The 3 reasons why Execution is considered more important than the idea

A friend of mine used to always quote

“ Ideas are sold dime a dozen”.

When I started working on my start-up, In the initial days I was worried about people stealing it and so I didn't disclose it. And the frequent advice I would get was, execution is more important than idea.

I was told if your idea is so unique, try get it patented rather than hiding it. And if you are so confident about your idea, take a shot at making it into a business.

In corporate setup, in sports, the quote “Perform or Perish” is pretty common.

So why is Execution considered so important…

After working on my start-up for over an year, I can vouch for the quote that my friend used to say. I have got a fair idea of what happens when you are in execution mode and why execution matters.

In this post, I am sharing the 3 reasons to justify why execution matters…

Hope you enjoy reading it.

The Premise

One evening, the mood for dinner was to make something healthy. And I wanted to cook. I kind of mixed up the greens that I had in the house, tossed it up with some herbs and spices. And lucky for me, the salad turned out to be tasty.

So I shouted at my wife in excitement and said “ We should start a YouTube channel”. People are making millions being YouTube starts, why should we miss the bus? And she gave me a look which was mix of inquiry, excitement and saying no.

We will take the idea of creating a YouTube channel for Healthy Food as the premise for our discussion.

So lets get to work, to start with lets create a to-do list and a prerequisite list to figure out what it takes to create a YouTube channel. And keep it up and running.

Basic Prerequisites

1. Before starting the channel, we need to have some recipes.
2. Make videos of the recipes and for that learn to make the videos. The angle, the lighting, the sound matter.
3. Write interesting desc for the video so that Google understands what are you up to. And so need to understand digital marketing to some extent.

High level To-do to keep the channel up and running

1. Have a continuous flow of videos.
2. And that means a growing list of recipes and videos of the recipes.
3. And for that I will have think about Recipes and for that will have to read about nutrition, food items and understand the concepts better. I will have to try the recipes, fine tune them. And these all needs time commitment.
4. Engage with viewers by responding to comments.
5. Continuously work on Marketing to get more viewers.

Even after doing everything right, there is a great possibility that the videos might have 0 views or 0 likes. So the most important thing is to do is

Keep posting quality videos and interesting recipes over a considerable period of time without getting demotivated by seeing “0” Likes and/or 2 “Views”

And now suddenly the task of creating a YouTube channel seems to ask for focused planning and commitment.

The Execution Test — The 3 reasons

When we are in execution mode, we are tested to the core. It is during this phase that the character, the passion, the hunger, the motivation, the skills and blah blah comes into picture.

In short, we are being tested at 3 levels.

1. Technical skills

Every job demands some competence from the doer. So the test questions are

Do we have the required skills?

Are we ready to acquire the required skills and up-skill?

Are we ready to forget what we know and re-skill?

2. Interpersonal skills

Interaction with others is simply unavoidable. Some way or other we will have to interact with people to get the job done. So the test is check if

Do we have the required interpersonal skills to interact with others

Be a team player and/or a leader and get the job done

Can we be assertive, inspirational, motivational, be considerate and yet be a no-nonsense person.

3. Inner management skills.

Challenges and Execution go hand in hand. Are we strong enough to face the challenges head on and come out victorious? This is the purpose of this test.

How do we handle ourselves when things are going tough?

How do we stay committed and motivated when the plans are failing apart?

Can we maintain focus on the job and continue doing what needs to be done? Or you get distracted and lose your track when we face set backs.

If one clear all the 3 levels, Execution is the outcome.

It is easiest to evaluate the technical skills of the people. It is possible to evaluate the inter personal skills of the people. But it is very difficult to gauge the Inner management skills of the people.

So the best way to test somebody is to see their is execution capabilities and execution history.

We often clear the first level i.e of technical skills. Some of us are good in level 1 and level 2. But few of us a true champs. They are great in all the 3 levels.

To summarize, execution is what gives us the right to knock on the doors of success.

Happy executing!

I am happy to hear your feedback and interact through comments mode…

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay