The Five Most Important Questions Self Assessment Tool

Participant Workbook

Peter F. Drucker

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780470531211
• eBook ISBN: 9780470648773
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This transformational tool offers leaders a critical resource for better understanding their organizations and themselves, honing their skills to become accomplished long-range planners and strategic thinkers. By working through the Participant Workbook, leaders will gain the insight needed to plan for results, learn from customers and clients, and ascertain how to achieve extraordinary levels of performance. The Participant Workbook draws on Peter F. Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions and is grounded in his management philosophies that address the critical aspects that make organizations viable and valuable entities. When leaders answer these questions thoughtfully and address them with purpose, these questions take one down a path to organizational transformation and enlightenment.

By leveraging these essential questions, the Participant Workbook challenges leaders to take a close look at the very heart of their organization and what drives it, giving them a means to assess: how to be and how to develop quality, character, mind-set, values, and courage. Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions lead to spirited discussions and action, inspiring positive change and renewed focus.

Designed for today's busy professionals, this concise, clear, and accessible workbook for social sector, nonprofit, and socially minded business and government leaders can be used as preparation for a workshop, organizational self-assessment, or as a stand-alone leadership development tool for individuals looking to develop themselves and their organizations.

Praise for the Participant Workbook Self-Assessment Tool

"Time and again Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions have proven to be the most effective way for nonprofit organizations to conduct self-assessment and develop plans that will help them achieve real and lasting results."
— Cathey Brown, founder and CEO, Rainbow Days, Inc., and 2001 Frances Hesselbein Community Innovation Fellow

" The Five Most Important Questions Self-Assessment Tool is a gift to the social leadership sector from the late management guru, Peter Drucker, and the Leader to Leader Institute. It makes incredible sense, it is easy to use, and lays the foundation for strategic planning."
— Irv Katz, president and CEO, National Human Services Assembly

"A must-read for social entrepreneurs who are seeking to dramatically grow their organization's impact without losing sight of the heart of their mission."
— Iris Y. Chen, president and CEO, "I Have A Dream" Foundation

"High-performing organizations and individuals know that self-assessment through Drucker's The Five Most Important Questions is the starting point for defining today and making tomorrow."
— Lee H. Igel, assistant professor, New York University, and president, Peter F. Drucker Society of New York City

"This nuts-and-bolts guide has become my compass for urging leaders and managers to ask the right questions, to look beyond what they thought they knew, and to focus on being relevant tomorrow rather than resting on yesterday's achievements."
— Lieutenant Commander Carla J. Grantham [U.S. Coast Guard, Retired], Congressional Liaison for Diversity Recruitment and Talent Management, U.S. Coast Guard

Question 1:

What Is Our Mission?2

Each social sector institution exists to make a distinctive difference in the lives of individuals and in society. Making this difference is the mission—the organization’s purpose and very reason for being. Each of more than one million nonprofit organizations in the United States may have a very different mission, but changing lives is always the starting point and ending point. A mission cannot be impersonal; it has to have deep meaning, be something you believe in—something you know is right. A fundamental responsibility of leadership is to make sure that everybody knows the mission, understands it, lives it.

Many years ago, I sat down with the administrators of a major hospital to think through the mission of the emergency room. As do most hospital administrators, they began by saying, “Our mission is health care.” And that’s the wrong definition. The hospital does not take care of health; the hospital takes care of illness. It took us a long time to come up with the very simple and (most people thought) too-obvious statement that the emergency room was there to give assurance to the afflicted. To do that well, you had to know what really went on. And, to the surprise of the physicians and nurses, the function of a good emergency room in their community was to tell eight out of ten people there was nothing wrong that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix. “You’ve been shaken up. Or the baby has the flu. All right, it’s got convulsions, but there is nothing seriously wrong with the child.” The doctors and nurses gave assurance.

We worked it out, but it sounded awfully obvious. Yet translating the mission into action meant that everybody who came in was seen by a qualified person in less than a minute. The first objective was to see everybody, almost immediately—because that is the only way to give assurance.

It Should Fit on a T-Shirt

The effective mission statement is short and sharply focused. It should fit on a T-shirt. The mission says why you do what you do, not the means by which you do it. The mission i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Self-Assessment
• Question 1: What Is Our Mission?
• Question 2: Who Is Our Customer?
• Question 3: What Does the Customer Value?
• Question 4: What Are Our Results?
• Question 5: What Is Our Plan?
• Glossary
• Acknowledgments