What’s driving your organization?

Ever notice how some organizations generally seem to be on a positive trajectory, while others are constantly playing catch-up, encountering roadblocks and struggling to get on a better track? Among the former are Proctor & Gamble, General Electric, Southwest Airlines and Oracle. Among the latter are Sears Holdings, BlackBerry and Sony. Looking deeper, you may also notice that some of the organizations that appear to have their act together at times have had to do a major reset to get back on an upward path. Examples that come to mind are IBM moving to services, Starbucks going back to basics and Apple pushing beyond its Mac niche market and launching the iPod. As the leaders of struggling companies will attest, it's a very difficult task to right a sinking ship. Where to focus and what to do are paramount issues. Obviously, business as usual is not working and incrementalism is not the answer. We have come up with a set of questions that we think every organizational leader should ask.