This article was written by Ken Leaver who comes from a product & commercial background. He has founded multiple companies and held senior product positions at SEA tech companies like Lazada and Pomelo Fashion.
Ken runs his own agency that helps early stage companies execute faster and cheaper. Check out his linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenleaver/
Guest Author: Ken Leaver
Execution eats strategy for breakfast. And execution has responsiveness at its foundation.
When I hear about folks that take days to respond to messages/emails/notifications from their team… I know that they suck at execution.
With very few exceptions i’ve observed this my entire career. Particularly the last 5 yrs or so where I would argue iteration & velocity has really gotten key.
Why you might ask? What’s the logic?
Well almost everything you do these days requires interactions with other team members.
There are rarely tasks that I can do myself for more than 20-30 min these days without requiring inputs from others. It’s just the reality of how project execution happens now.
And so if you’re trying to progress on multiple projects… and each one gets bottlenecked by a person who is only going to respond in some days… you are going to suck at execution as an org.
Also there is a multiplier effect because things drag at multiple stages in the project.
And so an org where they are lightning fast at responding will often finish the same project with the same resources in 1/3 or even 1/4 the amount of time.
Are there exceptions to this? Yes.. but few and far between.
