# THE 4 DISCIPLINES OF EXECUTION
## DISCIPLINE 1: FOCUS ON THE WILDLY IMPORTANT
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WIG: Wildly Important Goal
```
Without the discipline of focus, you'll never get the results you want

Increase of the number of goals, the number of goals achieved with excellence will be going backward.

People are genetically hardwired to do one thing at a time with excellence

Steve Jobs focused on a handful of **wildly important** products

Make the hard choices that separate what is wildly important from all the many other merely important goals

Approach WIG with focus and diligence until it's delivered with excellence

People who try to push many goals at once usually wind up doing a mediocre job on all of them

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All of our goals are Priority 1. We can successfully multitask and succeed at five, then, or fifteen important goals. All we need to do is work harder and longer...
```
versus
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Many of our goals are important, but only one or two are wildly important. We call them WIGs. They are the goals we must achieve. Our finest effort can only be given to one or two wildly important goals at a time.
```

### The leader's challenge
Why is there so much pressure toward expanding, rather than narrowing, the goals? If you undestand the need to focus, why is it so difficult to actually do it?

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

The greatest challenge you face in narrowing your goals is simply that it requires you to say no to a lot of good ideas. 4DX may even mean saying no to some _great_ ideas, at least for now.

```
There will always be more good ideas than there is capacity to execute
```

Tim Cook - "We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. WE say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose. The table each of you is sitting at today, you could probably put every product on it that Apple makes, yet Apple's revenue last yea was $40 billion."

Stephen R. Covey - "You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, unapologetically - to say no to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside."

### Identifying your WIGs
How do we decide WIGs?

Don't ask "What's most important?"

Ask "If every other area of our operation remained at its current level of performance, what is the one are where change would have the greatest impact?"


Whether your WIG comes from within the whirlwind or outside it, your real aim is not only to achieve it, but also to then make the new level of performance a natural part of your team's operation. New performance levels are sustained.

An example of WIG transformed the organization.

They considered before: `Help disabled workers find jobs outside our organization that can sustain them.`

Now: `Increasing the number of disabled people placed in sustainable jobs.`

### Focusing the organization
Gain a high-level understanding of the rules

* Rule 1: No team focuses on more than two WIGs at the same time
  * This rule acts like a governor on an engine. Not to overload any single leader, team, or individual.
* Rule 2: The battles you choose must win the war
  * The lower-level WIGs must ensure the success of the higher WIGs.
  * Don't ask "What are all the things we could do to win this war?"
  * Ask "What are the fewest number of battles necessary to win this war?"
* Rule 3: Senior leaders can veto, but not dictate
  * While the senior leaders will undoubtedly determine the top-level WIG, they must allow the leaders at each level below to define the WIG for their teams. It's not only leverages the knowledge of these leaders, but also creates a greater sense of ownership and involvement.
* Rule 4: All WIGs must have a finish line in the form of from X to Y by when
  * Every WIG at every level must contain a clearly measurable result
  * Bad examples
    * "Improve inventory processing."
    * "Successfully convert our portfolio to a life-cycle strategy."
  * Should look like
    * "Improve inventory processing by increasing per-year inventory turns from eight to ten by Dec.31"
    * "Move 40 percent of our customers from fixed categories to life-cycle categories of investments within five years"

### Shooting for the moon
NASA's example - `land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth before this decade is out`

top-level WIG: MAN ON THE MOON
lower-level WIGs: NAVIGATION, PROPULSION, LIFE-SUPPORT

When accountability soared, what happened to morale and engagement?
Narrowing your focus increases both accountability and the engagement of your team.

"Game on!"