What is the best way to learn how to execute at a very high level as Google does?

We are a 25 person tech startup and while our culture is amazing we struggle with execution. This is an ongoing struggle for us; it’s so easy for a young startup to misunderstand the importance of execution.

Is reading books enough, if so, which? Should we hire a COO from a company with a history of excellent execution (how to tell?). Are there courses to take? Or is it just about prioritizing excellent execution with continuous learning?

Some resources that have helped so far: Scaling Up (book) and
First Round Review blog.

Traction by Justin Mares, Gabriel Weinberg - would probably reread

Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday

How to Fail at Almost Everything by Scott Adams - great read
Scaling Up By Verne Harnish

Great By Choice by Jim Collins - love the whole series

The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes - probably worth a reread

How to Win at the Sport of Business By Mark Cuban - good read

Elon Mush by Ashlee Vance - need I say more

The Hard Thing about Hard Things By Ben Horowitz

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg - probably need to deeply absorb this - a lot of good stuff

Copy This! By Paul Orfalea - another good "small business" entrepreneur book

The E-Myth Revisited By Michael Gerber - 2nd time read. Got more out of it this time.

The People's Tycoon (Ford) by Steven Watts - I love reading about businessmen from this age

Scrum by JJ Sutherland Jeff Sutherland - good read for development teams

Payroll: depends on the countries in which you have employees. If US-only, Gusto.

Timesheets: Depending on the scale, why not Google Forms, Google Sheets and/or Airtable?

CRM: Heavily depends on what type of business you have (e.g. few large customers with long sales cycle, vs. many small customers). Go with something simple (Google Sheets) if you don't know your workflow and requirements yet.

Tasks/communication: buy a copy of 'The Great CEO Within' and read it cover-to-cover. Pick something to implement. Do it. When you're done, open the book and find the next thing.

Sales: what type of business? Maybe read 'Presictable Revenue' by Aaron Ross, SPIN Selling (classic book on sales) or (if SaaS), Holloway's new book 'Founding Sales'.

ERP: not sure what you need here. Do you manufacture or sell a physical product? If so, maybe something like Netsuite? Or maybe look in Shopify's app directory to see what's popular.

Most important: document processes so that you avoid single points of failure, are prepared for rapid scaling in # employees, and can easily identify and act on opportunities to increase efficiency.

You may also find something useful in Verne Harnish's book 'Scaling Up'