Critical Questions

Ask yourself this fundamental multi-layered question How will this strategy improve our company's market and financial performance? Have people been involved in understanding market change, competitive dynamics and emerging marketplace trends?

Is the change at the heart of the strategy - Incremental, Renovative and/or Inventive? Incremental strategy concerns itself with vital day-to-day issues such as building greater value for current customers and extending current products. Renovative strategy seeks to change the competitive rules of the game by providing distinct new value for customers. Inventive strategy aims to create fundamentally new customer functionality. It typically banishes some historic sacred cows and it envisions a radically new strategy. Improving performance over time requires a skillful blend of all three approaches.


Suggested questions and perspective

• How can a company align the action programs that constitute the core of strategy execution?
• How can a company understand the motivations of its employees and how can it ensure that the organization is a preferred place to work?
• What engages staff? What does one need to do to ensure that each person on the staff understands his or her role in delivering the promise to the marketplace?
• What distinguishes high performance cultures - whether that is a winning sailing team, an auto racing team, an artist and his/her work, or an organization? How can we create a high performance culture?
• What measurement is needed and what should be discarded? How does measurement drive performance?
• What changes are needed? How do we drive those changes and how do we approach the inevitable sets of doubt and resistance? Am I willing to change?