How many times have you listened to a losing football coach lament his team’s poor execution – we had a good game plan, we just didn’t execute well?

Have you ever wondered why some sports teams are able to consistently perform at a high level, year-in and year-out, and others do not? They may not win a championship every year, but they are usually always in contention.

How do they do it? Excellent talent, for sure, but we have seen many teams with better talent lag. Excellent teamwork, absolutely, you cannot win without it. Leadership, organization, coaching style, winning culture – yes there are a number of important factors.

The top performing organizations understand them and continually seek to master all of them.

The same lessons apply to business organizations. Execution – what truly sets the better performing companies apart from the rest of the pack is execution. For most small and medium-size companies, organization excellence or execution is the most important determinant of performance. Competition is intense and it is difficult to create sustainable differences in customer value. The most important competitive advantage a firm can build is its capability to effectively execute.

Based on a combination of research and executive experience, Growth Strategy Partners has developed a proven framework for helping companies assess and elevate the execution effectiveness of their organizations. The framework has been successfully used to dramatically improve the performance of companies across multiple industries.

In our Organization Excellence blog series, we will share with you the framework we have developed and discuss the best practices for implementing each of the seven elements. The next blog will describe our High Performance Framework.

We hope you enjoy the series and find it helpful in augmenting the execution excellence of your organization.

To evaluate your company’s performance using this framework, visit www.GrowthStrategyPartners.com/assessments and take our self assessment. If your scores are 4’s and 5’s, congratulations; but if your scores are in the 1 or 2 areas, well you need to roll up your sleeves and get to work. There are likely to be significant opportunities to improve the performance and value of your business.

Growth Strategy Partners is a management consulting firm which accelerates the growth in revenue, profit and organizational excellence for small and mid-sized businesses by implementing our research driven 7 Keys to Growth.

We’re presenting a webinar on Building and Implementing an Actionable Sales Strategy for the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers on April 9. To learn more and register click this link

http://www.nasgw.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageID=3690

Growth Strategy Partners attends the SHOT show in Vegas. The Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) show is the largest trade show for professionals in the shooting sports, hunting and law enforcement industries.

The National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers has asked us to present a webinar on Cross Selling to Grow Revenues and Profits. To learn more about the webinar or to register please see our Events page through the link below.

For most of his career, Gary has been involved with the turnaround, transformation, growth and optimization of a number of businesses with particularly strong experience in the construction, manufacturing and service industries. His experience includes 20 years as a senior operating executive and 10 years as a management consultant.

As a senior operating executive, five of the businesses in which he was the leader, or a senior member of the firm’s Management Committee, were transformed into the best performing business in their respective industries. In this regard, the businesses he led became the industry leader across five core metrics: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, business growth, productivity and profitability. During his 20 years as an operating executive, Gary was able to significantly contribute to the $1 billion increase in value of those businesses.

During his 20 years of experience as an operating executive, Gary had demonstrated the capability to:

• Develop and effectively implement innovative, winning business strategies that build sustainable competitive advantages
• Grow the business at significantly higher rates than the industry
• Build lean, cost effective operations
• Build world class marketing and sales organizations
• Build organizations that were able to consistently execute at a high level of excellence

Most recently, Gary was the President and CEO of Equipment Depot, a $400 million distributor of material handling company in which he led the turnaround of the company and the implementation of a plan to improve its profitability by $20 million. Gary’s other operating experience includes being the President of Gregory’s Box’d Beverages, the Senior VP of ESSROC Corp., the VP & GM of Comstock Communications, a business he founded, and the Director of Marketing and Sales for TRW’s $100MM cutting tools business. He also worked as a management consultant and an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company for 5 years.

Since leaving his operating position, Gary has dedicated his career to utilizing his business skills to work with owners of middle market companies to help them optimize the growth and value of their businesses. Over the past ten years, he has worked with over 40 companies in the construction, distribution, manufacturing, and retail industries. He was consistently able to improve the effectiveness of the client’s organization and improve the financial performance of the business.

Gary has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
For relaxation, Gary enjoys sports, travel, theater, and most importantly, playing with his grandchildren.