Shift: A New Mindset for Sustainable Execution

Organizations all too often create impressive strategies but fail at implementing them. Based on research with over 750 organizations, Shift conceptualizes execution with energy management in mind to offer discrete capabilities that will help leaders "shift" into more sustainable and dynamic execution practices. With the importance of orchestrating balance between stability and flexibility at the core, Shift is written in four parts - identifying execution barriers, filling gaps, removing distractions, and differentiating execution leaders that are capable of driving improvement.

Most novel is the introduction of a performance indicator, called the Cost of Execution (COx), that quantifies execution capabilities and challenges. Shift includes real case studies and describes a comprehensive approach that will help organizations satisfy the business demands of today and adapt to embrace the challenges of tomorrow.

M. Kathryn Brohman is an associate professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow of Management Information Systems at the Smith School of Business, Queen’s University.


Eileen Brown is an accomplished executive with a proven track record for transformative execution in operations, supply chain, acquisitions, and IT with companies such as IBM, Celestica and BlackBerry.


Jim McSheffrey spent his career at 3M and held senior executive roles, including President and General Manager of 3M Canada, and Managing Director of both 3M UK and 3M China.