The Five Most Important Questions (You Will Ever Ask about Your Organization)by Peter F. Drucker with Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin, V. Kasturi Rangan, and Frances Hesselbein (Jossey-Bass, 2008)
An intellectual giant, Peter Drucker was arguably the foremost authority on management during the last 50 years. His writing displayed a special gift for simplicity, and his style steadily pushed the reader to take action. Not content merely to hand out knowledge, Drucker always took special care to map out steps for application.
The Leader to Leader Institute chose to publish Drucker's work, The Five Most Important Questions, primarily to educate nonprofit leaders. Throughout his life, Peter Drucker admired nonprofits for their noble intentions and keen awareness of community needs. However, it frustrated him that organizations in the social sector commonly failed to craft sound strategy or achieve measurable results.
A collaborative effort of the Leader to Leader Institute, The Five Most Important Questions is presented as an organizational self-assessment tool. It is designed for the company wishing to reexamine its foundational beliefs. Throughout the book, essays from the likes of Jim Collins and James Kouzes supplement original text from the genius mind of Peter Drucker. The contributing authors accentuate the high points of Drucker's message without cluttering it with excess text. In fact, the book has barely 100 pages.
As the title suggests, the book is organized around five simple, but all-important 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 question is addressed by Drucker and then unpacked by another leadership expert. The final twenty pages drill down into more detailed questions that point back to the five initially posed by Drucker.
From start to finish, The Five Most Important Questions preaches fundamentals. Drucker & Co. challenge leaders to revisit their organization's core identity, and call upon them to shore up ambiguity and incongruence. Quotable proverbs abound, but the book's brevity makes skimming for them unnecessary. The entire text can be absorbed in an hour or two.
A masterful "how-to" manual, the The Five Most Important Questions gives big-picture guidance, targeted to executive leaders in the social sector. The book earns praise for the clarity and focus it provides. It's an essential handbook for entrepreneurs, particularly those in the nonprofit arena. In addition, the The Five Most Important Questions is a great tool to reorient organizations that have stagnated or drifted off track.
3 comments:
Hi Mike
Feeling a little cranky today and just had to respond to Drucker's big 5 as presented here (paricularly 2 & 3). Isn't it about time we talked about "disciples" rather than clients and customers? I would suggest
2. Who is our disciple?
3. What do we need to teach our disciple to value?
Probably mucks up the overall thesis but too bad.
That's my rant. Feel much better now. Thanks!
hey dr
understand the rant.
BTW - i didn't do the review, just downloaded it.
Like most of these things, if we can see beyond the "language" of the stuff - and get at what's being argued, there are some valuable things in there.
Maybe that's a process of reverse enculturation? After all, surely there are things that God is saying through even the corporate world? (Or are we saying that it is unredeemable)?
Don Richardson's thesis of GOd speaking through native cultures I think even applies to corporate culture - he has not left himself without witness.
NFP's can be exceptional organisations and I'm sure the book being reviewed is clearly pointed towards institutions that have a product/service being "sold".
But members of a church family are not customers and the Gospel is not a product for sale.
So redeem it by all means, but let's make sure we don't compromise the essence of the kingdom of Heaven into a clever business plan.
matt
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