Challenging top management

Clarifying the mission
If you were to pose the questions below to the management team, would you get a clear direction?

• What business are we in?

• What business will we be in if we continue on our present course?

• What business should we be in?

Identifying stakeholders and their needs

The stakeholders are those parties that contribute to the organizations wealth creating capacity. If you were to pose the questions below to the management team, would you be confident that stakeholder needs and expectations were clearly understood?

• Who the stakeholders are?

• What demands they place upon the business?

• How the stakeholders measure success?

Determining the results
If you were to ask the management team how performance is measured would it know

• What measures were used to determine success?

• What methods of measurement were used?

• How the integrity of the results was assured?

Managing the business processes
If you were to ask the management team how the results were achieved, would it know:

• Which processes produces the results?
• What the objectives of these processes were?
• What resources were needed for each process to deliver the required results?

Alignment
If you were to ask the management team about goal and process alignment could they explain:

• How the business objectives relate to the mission and stakeholder needs?

• How the business activities ?align with the business objectives?

• How results are aligned to the stakeholder needs and expectations?