Installing the 4DX Strategy

Each element of the 4 disciplines of execution (4DX) is done in conjunction with following the 5 stages of change, starting with focusing on the goal. My organizational goal is to foster the creation and continued usage of an ePortfolio by all 3rd through 12 grade students to track the development and showcase their learning and overall educational journey. This will allow students choice in how they demonstrate their learning while also helping them to reflect on the learning process. Reading the books, Influencer: A new science of learning & 4 Disciplines of Execution, helped me gain a plethora of knowledge and resources to use in both my personal and professional lives, on individual and organizational levels.

Rolling out the initial use of ePortfolios in my classroom has shown me the value of having my students weekly take time to develop their own ePortfolios by uploading examples of their own work. I have seen firsthand how the students in my class use Google Sites or a Wix ePortfolio to track their progress, showcase their accomplishments, and review and reflect on their own work during my class. From the instructor's view, having an ePortfolio of each student in my class can be used as a summative assessment and is a great way to see the progress of each and every student in my class. This is just the first step in my innovation plan. The next step of my plan is to roll out the ePortfolios across all 9th through 12th grade classes at the Bill R. Johnson Technology Center School where I teach. The final step is to implement an ePortfolio for all 3rd through 12th grade students at all Crowley ISD schools. Admittedly, getting started with this was intimidating. However, the video resources on YouTube and the help center over Wix, Google Sites, and Seesaware are very extensive. The information found in both books gave me a solid framework for implementation. While understanding and identifying vital behaviors, a skill practice in conjunction with information provided from the book Influencer, determining lag and lead measures when diving into the 4DX model, really helped solidify how change was going to occur.

To be successful in any capacity, but specifically within an organization people have to care, and making people care requires more than just a quick fix strategy. By working together, and building the trust and support of your team together you become equipped to not only tackle the whirlwind of day-to-day tasks, but also start achieving lasting success. The 4DX model is not just a way to execute something, but it is a framework towards real accountability and ownership of a process. With the visual scoreboard people are able to track and see their process, further motivating them to keep setting and achieving milestones towards their WIG.

Effective Leadership

Leadership is so vital to effectively delivering and implementing the 4 disciplines of execution (4DX) that it is imperative to define effective leadership.

Effective leadership is an emotional process because leaders must manage their own anxiety, especially when navigating uncertain or challenging situations. When you remain calm and composed, it helps to regulate the anxiety of those around you, creating an environment that fosters clarity and focus. As a leader, staying grounded during times of stress is crucial, especially when trying to lead a group through change. This emotional regulation is essential in building trust and helping others feel secure, which is why leadership is often considered an emotional process. The self-differentiated leader plays a role similar to an emotional immune system within an organization. Just as an immune system helps protect the body from harm, a leader who can manage their emotions and remain focused on the mission can help protect the organization from getting caught up in negativity or disruption. They act as a stabilizing force, ensuring that their own emotional responses don't negatively impact the team but instead guide the team through challenges with clarity and purpose.

4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX)

Discipline #1: Focus on the Wildly Important Goal (WIG)

Understanding what goals your organization wants to hit beyond just the daily tasks and responsibilities is vital to moving forward. By focusing on one to one or two wildly important goals or WIGs, your team will learn how to prioritize rather than simply over-commit. Too many goals force teams to stretch themselves too thin. Instead, creating clear and measurable goals is the most productive way to reach that goal.

Discipline #2: Act on Lead Measures

Lead measures are predictive and influenceable actions that push a team towards their goals. Meanwhile, lag measures are an end result and are not directly controlled.

Discipline #3: Keep a Scoreboard

Who doesn't love to keep score? Keeping a scoreboard, something that is visual and clear, helps drive motivation within your organization. By keeping a scoreboard that outlines the WIG, lead measures, and lag measures, teams are able to stay focused and driven by their progress.

Discipline #4: Create a Cadence of Accountability

Accountability is something that can be easier said than done, so being straightforward and initial about it is a must for any organization. Each team member within an organization must identify and commit to personal goals each week that will help them move toward the WIG. This can be done through weekly meetings where those goals are set and reviewed (reported on) each week. The meetings should be short and consistent in time and day each week, and the scoreboard should be a part of them. During the meetings be sure to review commitments from the previous week, establish new commitments for the upcoming week, and offer assistance to team members where it is needed.

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5 Stages of Change

Stage #1: Getting Clear

The first stage is where you begin to put all of the stages of the 4DX model into motion. By focusing on the wildly important goal (WIG), identifying and acting on lead measures, creating and sharing a scoreboard, and holding true to accountability with weekly progress sessions, your team kick-starts the road towards achieving that goal.

Stage #2: Launch

Once the planning is done for the goals, it is time to put that plan into motion. During this stage, remain patient and consistent with your plan, and remember that implementation is a process, not a quick action.

Stage #3: Adoption

The launch stage is not necessarily quick; thus, reaching this adoption stage could take some time. In this stage, your team has started to see progress and is using accountability to move the scoreboard. As the scoreboard moves and the motivation remains consistent, your team continues to work toward the wildly important goal.

Stage #4: Optimization

You have now reached the phase where 4DX is in full implementation, and team members are really starting to take the lead on initiatives within the program. Engagement is high at this point, and actions are geared towards playing the game to WIN. In leadership, remember that this stage is geared towards providing recognition and celebrating victories with your team.

Stage #5: Habits

4DX isn’t just a quick-fix strategy, but it's become a habit, and your team has reached the wildly important goal you all set out to achieve. What you have been doing to get to this point has become a standard set of habits that have shifted the culture within your organization. Since the WIG has been met, it's time to use that same framework as your organization works to establish new goals moving forward.

The Influencer Strategy and 4DX Strategy

The framework of the Influencer Strategy and the 4 Disciplines of Execution serve as a complement to one another, as both are geared towards establishing strategies for behavior change within an organization. Behavior change is not an easy feat, and thus, small manageable steps toward the overall goal make reaching and achieving lasting results more plausible and realistic. Both models emphasize the importance of leadership within an organization and accountability in reaching results.

With the influencer strategy, goal setting and motivational factors are the primary focus when moving towards getting your team aligned for success. This requires leaders to look at vital behaviors and use those as a starting point to aligning goals with the six sources of influence. The six sources of influence used to help achieve the goal are personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability.

Of course, like any big leap or step comes the fear and hesitation of not being able to predict its success, but with this 4DX model you are truly able to take the guesswork out of the process of planning and executing. This is why the 4DX model is so valuable.

In my organization, especially within my team, everyone wears many hats and has a lot on their plate, so asking them to step away from their whirlwind of day-to-day tasks seems nearly impossible, but having these two strategies will help not only with progression toward our goal, but with consistent and continuous accountability to really drive lasting change.

References

Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. New York, NY: Free Press