James D. Murphy

Project Execution through Successful Leadership: How to Lead Like a Fighter Pilot

Practicing successful leadership seems fairly simple - one acquires the positional authority to lead, and does so by influencing or guiding others. But too often, "leaders" assume that just because they've achieved total project execution under their guid... Read >

Recruiting America's Military Elite to Lead Your Organization

America's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan's unconventional conflicts has resulted in an unintended consequence - elite military professionals that are experienced in independent and adaptive thinking and leadership. In a recent article, Time mag... Read >

Checklists - Building Teams in Complex Environments

Humans excel at solving complex problems. Unfortunately, humans are also prone to making simple errors without a reliable 'road map,' or operations checklist. In the digital age, we are amazed at the abilities of computers to solve problems. But the comp... Read >

The Value of Military Leadership Experience in Turbulent Business Environments

In today's turbulent business environments, every leader should be concerned about how well his or her organization executes and how well it adapts to change. Execution has been on the list of top concerns of CEOs for years now. But the turbulent business... Read >

Execution Rhythm Encourages Effective Business Communication

To say that the way we communicate in business today is undergoing major changes would be a wildly profound understatement. Many businesses simply feel overwhelmed by the advances of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, not to mention the near total penetratio... Read >

Execute Rhythm in Six Steps with an Easy-to-Implement Strategic Planning Process

Many businesses have a strategic planning process that leads to objectives and goals that hopefully, in turn, lead to flawless execution. This process usually equates to some sort of far-off ideal and loose timeline for achievement. Few organizations have... Read >

More Than a To-Do List: Build Teamwork, Improve Execution with a Project Checklist

Two unique sources demonstrated a strong link between the use of a project checklist and effective team building in January 2009: the US Airways incident in New York and the release of a study on medical checklists. The January 2009 Special Article of the... Read >

Flawless Execution: Bridging the Continuous Improvement Gap

Created in the 1980s by Motorola and popularized in the '90s at GE, Six Sigma has been shown to improve processes and reduce error rates, but does it still stand up to today's fast-paced, hostile business environment? In comparison, Flawless Execution, a ... Read >