The idea behind Six Disciplines crystallized for me at the Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish, Montana on a warm, cloudless day in July 2001. I was a guest speaker at a business improvement conference being held at the lodge. During the frequent outdoor breaks, I asked people what they were learning and whether the conference was useful to them.
Thinking about my questions, Eric, a conference attendee, looked beyond me to the mountains in the backdrop of the lodge. He repeated what I’d heard from several other small business leaders: “This material is outstanding . . . but I probably won’t be doing anything about it two years from now.”
After hearing this comment several times, it finally dawned on me that when it comes to achieving excellence, figuring out the right things to do isn’t nearly as difficult as continuing to do them over the long term. The depth of this challenge sunk in when I realized how pervasive the problem is. We face similar problems in our personal lives with fitness, finances, relationships, etc.
Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, “The key to understanding ourselves and the universe we live in is realizing that people know what to do and don’t do it.” All you have to do is read the daily newspaper or look in the mirror and you know that this is true. Facing this naked truth was actually my “crossing of the Rubicon.”* It was when I became passionately committed to the idea of Six Disciplines. That passion is directed toward helping small businesses not only pursue business excellence, but sustain it.
So, we formed a team and invested $20+million to research best practices in a number of relevant disciplines on how to help businesses balance strategy and execution.
