Your Needs

• Is it clear to our leaders and employees why our organization exists? Does our mission give us a sense of purpose? Do our rank and file employees appreciate and value the mission of our organization?
• Is it clear what is the DNA of our organization — the non-negotiable aspect which does not change in spite of market volatility? Would our DNA uniquely identify our company?
• How well defined is our company’s business model? How well is it articulated?
• How does our business model differentiate our company in the marketplace, and help generate greater success with customers?
• Do our leaders and managers agree on a common set of core management philosophies? Do they make decisions consistent with the business model or violate it on a daily basis?
• Do our employees feel the values of the organization are reflected in its conduct? Do our leaders adhere to our values in the truest sense or only provide lip service?

• How well thought-out are our vision, goals, and strategies? How will a simple and clear strategy impact our organization?
• Is our strategy coherent? Is it documented succinctly? Is the strategy shared widely or is it the best-kept secret? Is our strategy detailed into tactics?
• Do our leaders and managers agree which are the key drivers of our business? Is our strategy based on gut feel or on market data?
• Do employees at all levels within our company/business unit consistently interpret the goals, objectives, and strategic imperatives? How can everyone stay on the same page?
• Are our sales, marketing, product development and customer service strategies in-sync? Are our priorities and expectations across groups consistent with each other and the overall strategy? Are sales and product/service development teams in agreement over features?
  Are the sales and marketing teams in-sync regarding market focus, promotions, and marketing collaterals?

Work Processes

• How good is the coordination and interaction between groups?
• How often do we let critical issues fall through the cracks — sales and market opportunities, customer concerns and feedback, operational issues? Is feedback from our customers generating changes within our company or getting lost in the system?
• Is our work quality poor?
• Are we not getting things done right the first time?
• Are we performing redundant work?
• Is our company leveraging information technology?
• Are our information systems in-sync with our business needs?

Organization Structure

• Is our organization structure designed to facilitate our work processes?
• Is our organization design based on business needs or is it designed to placate our leaders.
• Is our organization structure clean (simple) and clear (easy to understand)?
• Do our groups (and leaders) have overlapping or confusing responsibilities? Are we experiencing “land-grab” among our leaders?
• Do we have clear accountability?
• Does our organization structure facilitate quick decision making or creates a burdensome bureaucracy?

Culture

• Have we clarified which flavors of culture our organization needs and wants to foster:
  • Growth-oriented, risk-taking culture?
  • Conservative, profits-oriented culture?
  • Cooperative, team-work oriented culture?
  • Internal competitive culture?
  • Sales/marketing, deal-making driven culture?
  • Product/innovation driven culture?
  • Top-down or grass-roots driven culture?
  • Command-n-control culture?
  • Consensus building culture?
  • Toe-the-line culture?
  • Debate-n-challenge culture?
  • People development and investment culture?
  • High (people) turn-over culture?
• Is internal politics eating our lunch? Are our expectations and agendas aligned? Do we have confidence in each other? Do we trust each other?
• The most difficult question:
  Are we our biggest obstacle? What can we do about that?

• How well does our organization execute? Is there a consistent rhythm or is execution unpredictable and unreliable?
• How well are we able to retain our focus, or do we become distracted easily?
• How well do team members understand the difference between effectiveness and efficiency? Do we spend time on doing the wrong things really well?
• Does our organization truly understand what drives greater productivity, and the impact, cost, and risk of those drivers?
• Are we able to maintain the right pace of progress so we can meet our goals?
• How good is our organization’s capability to measure, evaluate and adjust our business performance?
• Is it clear to us all which are the key performance indicators (metrics) and why?
• Do we review performance systematically, objectively, and frequently?

• Is our Engine and Execution in-sync with our Direction? And are they in-sync with our Business Spirit?
• Does our organization ignore and/or resist our strategic direction?
• Are our day-to-day activities in-sync with our strategy and tactics?
• Is the allocation of resources (financial, human, executive attention …) and internal projects/initiatives driven by our strategy? Or, are leaders pursuing “pet” projects without regards to our strategy?

• Are we improving constantly, or are we pursing growth ineffectively by just doing more of the same?
• How well are we at improving and advancing our strategy? Is our strategy stuck?
• Are we learning how to improve our capabilities, our processes and systems, and are understating what drives our corporate culture?
• Are we learning how to take our execution up a notch? Are we a lean, mean fighting machine that is fine-tuning its performance?”