Scaling your
business by
setting achieving big goals.
“Ideas are easy. 
Implementation is hard… I respect traction more than ideas.”
— Guy Kawasaki
🚀 Scaling a business often feels like wading through chaos–one part dream, three parts endless fires to put out. Despite the best strategies, founders quickly discover that execution is where growth either happens or fizzles out. Execution isn’t just about working hard; it’s about working smart and consistent, with rhythms of short term wins that accumulate into achieving big goals.
After nearly 2 decades of scaling businesses (and helping others do the same), this observation stands out: the ability to consistently stack up small wins into achieving big goals makes or breaks your growth journey. But how do you get that right in the middle of all the chaos?
This is where the 7 Disciplines of Execution come in— a practical system and tools to help leaders tame the whirlwind of daily demands with and set and achieve big goals. This first post in this series will briefly summarise them. The following posts will break down each of the disciplines, and how to implement them. Good news: all the tools you’ll need are available on ArtOfScale.io (see Tools), and the Goals and Rhythms feature guides and gamifies implementation.
🎯 Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important
In a scale-up, you can’t focus on everything—or even most things. Discipline 1 is all about identifying the one or two goals that will have the biggest impact on your growth and moving them to the front line. This extreme focus prevents the “death by distraction” that kills so many promising startups.
🔑 Discipline 2: Align Your Team with Clear Structure and Goals
A team aligned to a strategy becomes a multiplier of growth. Discipline 2 is about building a clear structure and assigning roles, responsibilities, and goals that tie directly into your most critical priorities. When each team member knows exactly how their work contributes to the company’s goals, you’re not just running a business—you’re building momentum.
TIP: Successful small steps are always goal-directed. Success is the outcome of setting the right short-term goals, accumulating small wins that add up to reaching your long-term goals.
⭐️ Discipline 3: Align Incentives to Company Goals
People do what they’re incentivized to do. In a fast-paced environment, having incentives that align personal and company goals transforms “tasks” into “team wins.” This discipline isn’t about money alone; it’s about creating rewards for hitting the milestones that matter most for the company’s growth.
💯 Discipline 4: Lead by Scoreboard
Imagine a game without a scoreboard—players would lose focus quickly. The same goes for your team. When everyone can see progress (or lack thereof), they know exactly where to double down. Make sure your scoreboard is clear, updated in real-time, and visible to everyone involved.
📊 Discipline 5: Act on Lead Measures
Most businesses obsess over lag measures—revenue, profit, market share. But these are outcomes. Lead measures, on the other hand, are the actions that will drive those results. Discipline 5 is about identifying and acting on these inputs. For example, if your goal is increased sales, your lead measure might be the number of new leads per week.
“What gets measured, improves.” – Tom Peters.
👏Discipline 6: Peer Accountability Rhythms
Accountability shouldn’t come from just the top—it’s most powerful when it’s peer-driven. Establish regular check-ins where teams can track progress together, discuss roadblocks, and hold each other accountable for delivering on commitments. It’s this rhythm of accountability that makes your team resilient and keeps the important work moving forward.
🏆Discipline 7: Systemise Excellence
Excellence isn’t a one-off achievement; it’s the outcome of repeatable systems. Discipline 7 is about turning your core processes into simple, repeatable systems that don’t rely on superhuman effort. Systematizing your business lets you build consistency, increase efficiency, and ultimately free yourself and your leaders to focus on what’s next.
Conclusion
“In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.” – Steve Case
Execution may not be easy, but it’s achievable with an effective system. Applying these 7 Disciplines is how you consistently set and achieve big goals, and that’s how you scale a great business.
Ready to master execution? Let’s start with the first discipline—focus on what’s wildly important—to lay the foundations. We break down how in the next post.