Tamar’s models were doing the 4DX processes, but she also had potentials who struggled with the change, and resisters who actively disliked it.

Stage 3: It’s working

Team members get on board with the 4DX process and change their behavior. As people start to see results from 4DX, they’ll become less resistant and more enthusiastic about the process, and they’ll become accountable.

It will take time to get to this stage, and you’ll spend a while plateauing here. To make sure you progress further, here are some to-dos:

For example, after a while, Tamar’s team figured out the new routine and dropped objects decreased. As Tamar’s team saw that they were improving the lead measure, they became more excited about the process. The resisters were less resistant.

Stage 4: It’s working even better

The team starts actively contributing to improving 4DX and brainstorming performance improvements. They’ve seen results and now they’re more engaged.

To take advantage of this stage, there are some to-dos for the leader specifically:

For example, Tamar’s team followed the 4DX disciplines for eight weeks and their percentage of dropped items decreased, but not quickly enough to meet the WIG. Tamar was out of ideas, but when she brought up the problem in the WIG meeting, her team members had ideas, such as using particular knots for particular types of tools.

Stage 5: Second nature

At this point, your team should have achieved the WIG, and as a result, the behaviors it took to get there are now a habit. Everyone’s performance has improved and your team will have a better starting point for the next WIG.

To-dos:

For example, Tamar’s team achieved their WIG and the behavioral changes that 4DX forced were now habits—now part of the whirlwind. They had a pizza party to celebrate and chose a new WIG.

Improving Performance at a Team Level

Typically 20% of your team will be resisters, 60% will be potentials, and 20% will be models (a “left and loose” normal curve). The potentials, as their name implies, could be better if they were more motivated, more knowledgeable, etc.

To improve your team’s performance, you want to shift the entire curve to the right (“right and tight”) by getting the potentials to perform more like the models. Otherwise, you’ll only ever achieve normal, acceptable performance, not greatness. To move the curve, you change and improve your team’s behavior (a result of 4DX).

Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands is a good example. This hospital, like all hospitals, was struggling with an increase in hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). There is an acceptable limit for HAIs, but Erasmus wasn’t content to be acceptable—they didn’t want anyone to acquire an infection in their hospital. They moved their curve right and after succeeding, others copied their methods.

FAQs, Tips and Traps

The following frequently asked questions address the 4DX process as a whole. The questions are sorted into thematic categories.

Success and Failure

We tried 4DX for a year and didn’t get results—why?

A WIG is a strategic bet—it’s not a guarantee. Sometimes you won’t achieve a particular WIG. That’s not a failure of the 4DX method. Likely, the failure had something to do with an outside force, such as your competition making a better strategic bet. For example, an insurance company chose a WIG about a new policy for a new market. They worked very hard to move their lead measures, but the lag measures never moved because a competitor had come up with a more economical product and delivered it electronically.

We’re going to reach our WIG before our time is up—what should we do?

Don’t change the WIG—your team will lose their engagement. They’ll feel like the finish line is always moving and it’s impossible to reach. Do, however, keep seeking higher performance.

There are three scenarios that could create an exceeded WIG:

WIG was initially set too low

In this case:

WIG was set properly but the team performed outstandingly

In this case:

WIG was set properly and you got a windfall

In this case:

When should you change a lead measure?

Don’t change a lead measure too quickly. Remember that the 4DX process contains a plateau at the adoption stage. If you’re seeing the lag measure become static, the lead measure might not be a dud; you may simply have reached a plateau. Before changing anything, assess:

My lead measure is moving but my lag measure isn’t—why?

There are three possible reasons:

If you’ve carefully considered the above three reasons and the lead measure really isn’t moving the lag one, reflect on your assumptions. Some organizations have beliefs that had never been tested until now. It could also be that external conditions have changed a lot and lead measure is no longer relevant.

Fitting 4DX into Existing Systems

How do I align compensation for 4DX?

It depends on your organization, but the most important thing is to reward the right people, not the people exhibiting the right behaviors.

If your existing compensation model already rewards performance against objectives, then it makes sense to align compensation to achieving the WIG. This will also have the benefit emphasizing that 4DX is an important behavioral standard.

If compensation isn’t aligned that way, it’s still a perfectly fine idea to align compensation to achieving WIGs.

Be careful about typing compensation to lead measures—this could result in an inaccurate scoreboard.

How does 4DX fit into existing performance management systems?

Again, it depends on your organization’s system. 4DX’s accountability will integrate well into any system that already uses goals and time frames.

Personal development can help achieve a WIG. For example, certain WIGs might require people to learn new skills.

You could replace annual performance reviews with WIG sessions, or change your current performance review session to focus on a person’s WIG contribution. Or, simply use your existing system in addition to strictly adhering to Discipline 4.

4DX in a Personal Setting

4DX is an operating system that gets results and creates permanent behavior change. This doesn’t only apply to the workplace—you can use it for personal and family goals as well.

It can be hard to get things done in your personal life because they don’t have inherent urgency. For example, caring for your health or strengthening your marriage aren’t as urgent as bringing in a paycheck.

80% of the US health budget is devoted to five behavioral issues: smoking, drinking, overeating, stress and insufficient exercise. Everyone knows these five things are bad for you. But even after experiencing heart attacks, many people don’t change their behavior. They know they should, and they probably want to, but they can’t. Their problem is execution.

The process is similar to how you would approach a workplace goal:

Discipline 1: Focus

Choose your WIG. It might be harder to define a point B for certain personal goals. For example, a WIG a grandfather chose a WIG of letting his grandchildren know he loves them. His lag “measure” was if the grandkids ran up and hugged him.

Extended Example: Losing Weight

Ellen, a kickboxer, wanted to lose weight so she could fight in a lighter weight class. She decided on a WIG of “Decrease weight from 125 pounds to 112 pounds by November 1.” (Shortform example)

Discipline 2: Leverage

Decide on your lead measures. Only choose as many as you need to—don’t add unnecessary complexity.

Extended Example: Losing Weight

Ellen knew that the two options for lead measures were diet and exercise. She already did a lot of exercise, so she decided to focus on diet. Her lead measure was “Don’t eat more than 1800 calories per day.”

Discipline 3: Engagement

Create a scoreboard that shows the WIG, lead and lag measures, is visible, and is quick to read.

Extended Example: Losing Weight

Ellen used an app to track her progress. She configured the app to show her current weight, her goal weight, number of calories eaten so far for per day, and max calories for the day. She set the app to send her notifications so the scoreboard would remain visible.

Ellen’s gym got into the game as well. Some of her training partners downloaded the app too, or shared their low-calorie snacks.

Discipline 4: Accountability

In a personal setting, you don’t have a team and boss to report to, so choose a friend or family member to keep you accountable.

Extended Example: Losing Weight

Ellen chose to be accountable to her coach. Even though the WIG session was less formal than it would be in an organization, she and her coach talked about the scoreboard and she made commitments each successive week. Her training partners checked in with her regularly about her progress. She achieved her WIG.