At this point, we have covered two of the four main sections of Scaling Up by Verne Harnish – People and Strategy. In the last blog, we looked at how to create your own One-Page Strategic Plan, or OPSP, a vital element of the Scaling Up methodology. Now that you have a plan, the next step is its execution. That is the section of the book we’ll cover next.
This blog is part of a series looking at the habits required to successfully scale a sustainable business. Read our introduction about the Scaling Up book and how to implement it in your business, which includes a complete list of all the blogs that explore this book.
You’ve put in a lot of work to get to this stage and have created a highly tailored OPSP – or a Vision Summary if you’re a smaller company that only needs the simplified version. The Execution section of the book opens with some real-world examples of companies excelling at execution and has three parts: The Priority, The Data, The Meeting Rhythm. It’s also at this point that we jump back into the Rockefeller Habits that the book is named after. There are 10 habit areas, which we cover in our blog The 10 Rockefeller Habits That Will Help Your Business Flourish.
The Priority – focus, finish lines, and fun
This chapter is all about the discipline of singular focus and establishing one measurable priority (the Critical Number) that the entire organisation rallies behind for a defined period, typically 90 days. Organisational power comes from ruthless prioritisation; not just knowing what matters most but having the discipline to sequence initiatives so you’re only ever chasing one thing at a time.
Constraints don’t disappear through parallel effort; they are eliminated systematically by identifying which single choke point, when addressed, unlocks progress everywhere else. Scaling a business is fundamentally about constraint removal, and you can’t remove constraints you’re not focused on, which is why healthy leadership teams that can agree on and commit to one thing consistently outperform those with more comprehensive but scattered strategies.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.” – Confucius
The problem with everything mattering
Leadership teams routinely emerge from planning sessions with exhaustive lists of initiatives that simply get ignored because nobody knows what needs fixing first. It’s really hard to focus on twelve priorities simultaneously – when everything matters, nothing does. Businesses don’t fail from bad strategy but from trying to do everything at once.
A scattered approach leaves money and time on the table. Teams spin their wheels accomplishing nothing of significance while a few individuals work eighteen-hour days trying to compensate for the lack of organisational discipline. Even with a killer strategy, execution chaos undermines results. The issue isn’t commitment or effort, but the inability to apply effort to one thing at a time.
Find your Critical Number with diagnostic honesty
Think of all your company’s priorities lined up like dominoes: revenue growth, customer service, staff development, process improvement, cost reduction, quality control, etc. There could be hundreds of them. Then ask yourself which domino, when knocked over, makes all the others easier to topple?
This is how you identify your Critical Number. If you’re haemorrhaging clients, it could be customer retention. If you’re struggling with delivery, it could be recruitment. If you’re generating plenty of leads but not closing them, it could be sales conversion. The key to finding it is an honest diagnosis: what is really holding you back right now?
You will need to dig beyond surface symptoms to the underlying constraint. Revenue might be flat, but is that because you can’t deliver on time, because your service quality has slipped, or because your team lacks the capacity to handle new business? Each diagnosis leads to a completely different Critical Number.
Some constraints are obvious, like cash running out, key staff leaving, or a quality crisis threatening your reputation. Others require deeper analysis. Test your theory by asking: if you achieve this one thing in the next 90 days, will it genuinely make everything else easier? If not, keep digging until you find the real constraint.
Turning metrics into movement: Quarterly Themes
Once you’ve identified the Critical Number, you need the entire organisation to care about it for 90 consecutive days. This is the real challenge! Abstract targets don’t move people; the idea of a Quarterly Theme wraps a memorable, often fun, motif around the Critical Number to create internal marketing that engages employees.
Rather than announcing, for example, “we need to increase referrals by 200%,” you create something visceral and engaging that employees can rally behind. Assign a Champion from your team (spread ownership by looking beyond the executive team) to organise the presentation and visual materials, set three achievement levels with corresponding rewards, and ensure the theme is visible throughout your workplace.
Three levels of success: giving teams room to win
The three achievement levels are minimum acceptable (Red), solid achievement (Green), and exceptional result (Super Green). Attach appropriate rewards to each level. This three-tiered approach is vital, especially for teams new to the process. It gives everyone a chance to win bronze, silver, or gold rather than facing an all-or-nothing scenario that risks demoralising the team if they fall short.
The rewards don’t need to be extravagant or financial – for example, a barbecue for hitting minimum, a restaurant meal for the target, and a day trip for the stretch goal. What matters is creating finish lines. Without finish lines and fun, teams will burn out. The celebration marks achievement, provides closure, and builds momentum for the next quarter’s focus.
Making it visible with physical reminders that can’t be ignored
Make the Critical Number impossible to ignore by creating visuals. They don’t need to be professionally designed, just visible. Put them where people can’t avoid seeing them, updated regularly enough that they notice movement. Instead of relying on a spreadsheet that requires deliberate action to review, creating physical reminders around the workspace keeps the target front-of-mind when everything else is screaming for attention.
Posters, countdown calendars, sticker charts, whiteboards, thermometers, comment cards, maps, and scoreboards are examples of physical assets you could display around the office to reinforce the goal. Some teams create floor-to-ceiling displays; others use screens showing live data (although in an office these could fade into the background unless there’s a ritual around updating them).
Real campaigns in action
There are various examples of real campaigns to inspire you, including from Ireland’s City Bin Co. They alternated between people-focused themes (like cross-training to build empathy and capability across departments) and process-focused themes (like cost-cutting to improve profitability during economic pressure).
Each campaign included launch parties to kick things off with energy, weekly progress tracking in regular team meetings (not separate special meetings), and a celebration at the end regardless of outcome. The themes empowered employees to contribute ideas and submit suggestions tied to the quarterly focus, with rewards distributed throughout the quarter to maintain momentum (rather than waiting until the end).
When City Bin Co. missed targets, they didn’t adjust mid-stream or make excuses. Harnish explains that changing the goal partway through destroys credibility and teaches teams that targets are negotiable. Instead, create rhythm by moving forward, maybe with a more modest celebration, and apply what has been learned to the next theme.
Starting your first Quarterly Theme
If you’re new to this, start small. Don’t try to match the sophistication of companies that have been doing this for years. Pick something achievable but meaningful for your first quarter and set three levels of success with honest targets and appropriate rewards (it doesn’t have to be extravagant; simple celebrations are fine).
Let someone other than yourself own the creative execution. Give them guidelines but let them run with it. This develops capability and takes work off your plate. Make the theme visible with whatever physical assets make sense for your environment. Update progress as often as is practicable – daily for fast-moving metrics, weekly for slower ones. The key is that people see movement without having to ask. And if you’re falling short, say so.
Track progress in your existing weekly meeting rhythm rather than at special theme meetings. Spend 10 minutes reviewing Critical Number status, discussing obstacles, and celebrating small wins. This keeps it top-of-mind without adding meeting burden. When the quarter ends, do something to mark it, even if that’s just acknowledging the attempt and sharing what you learned. Then move to the next constraint. Don’t dwell on failure or over-celebrate success. Acknowledge, learn, move forward.
Building the discipline of focus
The real skill you’re building isn’t hitting targets perfectly; it’s training your organisation to focus on one thing. If there’s just one thing we learn from Scaling Up, it’s the power of setting priorities. The Critical Number, BHAG, and Profit per X are some of the examples we’ve learned. It’s the only way to tackle the hundreds of decisions and actions that face a business without becoming overwhelmed.
The rhythm – choose, commit, execute, learn, repeat – builds momentum through a series of wins. Each quarter, you eliminate one constraint. Over a year, that’s four significant improvements. Over three years, that’s twelve major constraints removed from your business. This is how you scale – not through heroic effort on everything simultaneously, but through disciplined, sequential execution that compounds over time. The organisations that master this rhythm outperform because they’ve learned that execution is key. The main thing is to “keep the main thing the main thing”. Everything else is just noise.
Did you know that Beyond businesses are three times more likely to grow? We partner with ambitious businesses committed to scaling. Talk to us about how we can help.
Rory
P.S. If you find our articles informative, you can add us to your preferred Google search sources.
