Customer Reviews

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization (J-B Leader to Leader Institute/PF Drucker Foundation)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first edition of Peter Drucker's self-assessment tool for organizations arrived in 1993 and introduced these five key questions: 1) What is our mission? 2) Who is our customer? 3) What does the customer value? 4) What are our results? and 5) What is our plan?

This supplementary tool (just 101 easy-reading pages) includes expanded observations from Drucker along with color commentary from six distinguished management gurus, including Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin (Rockefeller Foundation president), V. Kasturi Rangan (Harvard Business School), and Frances Hesselbein (chairman of Leader to Leader Institute and former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA).

Referring to Question #5 on planning, Drucker comments, "Planning is not an event. It is the continuous process of strengthening what works and abandoning what does not, of making risk-taking decisions with the greatest knowledge of their potential effect, of setting objectives, appraising performance and results through systematic feedback, and making ongoing adjustments as conditions change."

Peter Drucker says that one benefit of a self-assessment process is that you can evaluate how you match opportunities with your competence and commitment. And he adds that the time to do a self-assessment is when you are successful, not when your leading indicators are lagging.

This is a helpful new resource for all of us. If you've ordered my new book, Mastering The Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Non-profit, be sure to read the first four chapters (buckets) that expand on the five Drucker questions: the Results Bucket, the Customer Bucket, the Strategy Bucket and the Drucker Bucket.

A deceptively small book full of powerful ideas promulgated by the late Dr. Drucker. A must read for anyone seriously considering, or engaged in leading organizations. One of the best management books I've read.

Drucker has the ability to make complex organizational concepts understandable by detailing a step by step thought process that leads to precise action steps. This is an invaluable tool for any manager who wishes to maximize the effectiveness of their team. It helps you translate your organization's vision into dynamic reality.

Great insight into the The five questions to ask about your organization. Very good quick read. Very interesting learning about : Results Bucket, Customer Bucket, Strategy Bucket, and the Drucker Bucket. This book is really grounded with great theory. I recommend.

This is a must read for leaders in any organization. Simple questions aren't necessarily simple to answer and these most important questions are not asked often enough. I'm paid to do this work every day and I'm amazed at how few companies even come close to executing on a fraction of Drucker's wisdom.

The 5 questions are not only expounded upon, but layers of other sagacious questions are presented as well. It will prompt you to facilitate your team to ever greater focus and effectiveness.

If AG Lafley and Jack Welch were still learning from Drucker while at the helm, couldn't you?

If you are looking for a quick overview of a good strategic and planning process fueled by asking the right questions, this is the book for you. It includes all the great information we've come to expect from Peter Drucker.

Unfortunately, if you are looking ideas on how to implement this at your company, you will come up short. It's long on theory and short on application. While I really liked its not-for-profit focus, the average company will probably still require a consultant with some expertise in this area in order to bring it to life. - Karen L. Jett, CMA, author of Grow Your People, Grow Your Business

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, Peter Drucker, 2008. These five questions are essentially an organizational assessment, and although they are directed toward nonprofits, they can be used in any type of organization. The five questions are:

1. What is our mission?
2. Who is our customer?
3. What does the customer value?
4. What are our results?
5. What is our plan?

These five questions weave together a process of reflection an organization can undertake to determine its current reality and chart a future course. For those interested in further inquiry, Drucker lists a number of additional questions for additional exploration.

What is my job? This is question I learned to ask myself many years ago when reading PF Druker's books and working in management. That single question changed my perception of work and even life. I really enjoyed reading this book because of its focus on Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs). If you are carless you can manage NPOs as a singularity instead of using best practices. NPOs have a budget, now how do you spend the funds? Focusing resources on what best produces the desired results is what matters. And for that you have to ask the right questions. If you are into management, read this book.

This is a very nice short book that clearly emphasizes why self-assessment is so important. The book is basically a set of short chapters written by Peter Drucker some years ago to help non-profit organizations, and in the new edition each chapter is followed by another chapter by an expert in management that places Drucker's chapters in context with today. The five questions are: (1) What is our mission? (2) Who is our customer? (3) What does the customer value? (4) What are our results? (5) What is our plan? Simple, yet profound questions. And the book provides useful context into secondary questions like "We're a non-profit company, what do you mean by customer?" I highly recommend it.

I found this self-assessment tool refreshingly easy to read with laser focus on the five most important strategic questions: 1. What is our mission? 2. Who is our customer? 3. What does the customer value? 4. What are our results? 5. What is our plan?. Each of the five questions is first tackled by Drucker, followed by a brief expansion by one of the co-authors, who are management buffs in their own right. While the questions are universally applicable, much of the text and examples focus on non-profits. This really doesn't matter, because the text paints a broad enough picture to see how this applies regardless. Reading this book makes it abundantly clear WHAT to ask, but leaves it up to the reader to figure out HOW to implement or actionize the findings. All in all a valuable "fog-lifter" to be revisited regularly to evaluate if your daily activities are still in line with your mission. The brevity and organization of the book allow for time-efficient checkups.