Questioning Success – Important ‘Why’ Questions

  • Why do we continue in this business?
  • Why should anyone buy this product?
  • What will prevent competitors from matching us? What will we do then?
  • Why are we making so much money? Why won’t it eventually come to an end? What must we do now to prepare for or moderate that change?

Source:
Probing
by Jonathan Isaacs
Boston Consulting Group

Subject: Management Questions

Problem-Solving Questions

  • What options do you see for addressing this issue?
  • What are the pros and cons of your preferred option?
  • How will that solution meet your (or the business’s) needs?
  • What steps do we need to take to implement your solution?
  • Who else needs to be involved?
  • What obstacles do you foresee and how can we get around them?
  • How are we going to measure success?

Source:
Do You … [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Opportunity Assessment

Executives should step back and apply their strategic judgment and operating knowledge to assess opportunities along five key dimensions:

  1. How much does this opportunity strengthen our core business franchise?
  2. What are the chances of our becoming a leader in the new segment or business?
  3. Could this move have a defensive benefit, pre-empting our present or future competitors?
  4. Does this investment position our core business strategically

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Subject: Management Questions

Nature of Goals

  • Are our goals outcome-based or activity-based? (Outcome-based goals describe the results or impacts that directly answer the question “How would you know you succeeded at X?” By contrast, activity-based goals only restate the activities people plan to do.)
  • If our goals are activity-based, is the connection to the underlying outcome-based goal(s) well understood and communicated?

Source:
Better than Plan: Managing Beyond the … [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Middle Manager Questions

Ask yourself the following questions to determine whether you are getting the full value from your middle managers:

  • Do my managers have a clear vision of how our business works as a whole, not just in their functions? Have they ever met a customer? Do they know the business from the outside in?
  • Do they understand that their role is not only to communicate the

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Mercer’s Questions for Managers

  • How do our customers measure and define value?
  • How do we measure and define value?
  • What are the key drivers of the economics of our business?
  • What is the relative impact of each of these drivers on the value of the business?
  • Is the current level of value driver performance enough to satisfy our investors?
  • Is our model of the business––our understanding of what drives value––still valid or has

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Measuring an Organization’s Effectiveness

You can diagnose your organization’s effectiveness and assess its path toward high performance by gathering answers–typically through a survey–to 10 key questions:

  1. Is our organization clear about the top three priorities for making our business more valuable?
  2. Is our leadership team cohesive and aligned?
  3. Are individual roles, accountabilities and authority clear for the most important decisions?
  4. Does the organization’s structure reflect the sources of value in the business?
  5. Do

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Defining/Rethinking Your Business Architecture

  • What is our “elevator pitch”?
  • What are our most differentiated capabilities?
  • What are your most leverageable offerings?
  • What are your most crucial “control points”?
  • What are your most valuable intellectual assets?
  • What are the key assumptions we make about our business?
  • Who are our customers? What customer segments do we serve? Who are our most strategic customers?
  • What do we do for our customers? What needs do we fulfill? What services

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions

Crafting the Value Proposition

Internal Analysis

  • In looking at the value chain (internal logistics > operations > external logistics > sales and marketing > service), how does your company create value?
  • What are your company’s core competencies and how do you differentiate yourself from the competition?
  • What capabilities (internal and external–partners, alliances, joint ventures) can you bring to bear to execute against your value promise?
  • Why should

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Management Questions