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I bought and read The 4 Disciplines of Execution in January of 2017 because Cal Newton gave it high praise in his book, Deep Work. At first glance, I thought it was some of the same old, same old. I waited more than six months before writing my review because I wanted to see if what was in the book really worked. It does, even though, at first glance it looks like old wine between new covers.
What’s in The Book
The authors identify four core disciplines that can combine to make any individual or team more effective. The disciplines are focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability. Here’s a little bit more about each one of them and why my initial impression was that there wasn’t much new in this book.
Discipline 1 is about focusing on wildly important goals. Well, of course. People who use goals to guide their behavior and practice some form of essentialism and zero in on the most important goals certainly will do better. It didn’t seem like there was much new here.
Discipline 2 is to leverage your lead measures. I first learned about the power of lead measures working with my friend Stephen Lynch on his book, Business Execution for RESULTS. Stephen demonstrated the power of lead measures (the acts you do to drive results) and how concentrating on them is more likely to make your results come out right. It seemed like I knew that, so what could be new here?
Discipline 3 is boost engagement by having employees keep score. This one may not be obvious to everyone, but I’ve been keeping score in one form or another for half a century. I track my daily work and results. I attach them to a simple score sheet. So, I figured I had this one. There was a new wrinkle, though, and that was the purpose of a visual scoreboard and how it’s a great way to keep track of how you’re doing.
Discipline 4 is accountability. Well, of course. If you’re leading a team, you must hold people accountable for their behavior and their results. If you’re tracking things for yourself, you should hold yourself accountable and not fudge. That seemed obvious, too.
If you looked at the table of contents for the book or poked around a bit inside it, you may have come to the same conclusion I did and you and I would both be right. There’s not much new here if all you consider are the individual disciplines. Concentrating on your most important goals will help you improve your performance. Identifying and tracking your lead measures will definitely improve your performance. And, it’s always necessary to hold people accountable for their behavior and their performance. So, what’s different?
The System’s the Thing
If all this book was a description of the disciplines, it wouldn’t be much. But the book is about how to use those four disciplines as a system. When you use them together, you get a positive synergy. Any one of the four will improve your results. Using the four all together will improve your results dramatically.
My Proof Was in the Trying
When I read the book, I was impressed, but I wasn’t ready to give it a great review until I figured out if it worked. I knew the parts worked, it was the system I wasn’t sure of.
I had to make some adjustments in the way that I worked and the way that I tracked my performance based on what I read in The Four Disciplines of Execution. When I did that, two things happened. First, my overall results improved. Second, the time I was spending to get those results dropped. This stuff works.
How the Book Helps You
The writing in this book is clear and the examples are good, but there’s one “design feature” that I really liked. This book is divided into two parts. The first part identifies and explains the four disciplines and the basic system. The second part is about how to put the system into action. This helped me and it would have helped me even more if I had a team that I was going to apply this with.
Bottom Line
The material in this book can make a difference in your performance, your team’s performance, and your overall quality of work life. But beware: you’ve got to do the work and it won’t be easy.
The hard part isn’t understanding the concepts. The hard part is breaking some habits and changing some procedures and maintaining energy while you work through those changes. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t buy the book.
The second important point is that the book is about a system. You can adopt any one of the four disciplines, or improve the way you handle each one, but to get the best results, you’ve got to use them all in a coordinated way. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t buy the book.
One more thing. This book is not about principles or secrets or magic of any kind. It’s about disciplines. That’s good because it means that people like you and like me can make it work. It will take work and, well, discipline, but we can make it work.
If you are willing to do the work and take the time and make the changes, The Four Disciplines of Execution is a book that will help you make a dramatic improvement in your performance and your quality of work life.
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Customers say
Customers find this book to be a must-read that provides practical tools and helpful examples for achieving goals. The straightforward approach makes it easy to follow, and customers appreciate its focus on execution and goal setting, particularly its emphasis on focusing on top 1-3 goals or projects. They value the leadership aspects, noting high team engagement and motivation, and find the concepts simple yet effective.
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296 customers mention content, 283 positive, 13 negative
This is a great book, easy to read, very logical, helps you understand yourself and then you can be of service to others that you now understand.Read more
great read for helping you get ahead in life and at work.Read more
This is an excellent book, as you could expect from the Covey organization....Read more
Good book, not great but good, somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4....Read more
171 customers mention practical, 167 positive, 4 negative
...This book is practical and easy to implement. Looking forward to sharing it with my co-workers. Thanks,Read more
Bought it for a work project, easy to read, very informative.Read more
Well thought out and described! Very helpful!Read more
...(also a hallmark of all things Covey) make this interesting and useful, but I don't think it attacks the core of the problem: the whirlwind.Read more
60 customers mention easy to read, 55 positive, 5 negative
...step-by-step guide on how to successfully achieve your vision using a simple and straight forward process called 4DX....Read more
...to end a process is the implementation and with this book is easy to understand how to carry out this easy and the same time complicate part!Read more
...This book is practical and easy to implement. Looking forward to sharing it with my co-workers. Thanks,Read more
...Wasn't very expensive. Easy read. Great ideas. Easy to follow.Read more
40 customers mention execution, 39 positive, 1 negative
Great process, too bad there isn't a publicly available workbook to accompany this. However if you walk it through, its not hard to implement.Read more
...The authors have done a masterful job of bringing an understanding of how to properly execute. This was not a difficult read.Read more
Very well executed book with a very interesting and exciting operating system. Great flow and easy to follow. Must readRead more
...It is extremely well fleshed out.Read more
35 customers mention goal creation, 32 positive, 3 negative
...It goes far beyond that, though, by explaining just HOW poor execution trumps good strategy, and laying out a straightforward, actionable approach...Read more
Bought several books for a collaboration session. Good read and setting goals.Read more
Wonderful principals, strategies, and goals. Love it!!Read more
...It provides a step by step approach to setting and achieving goals.Read more
35 customers mention leadership, 35 positive, 0 negative
34 customers mention readability, 27 positive, 7 negative
An easy read but full of good ideas. This book takes many common ideas and coalesces them into a game changing strategy to improve your business.Read more
This is a great book, easy to read, very logical, helps you understand yourself and then you can be of service to others that you now understand.Read more
...this book are not new but presented in a way that makes them easily understandable and implementable.Read more
Had to read this book for work... not the easiest read, but the purchase experience to get the book was smooth.Read more
31 customers mention concepts, 30 positive, 1 negative
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2013
Top reviews from other countries
- JabmanReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 3, 2025
The 4 Disciplines of Execution – Hardcover
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Rene FernandezReviewed in Mexico on November 5, 2017
Excelente libro y muy necesaria aplicacion
