Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy remind us of five questions that Peter Drucker always advised executives to consider as a part of their strategic planning. As the authors of Now, Build a Great Business!, they propose questions that may seem simple and require only a few seconds to address them but in fact may take hours to answer them. “The clarity and simplicity of each question forces you to reexamine many assumptions you and your team may have about your organization.”
Courtesy of the authors, here are the five questions:
1. What is your mission? Why does your organization exist in the first place? What are you trying to accomplish for your customers?
2. Who are your customers? Describe the person you wish to satisfy with your actions.
3. What does your customer value? What is it that you do especially well that you are uniquely suited to provide to your customers? How can you exceed the standards set by your competition?
4. What results are you trying to accomplish? How do you measure success?
5. What is your plan? How do you go about satisfying your customers and getting the results that are most important?
Excerpted, with permission from the publisher, from Now, Build a Great Business! 7 Ways to Maximize Your Profits in Any Market by Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy. Copyright 2010, Mark Thompson and Brian Tracy. For more information, visit www.amacombooks.org