IX. Dead by execution or killing quality.

We had a great idea and perfect plan, but execution changed everything (sounds familiar, no?). We — it’s me and my Distributor in the Far East of Russia Yuriy Mikhailovich. The idea was to go with the business visit from Khabarovsk where the head quarter was to one of the branches to Yakutsk. I never been to Yakutsk. Yakutsk is a unique place indeed. It’s a capital of Sakha republic (also called Yakutia) on the Lena River. The city is old, starting it’s life from the fort founded around this place in 1632 with close to 250 thousand people living there currently. There are at least 3 reasons why Yakutsk is so unique. Firstly, it’s the second coldest large city in the world located just 450 kilometres to the south from the Arctic Circle with the annual average temperature of −8.8 °C and monthly average numbers going from +20 °C in July to -39 °C in January. The second unique fact is that Yakutsk is an informal “diamond capital” of Russia. The famous Mir mine yet is quite far from Yakutsk, also belongs to Sakha republic. Unlike Cullinan, Mir mine is an opened diamond mine more than 525 meters deep and is one of the largest excavated holes in the world. Apart from diamonds Sakha is famous for its gold, tin, wolfram, mercury, complex and iron ores, bituminous and brown coals, natural gas and oil. Finally the third uniqueness (though not as unique in Russia) — it’s extremely difficult to get there. The story I’m telling you happened in 2010 and the railroad to Yakutsk was finished only in 2019, but even than by the railroad one can reach only the ferry station on the right (eastern) bank of Lena river while Yakutsk is on the left side. The width of Lena here is close to 4 km and there is no bridge been built yet, so the ferry is the only way to cross it. So, back in 2010 there was no railroad and the only way for trucks with the goods to reach the city was the regular driveway. The road was operational during mid-summer (with the temporary floating bridges crossing numerous rivers) and mid-winter when all the rivers were frozen. In between summer and winter time Yakutsk was simply cut from any supply. Of course planes are always an option but expensive. So you may imagine how good execution should be to ensure my Distributor keeps supplying the stores in Yakutsk all the year around. Indeed it was a piece of art demand planning with two periods of peak shipments to Yakutsk warehouse. Now when you know a bit of pre-history you understand why in July 2010 me and Yuriy Mikhailovich were looking for traveling to Yakutsk and getting involved into “summer supply peak”.

So, we decided to go by the plane, obviously (by car it would take us few days of driving). And here the challenge with execution came. The only possible direct flight (once a day) was done by Antonov AN-140. It is a turboprop regional airliner able to carry 52 passengers with the cruise speed 520 km/h. I already resigned myself to the fact that I will spend 3 hours in the propeller plane, but when we came to the airport it was announced that the flight has been delayed by 1 hour. Nothing so unusual, we are in the car, chatting and waiting. In 30 minutes another announcement is coming — the flight delayed by another 2 hours. Yuriy Mikhailovich is asking one of the sales managers to go to the airport and investigate the details. The guy is coming back saying, that most probably the plane is broken and they are repairing it. Ooookey, we decided it may take longer time and we are coming back to the office to drink some tea. It’s already 7 pm and after few cups of tea we are ordering some food and opening a bottle of whiskey. Meanwhile 7 pm became 8pm and then 9 pm. From time to time we are calling to the airport to be informed on the further delays. Finally Yuriy Mikhailovich is calling to the director of the airport whom he happened to know personally (world is small). The new version is that the plane is broken indeed, but almost repaired and now the main issue is a crew. They are tired and fell asleep and will be sleeping till tomorrow morning. Our bottle is empty, we are looking on each other and the same idea is coming to us at the same time — probably it’s a fate not to fly to Yakutsk today. And we just didn’t do it. Yuriy Mikhailovich flew there next month. I still haven’t been to Yakutsk…

Let me stop here and share my view on the importance of execution. I will be provocative, in my opinion execution is even more important than the strategy. Indeed bad execution, lack of proper one can destroy and ruin even the greatest ever strategy and the plan (as we just have seen) and on contrary great execution can mitigate weak strategy and make the company works even without any specific strategy for quite some time. What I also noticed with time the execution as such and the importance of execution is greatly undervalued, under spoken and tends to stay in the shadow of the “great strategies”. Even this book has been started with the chapter about strategy… Of course execution is not as “sexy” as a strategy, vision, mission and other “big” stuff, but it shouldn’t mislead us at first and at second even boring execution may be turned into the fun.

Talking about converting boring bad execution into the productive fun we can’t miss one of my favourite books “Fish!: A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results” by Stephen C. Lundin. “Fish!” is the story of mid-level manager, Mary-Jane, and her efforts to introduce a playfully productive atmosphere in the certain operations group, which prior to her arrival has been known as a “toxic energy dump”. Staff in this backroom unit are bored, demotivated and unhelpful to the internal clients that they serve. Mary-Jane herself didn’t experience an easy life at all, the book (it’s a semi-fiction) describes her life in a quite dramatic way. She is a single mother with two children (her husband died unexpectedly), she is not financially secure and so on. Her energy and confidence are drained out of her.

Everything suddenly changed with the change of her attitude, which in its turn changed with her visiting the neighbouring fish market one day. This is the best and the most persuasive part of the book (in my view). Fish market is vividly described in colorful details, including the happy-go-lucky shouting of the fishermen, the jokey interchanges with the customers, the energized and energizing work environment and the open attitude of the people who work there and who come there as customers. The owner of the fish outlet Lonnie became a friend and taught Mary-Jane few lessons.

- Choose your attitude, life is too precious to be passing through to retirement. There is always a choice about the way you do your work, even if there is no choice about the work itself. We can choose the attitude we bring to our work.

- Play! You can be serious about your work without taking yourself too seriously. In Lonnie’s words “This is a real business which is run to make a profit. This business pays a lot of salaries, and we take the business seriously, but we discovered we could be serious about business and still have fun with the way we conduct business. We have a lot of pride in what we do and the way we do it. And we have become world famous.”

- Make someone’s day. Create great memories. The playful way we do our work allows us to find creative ways to engage our customers and employees.

- Be present. Focus on the customer and employees, in front of you and be tuned in to opportunities to be there for people. Be alert, and pay attention.

To summarize, Mary-Jane learnt from the fish market what it is like to work in such an energized and energizing environment and introduced the same kind of environment into her department at workplace.

The story of Fish! is staying close to “be above the line” concept we discussed when we talked productivity and efficiency. Of course all the chapters in this book are interconnected and inseparable. It’s only a matter of different accents. In this particular chapter we are talking execution and quality of what we are doing and my point is that right attitude, playful approach, making the day of other people and attention to the details and people around inevitably improves execution and brings the result. Proven.

You may say, that in the story I told you in the beginning of this chapter the execution failed and too drunk gentlemen simply didn’t go to Yakutsk. Period. It’s not exactly the truth. First of all, we were not drunk, the bottle was small, just 250ml. Second, we decided to take our destiny in our own hands and we choose our attitude — initially we wanted to see one of the Branches of Distributor and voila we simply choose not to go to Yakutsk but to go to another one — Komsomolsk-on-Amur. We went back home (to be precise Yuriy Mikhailovich went home and I went to the hotel) and next day early morning we took a car and we drove 5 hours to Komsomolsk-on-Amur which is in 400 km from Khabarovsk to the East.

The place where city of 200 thousand inhabitants is located has a history, it remembers been conquered by Mongols in the 13th century, becoming part of Mongol Empire under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty and later Manchus until 1858 treaty of Aigun ceded the area to the Russian Empire. So, the first Russian village has been established here in 1860 and the city started in 1931 when the soviet government announced its plans to construct a shipyard on the Amur (there is just 300 km from here to Pacific Ocean, that’s why). The city quickly developed into a regional centre for industries such as aircraft manufacturing, metallurgy, machinery, oil refining, and shipbuilding. At present, Komsomolsk-on-Amur is the main centre for the manufacture of famous Sukhoi military aircraft.

The road first goes along flat terrain, and then the hills begin (here they call them “sópka”). Road is narrow but good enough and we are moving fast overtaking numerous tracks going to the East, to the port at Pacific Ocean and even further to Sakhalin Island. Following the large steam of Amur river we are bending around one sópka after another and on the one third of our way we are coming to the flat and wide Sindinskoe lake. There is tiny village on the lake called Mayak (Lighthouse). Here we are slowing down for coffee with a cheese cakes in a café by the road. The moment we slow down, the car is immediately covered with gigantic as big as three centimetres horseflies. We are jumping out of the car and running fast to the café, nobody wants to experience a bite of those animals (those whom they bit witness that it’s extremely painful). The café is crowded with the truck drivers eating salads, soups, meat. The small room is full of smoke. People are eating, drinking coffee, smoking, talking and watching TV. I can endlessly watch the people and think of their stories, but this time surprisingly my eye catched by the TV. For some mystic reason among all the TV channels they choose the one broadcasting “Coffee and Cigarettes” by Jim Jarmusch. I’m not sure you may understand the surrealism of what is happening… Truck drivers, smoking, drinking coffee in 400 km from the Pacific Ocean on the bank of Amur river watching “Coffee and Cigarettes”…

After another half an hour drive we are approaching the wide Anyuy river. Anyuy means “changing course” and indeed in the place Anyuy flows into Amur there is big rocky plateau with numerous river channels, some of the channels are almost empty some of them are full of water. Anyuy is permanent in it’s unpredictability. I like to think that I follow the path of French pioneers, indeed the very first time this place was discovered for Europeans by French Jesuit geographers travelled on the Amur in 1709. We are speeding up, passing by sopkas and rear villages and by the evening coming to Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

So, the story is completed now — execution didn’t go well for certain reasons, we choose the right attitude, adjusted execution and achieved the result in a different way. Of course we did it unconsciously, no theory was involved, we just behaved naturally following our characters and personalities.

I bet you can give me tons of examples when execution influenced the result whether driving it above all the possible expectations or on contrary ruining the plan which seemed to be so perfect before execution started. Yet, my favourite case with “100 shades of execution” is a story about “Golden stores program”. For those of you who may not be familiar with FMCG business — the concept is very simple and helps to focus limited promotional budget on the “right” customers retailers and thus increase market share. The strategy of “golden store program” is to make from the shop keeper the “ambassador”, make him recommend and sell proactively specifically our products. In other words — the idea is to make the shop keeps our loyal supporter. The amazing part of the story is that in different moments of my career I saw the execution of “Golden store” program in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia, Morocco, Algeria, Poland and it’s never ever been similar. I can tell you upfront, despite of clear and transparent idea and strategy proved to be successful around one third if not more of “golden store” programs are failing miserably facing weak execution.

Let’s see now what makes “golden store” program execution weak or on contrary great. There are three gates I noticed while launching it in different countries.

Gate 1. Team and people who are involved in the launch should “buy it in”. They should really believe in it, believe in its efficiency and trust the strategy. Otherwise it’s a set up for immediate failure. Many times I saw people thinking — “well, it another initiative coming from the top, let’s report back at least something, it will never work here, our country/region/area/city is unique”. I remember once my team drove me to the shop, saying it’s their loyal “golden customer”. The guy shop keeper apart from us was selling in bulk competition actively and nothing reminded me he has any special emotional bond with our brands so I even asked him if he heard anything about our “golden store” program. He heard nothing and when I asked my sales manager why he is showing me this store as an example of Golden Customer the answer was — “it’s out best customer, he sells a lot and we give him a discount”. So it’s not what we may call “golden store” it’s simply wholesalers.

Gate 2. Significant part of the programs failed because they were trying to “buy the loyalty”. It simply doesn’t work. To be correct it may work short term, but never works on the horizon of more than 6 months. The right approach here is to understand what drives shop keeper up? What keeps him/her above the line? What can “make his/her day”? And you will be surprised with no exception it’s not money. Of course good price and discount are always matter, but it’s rather the pre-requisite, not a driver. In Russia long time ago such a driver became a distant education at commercial institute, in Ethiopia — medical robes for pharmacists, in Pakistan — colourful protective transparent shields on the cash counter, in Turkey — certificates claiming exceptional quality of the service in this particular store. So, before even starting it’s critically important to listen and understand what will bring the desirable result.

Gate 3. Finally once Gate 1 and 2 passed successfully it’s important to apply the Fish! philosophy and play (otherwise it will be just a boring exercise), make the day of all the participants and be present focusing on the customer and employees. This is in essence the quality of execution as such.

So, if we look at variety of “Golden store” programs my guesstimate (don’t catch me here, it’s just my feeling) is that out of 100 programs 33 are failures, 33 — average and around 33 — meaningful successful resulting in a long terms sales and market shares growth ahead of the Market.

I came to Israel a day before the start of our Distributors’ conference — it was necessary to check the readiness of all the elements. We were landing in a sandstorm which came from Egypt. From the airport I went to the Israeli Distributor hosting the conference, then I met the agency and the hotel management (we were staying in Dan in Tel Aviv), it turned out everything is ready and I have next day Monday morning totally free. It was my very first time in Israel and I decided to go quickly to Jerusalem and back. I put together perfect plan. Wake up at half past five, go the bus station, take the bus (I checked the schedule), see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Western Wall, Room of the Last Supper and finally Gethsemane garden and come back in the afternoon. I had a map with me and I found all the points of interest there with the exception of Gethsemane garden, but I didn’t see any issues with it, I remembered from the Bible that Jesus had a last supper and then went out to Gethsemane garden to pray so I decided it should be somewhere close to the Room of the Last Supper. So, here I go.

I woke up at half past five, took a shower and slipped out of sleeping Dan to the sleeping Tel Aviv. The hotel is right on the beach, there is still very dark, so I hear the breath of the sea, rustle of waves and feel the smell of grass, flowers and spices. I’m walking to the bus station in the darkness through the empty city wandering in the net of small streets. There are rare lights, drunk guy asking me for a cigarette, parking lots, garbage dumps. My fear is that pack of dogs could attack me unexpectedly. Suddenly I see the big white cat coming out onto the road and looking at me imposingly curious. In ten steps there is another cat and then another one. If there are so many cats here so there are probably no any dangerous dogs. I’m relieved and going further through the darkness, smells of flowers and dust, and cats are walking around me. I’m joining a bigger road, cyclists began to come across, then pedestrians. I’m at the station.

There are few people waiting for the departure: smoking girl with a huge backpack next to her, the guy in a military uniform with the machine gun, a man with a small girl and a large pink suitcase. The ticket costs me 19 Shekels the driver is an intelligent, professor-looking grey-haired gentleman closed the doors and I’m on my way to Jerusalem. The journey takes about an hour. We are passing by the suburbs of Tel Aviv reminding me Casablanca with it’s square shape two-three-floors houses with flat roofs. Then the gardens begin, fields, vineyards, hills and groves. Suddenly the suburbs of Jerusalem start. The terrain around is hilly, well-groomed, the landscape is extremely rocky, so I understand that a lot of efforts have been made to ensure that something grows there.

It was early morning, people were waking up, scavengers were collecting garbage, schoolchildren were going to school. The sun was raising. I was at the Jaffa gate at about eight in the morning and at first went to look for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as per my plan. I immediately got lost in a net of small narrow curved streets, but twenty minutes later I went out onto a small square in front of the temple and went inside. Silence, there is nobody, candles are burning. The smell of lamp oil, incense, candles. The temple is a labyrinth with a large circular space in the centre under a high round dome. In the middle there is a small chapel where the coffin is, and around there are churches of different denominations — Russian Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic, Greek … Group of pilgrims began to sing “Christ is Risen …”. Twilight, a high dome, singing. I was covered with emotions like with an ocean wave. Went out. On the street, the whole square is full of tourists and pilgrims, bustle, camera flashes, souvenir trade — the day has begun.

I came out of the Church full of joy and went to look for the Western Wall. Jerusalem is a congestion of light yellow sandstone, light yellow houses and the streets. A few minutes later I found myself in Arab quarter and walked along a row of souvenir shops. The day was just beginning, almost all are still closed. Suddenly I see at one of the shops that are opening, photo pictures of old Jerusalem. The owner of the shop is coming out saying that it was his grandfather who took this picture. Inside there are few rooms, the name of the guy is Joseph, he is living right here on the first floor and on the ground floor is a shop and a workspace where he makes jewellery. He is telling me his family has been living here for 350 years and I’m staying here for an hour, probably. There are various shawls and tablecloths and something else, furniture with inlaid from Syria, different decorations, there are three domras, albums with the very old pictures, the attire of Jewish Bedouins, rugs. Josef is showing around and explaining, saying that there is no need to buy anything, he just likes to share. Of course, finally I’m buying some small stuff — scarf and those picture I noticed in the very beginning. In even more joyful and relaxing mood I’m coming out of Josef’s place and keep going to the Western Wall.

I found it pretty quickly. Prayers are in the suits, a girl is in uniform with a machine gun, tourists, a dome, a Wall. After few minutes of watching I’m coming out of the ancient city, buying a bagel with sesame seeds for seven shekels and realising I better to hurry up with my next two sightseeing points to be able to get back to Tel Aviv in time. Mount Zion, where the Room of the Last Supper is, like a tiny city with few small narrow streets and several buildings melded together. And at the moment I stood to the street of Zion my ideal plan was broken. At the arch, I was hailed by an extremely intelligent, professor-looking grey-haired gentleman. In a perfect English he asked me where I’m from and what I’m looking for. Being in a joyful relaxing mood after the Church and my talk with Josef I didn’t feel any danger and pointed him to the map, saying “The Room of the Last Supper is probably here?”. He answered — “no problem, I’ll show it to you, follow me.”

Then I remember the chain of events like in an accelerated movie, it turned out that his name is David, he has been here for 35 years at the synagogue as a guide, he took me to the Room of the Last Supper that I was looking for. “There was a table here — take pictures, here is a Muslim altar — take pictures, what else do you want to see? Gethsemane garden? It’s around the corner right here. I will show you. Did you already go up to the roof? No? Let’s go. This is the view to Palestine with a wall, a view of the city. Take pictures. Did you see the tomb of King David? Oh no — let’s go!”

At some moment of time I started to feel that something is wrong and just stopped him, saying “enough, just show me the direction to the garden and I leave”. And then he said — “before you leave you have to pay me”. I was a bit shaken “… But I just left thirty shekels in the synagogue …” “Well, this is a donation to the synagogue, but what about my service !?”. “And how much do you want for your service I never asked about? “ “ Well, as much as you believe it’s fair to pay. “ Sounded not bad. I decided that ten dollars was quite adequate for the effort and gave David ten bucks. What happened to him … “What is that?!!!! Well it costs at least three hundred shekels !!! No, I saw that you still have shekels in your wallet, give me more money, at least twice the same amount!”. I went to denial, I said that, he had to inform in advance on the money, but he became even more angry. “It’s your fault! You should have asked from the very beginning how much my services cost!!!!” To cut story short I simply run out of him.

But the problem of finding the Garden of Gethsemane was still not solved. I walked around the neighbourhood and found nothing which may be seen as a garden. I went to the Greek cemetery and asked the gatekeeper where the Garden of Gethsemane was. He gave me a free map and circled the location right on the opposite side of town. Wow! Why is it so far away? But the map was absolutely clear with the sign — the Garden of Gethsemane … Somehow, despite all the efforts of David my joyful mood didn’t disappear but I saw I have no time to go that far and decided to come back to the Jaffa gates, bus station and back to Dan. The next time I came to Israel happened 5 years later and then saw the Garden of Gethsemane, many other things in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and also Masada and Dead Sea…

Long story, hope you like it. Can we now look at it from execution perspective? What is in common (if anything) between the story with the plane in Khabarovsk and this one? In both stories very strong vision of what has to be done came first. In both stories the plan was there. And in both stories “something went wrong” and execution didn’t happen as it supposed to be. I don’t know if you noticed or not in your working life, but this “something went wrong” always coming unexpectedly and always from outside. Kind of “black swan”. Can we avoid it? Probable not. Can we mitigate it? Probably we can try if we have a right attitude and good option B and C.

We are coming to the end of the chapter and I want to spend a bit of time talking about the area where execution is extremely critical — manufacturing. The famous “something went wrong” can result in a disastrous issues with the quality of the product we are manufacturing. Someone may say that I’m exaggerating and if something is wrong with the quality two-three items may be always recalled and replaced.

Indeed being connected with the diapers manufacturing industry for many years I saw few isolated cases when one or two diapers had some quality related damages. I remember one of my sales colleagues called me in panic one day, crying — “I got a call from the customer, she found a rat inside the diaper!!!”. Immediately I called my quality manager located on the plant. She met this shocking news staying very calm and even been phlegmatic. “It’s simply technically not possible”, she told me — “if it was the mouse inside than the diaper machine would crash it and the diaper would be full of mouse blood… it’s not mouse, it’s a lump of glue… happening from time to time very rarely though”. Of course the lump of glue is much much better than the dead mouse. And it was the glue indeed. So, we managed to calm down the shopper and exchanged her pack of diapers by the few new ones. Now of course it sounds like a funny story (that wasn’t as funny when it happened), but very often the quality mistakes may lead to the lost of shoppers, customers, retailers and even the total bankruptcy.

One story described in the book “In Your Face” by Kevin Fitzgerald, David Thomas Schumann just catched me recently. This is the story of Takata Air Bag Recall which started in 2008, costed Takata $24 billion and led to it’s bankruptcy. Can you imagine the execution issue resulted in the quality mistake costed $24 billion? To keep this story short, this is it in essence: Takata used to manufacture airbags inflators and one day it was discovered that inflators can explode and eject a shrapnel-like material that has been linked to at least 20 deaths. Air-bag inflators made by now-bankrupt Takata were used by virtually every major automaker on the planet which didn’t make the life easier, as it was necessary to recall close to 100 million inflators worldwide (as I guess the process is not over yet and may be completed by 2023 only).

If now we ask ourselves “how this all did happen?” there were few obvious reasons. It started with the fact that Takata exec team simply prioritised profit over quality which led to the poor design, poor testing, inadequate quality records and lack of communication all the way though the supply chain. Quality always comes under pressure when Boards want more profit. The “what can we get away with before the customer complains?” can become prevalent. This case study is a perfect reminder of what can happen when you get quality wrong.

So, let me summarise. In a nutshell I hope I managed to convey the idea that execution is a cornerstone of success and it can whether ruin the great strategy or on contrary make the weak strategy works. Of course when great strategy meets great execution it’s just awesome. And the recipe of great execution may be not as sophisticated. It’s possible when you have a team of professionals who “bought” your strategy, you apply Fish! (or whatever you may call it) philosophy and 80% it’s done. And always remember that the lack of the attention to execution will lead you to numerous quality issues and may cost you literally everything.