Ultimately, strategy is a way of thinking, not a procedural exercise or a set of frameworks. To stimulate that thinking and the dialogue that goes along with it, we developed a set of tests aimed at helping executives assess the strength of their strategies. We focused on testing the strategy itself (in other words, the output of the strategy-development process), rather than the frameworks, tools, … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Management Questions, Strategy Questions

The following series of five yes-or-no questions can help you manage future performance in a new way. Your answers will steer you toward a turnaround conversation appropriate to the situation and the underperformer.

Once you become familiar with the questions you´ll be able to assess which conversation is needed in a matter of minutes. You´ll be on your way to managing underperformance instead of living … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Human Resources Questions, Management Questions

• Can we create a reliable story around what we do?
• Can we create symbols, rituals, or culture around our offerings?
• Can we create and mobilize tribes to help our cause?
• Can we leverage the power of every individual within our company to humanize our brand and create more passion around what we do?

Source: The Seven Myths of Hyper-Social Organizations: Why Human 1.0 is Key … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Customer Questions, Marketing Questions

• Does it violate any strategic laws of gravity?
• Do my numbers match my strategy?
• Will it create value?
• Is it material?
• Is it differentiated?
• Is it just `PowerPoint engineering´? (assuming that anything people say they can do, they can do)
• Where are we in our strategic journey?
• Are we properly balancing growth and risk?
• What are the facts?
• Is the problem solvable, and do we care?
• Who can solve that problem?
• Why might we fail?
• How can

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Strategy Questions

• How can we better measure our ROI on R&D spending?
• Do we have the infrastructure to support our global innovation and product development needs now-and three years from now?
• Who owns product lifecycle management? Who should own PLM for the company?
• Do we have a definition, strategy and roadmap for PLM?
• How do our current CRM, SCM and ERP initiatives link to PLM?
• What impact could improvements in PLM have

… [ Read more ]

Subjects: Management Questions, Process Questions, Products & Services Questions

Schoorman and Ballinger developed seven “trust items” that were tested with notable validity. For leaders interested in testing the trust waters in their organization, these seven questions provide a useful framework or litmus test to determine whether there is a need for further examination of the extent to which trust is present or absent in an organization. On a scale of one to five, with … [ Read more ]

Subjects: Management Questions, Organization Questions

• Do we have a thorough understanding of our customers’ purchasing patterns and psychology, and of the drivers of decision making in our category?
• Have we embedded pricing discussions into the innovation and new-product launch process so that any opportunities to bundle or unbundle products, create all-in-one systems, or develop add-on products are identified early on?

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Pricing

For many companies, achieving social advantage will require fundamentally rethinking their social and business strategy. Executives who want to lead their organizations into this unfamiliar territory might begin by posing the following questions to their management teams:

• What are the social and ecological costs generated by our current business model?
• Who bears these costs and what are

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Social Responsibility Questions

1. What can I do to make you more effective?
2. What’s keeping you from falling asleep at night?
3. What one thing should I do more? (or one thing I should do less?)
4. What roadblocks are holding you back? (or preventing your projects from moving ahead?)
5. What’s the most important issue

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Leadership Questions

• What information are we collecting?
• Where and how are we collecting it?
• Who owns it?
• Who has access to it?
• What are we doing with it?
• What would be the impact to the organization if it got into the wrong hands?
• What

… [ Read more ]

Subjects: IT Questions, Risk Management Questions