Far too many organizations do a poor job of translating their well- formulated strategies into their anticipated results. Whether related to unclear goals, lack of accountability or undertaking activities irrelevant to results, the inability to deliver comes from poor execution. To actively manage your organization so that everyone is working toward a common vision, strategy and set of priorities requires aligning “seven gears of execution” to alleviate the friction that’s slowing you down. These involve ensuring you have the right people in the right roles with the right capabilities; you align your organizational architecture in the direction of your strategy; you promote a culture of communication; and more. Join us for our discussion with Sean Ryan on Execution Execution . Sean Ryan is a world-renowned business consultant, speaker, trainer and executive coach. As the founder of Whitewater International Consulting, he has worked internationally with companies such as Disney, Nucor Steel, FedEx and Nestle Waters North America/Perrier Group of America. With more than two decades of industry experience, Sean is highly regarded for his ability to guide organizations through complex transformational change in what he describes as "a world of perpetual whitewater". His new book is Get in Gear: Seven Gears that Drive Strategy to Results Welcome to Mastering Your Money, Sean Ryan .

Not everyone is cut out to start a business. In fact, starting a company is an irrational act. Most successful Founders bring a unique combination of drive, determination, product knowledge, creative problem-solving skills, business acumen, stamina, and a keen sense of timing, to their fledgling enterprises. And the best of these know how to communicate with a variety of audiences by telling a great story. A Founder has many audiences that compete for attention—The Core Team, Investors, Suppliers, and Customers to name a few. Each is critical to the success of a new enterprise and the ability to prioritize, communicate with them, and engage them at just the right time, is essential to the success of any start-up. With limited resources, failure to engage with any one of these important audiences at the right moment can be the difference between success and shutting down. Most successful Founders bring a unique combination of drive, determination, product knowledge, creative problem solving skills, business acumen, stamina and a keen sense of timing to their fledgling enterprises. The key to a successful start-up is solving a high value problem that customers care about and will pay for a level that provides the business outcomes desired by the product owner. In addition to sound advice for managing your product and business relative to competing products, you must get to know your customers, understanding the problem along with changing requirements and designing solutions that customers will appreciateNot everyone is cut out to start a business. In fact, starting a company is an irrational act. Most successful Founders bring a unique combination of drive, determination, product knowledge, creative problem-solving skills, business acumen, stamina, and a keen sense of timing, to their fledgling enterprises. And the best of these know how to communicate with a variety of audiences by telling a great story. A Founder has many audiences that compete for attention—The Core Team, Investors, Suppliers, and Customers to name a few. Each is critical to the success of a new enterprise and the ability to prioritize, communicate with them, and engage them at just the right time, is essential to the success of any start-up. With limited resources, failure to engage with any one of these important audiences at the right moment can be the difference between success and shutting down. Most successful Founders bring a unique combination of drive, determination, product knowledge, creative problem solving skills, business acumen, stamina and a keen sense of timing to their fledgling enterprises. The key to a successful start-up is solving a high value problem that customers care about and will pay for a level that provides the business outcomes desired by the product owner. In addition to sound advice for managing your product and business relative to competing products, you must get to know your customers, understanding the problem along with changing requirements and designing solutions that customers will appreciate.

Before the coronavirus epidemic, Amazon had been consuming some 2% of all U.S. household income, a percentage that has assuredly risen since the outbreak’s onset, particularly among the company’s more than 150+ million Amazon Prime members. While 51% of American households attend church, 62% have Prime memberships. In the best of times, the company’s presence in our daily lives is inescapable. As Amazon gains many invaluable lessons from the Covid-19 outbreak, the company will only become more ubiquitous in the decades ahead. Soberly aware of Amazon’s staying power, the CEO quipped to employees in 2018: “I predict one day, Amazon will fail. If you look at large companies, their lifespans tend to be thirty-plus years.” At the time he made that comment, Amazon was twenty-four-years-old. Bestselling Good to Great author Jim Collins says Amazon needs to build a new mechanism for growth. That mechanism—a virtuous cycle “flywheel” that used data to attract more buyers and sellers whose new data contributions could then be harnessed by the flywheel—was championed by Bezos and today has been made to accelerate even faster using Amazon’s massive AI engines. As the author argues, Amazon is a business where AI is increasingly making the decisions that humans used to make and keeps getting smarter on its own. Rivals have taken notice. This why some companies, such as Walmart and Alibaba, have chosen to steal from Amazon’s playbook while others have tried to identify the few things the Seattle juggernaut can’t do and excel at them. Bezos has built one of the most efficient wealth-creation machines in history, a juggernaut. This convenience, however, will come at a cost. It will lead to massive job disruptions and our lives being affected by technology in ever more invasive ways. Joining us for our discussion on The Amazon Effect is Brian Dumaine who is on the phone from his New York office. Brian Dumaine is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor at Fortune magazine. His latest book is Bezonomics: How Amazon is Changing our Lives and What The World's Best Companies Are Learning From It. Welcome to Mastering Your Money, Brian Dumaine .