Review: "Executing Your Ideas" - Mark Yegge

As humans, we each possess a brain that is constantly thinking. Think about it, even when you try to not think, you are actively utilizing that brain of yours to not think. The power of thought is limitless. In fact, one of our greatest abilities is idea generation. This creativity helps us tackle problems of all sizes by offering innovative solutions. While our idea generation is strong, many humans struggle at turning that idea into reality. Mark Yegge brilliantly addresses this problem in his TedTalk "Executing Your Ideas."

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"It's not the idea, it's the execution that counts." Mark begins by emphasizing the critical nature of execution. From a business lens, the feasibility and plan of action are crucial in determining if an idea is worth pursuing. After all, if there is no clear path forward, is the idea actually valuable? Mark provides Coca-Cola's New Coke campaign as an idea that was poorly executed. At the time of New Coke's formulation, market analysis was making it apparent that Coca-Cola was losing soda market share to PepsiCo. To combat this, Coca-Cola set forth to research and develop a new and improved Coke. They called it New Coke. The unveil and launch of New Coke was over the top. They removed all of the old Coke from shelves and rolled out New Coke to every grocery store in the country. Coca-Cola spent a fortune on advertising, pressing the gas on a massive campaign to make New Coke the improved flavor of the brand. By every conceivable business metric, New Coke was bound for success, but it flopped terribly.

Why did New Coke fail? Despite their seemingly perfect execution, their product — literally — caused mass protests. Mark outlines 5 crucial tenets to successful execution:

1. Know your outcome

2. Have a plan

3. Know your strengths and weaknesses

4. Use your resources

5. Be flexible

While Coca-Cola successfully used data-backed methodology to check the boxes of the first three criteria, they painfully didn't test the product with the average American consumer prior to rollout. Failing to utilize their resources, Coca-Cola ended up with a PR nightmare and a useless product that they spent tens of millions of dollars producing. Luckily, the chaos that resulted was enough to knock Coca-Cola back into their senses; reverting back to their original flavor.

While Coca-Cola's idea was great, it ended up to be a big flop. Execution is a multi-faceted process. Skip a step and you end up with time and money squandered. I thoroughly enjoyed Mark's TedTalk and recommend anyone looking to enhance their execution methodology to watch it!

Resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar9hRKYqhus