Here’s what won’t work: telling your colleagues, “Hey, we need to execute plans with discipline.”
Despite being the most popular approach, rhetoric doesn’t change behaviors.
Deep alignment elevates the choices people make.
To create the discipline required for excellence in executing plans, colleagues must first share a clear definition of what discipline means.
Here’s a definition we’ve refined with leadership teams we support—but first, consider this: it’s the group of cross-functional colleagues you rely on to succeed who should define what discipline means. (Not me. Not AI. Not your CEO.)
Here’s a starter definition—or one to reinforce your thinking:
Discipline: A choiceful, energizing force, driven by a mutually imposed standard of excellence and achieved through the relentless pursuit of clear priorities.
Discipline isn’t about rigidity or control. It’s about making sound decisions, especially under pressure, that deliver the group’s purpose and business commitments without exhaustion.
In the next blog, we’ll explore the 5 Key Principles of Discipline.
P.S. You earn the right to influence the behaviors of colleagues by operating with the mindset that they already possess the wisdom and ability they need to succeed. You’re simply there to remind them.