The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization

Peter F. Drucker has been an incredible influence on me. Not only am I an admirer of his seminal work in management but also the good he advocated in his consulting service with many social sector institutions. This most recent edition of his "The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization" is like having Drucker sitting right next to you, offering his sage advice on effectiveness. In addition to Peter's writings, are chapter insights offered by leadership experts such as Frances Hesselbein, Jim Collins, and James Kouzes among others.Drucker's Five questions are: What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? And, what is our plan? Though they may seem simple, an adequate answer to each should take much time and thoughtful consideration among your organizations leadership, staff, board, and customer response. All answers should also lead to action and then again assessment, asking more questions, and more answers with action and so on. The distinction between primary and secondary customers and discussion on measuring changed lives quantitatively and qualitatively is far worth the price of the book for anybody who works in the nonprofit world.I have used these questions to direct the birth of my first organization this year as a catalytic leader, and also as a consultant and coach to several first time business owners. I have family in politics, peers in ministry, and entrepreneurial friends, all of which have benefited from working through the self-assessment process this book offers. As Drucker states; "Properly carried through, self-assessment develops skill, competence, and commitment. Active and attentive participation is an opportunity to enhance your vision and to shape the future" (p. 85).

Peter Drucker takes the reader through the Five Most Important Questions for a nonprofit organization. 1) What is our mission? 2) Who is our customer? 3) What does our customer value? 4) What are our results? and 5) What is our plan? Peter Drucker guides the reader through how to answer each question and how each question leads to more questions. The book is short and only takes about 30 minutes to read. Personally, I thought the Five questions were simple but Peter offers a way on how to tackle each question. The book explains the difference between primary and supporting customers and how each party needs to be satisfied to achieve results. Drucker also goes about offering how an organization can identify their customers and pin point customer values. At first I was turned off by the book because the questions seemed basic and self-explanatory. However, the questions listed in the book is not what adds value to an organization. The techniques and advice on how to interpret and tackle each question is the value in the book. Anyone working in nonprofit should read this book. This book can be expanded from nonprofits and applied to all organizations.

What is our mission?Who is our customer?What does our customer value?What are our results?What is our plan?These are the questions Drucker challenges us to answer.I found this book to be incredibly inspiring. Drucker made me feel like running a non-profit would be possible in my life. I feel like I will continue to reference this book throughout my career.The most powerful quotes, of which I immediately wrote in my journal upon reading, are as follows:People have a "desperate need for a guiding philosophy, a beacon on the hill to keep in sight during dark and disruptive times" (pg. 21)"Your success ultimately depends on what you have contributed to the success of your customers" (pg. 34)"Our voyage is an artistic and not just scientific endeavor" (pg. 58)"Ultimately what is remembered is how we have been able to improve lives" (pg. 60)

This book offers a strategic planning framework for nonprofit organizations. It can help board members set the direction by asking five questions:What is our mission? The mission must reflect opportunities, competence, and commitment. Drucker cautions: “Never subordinate the mission in order to get money. If there are opportunities that threaten the integrity of the organization, you must say no.”Who is our customer? “The primary customer is the person whose life is changed through your work... Primary customers may be infants, or endangered species, or members of a future generation.” Drucker notes that customer needs evolve. “And there are customers you should stop serving because the organization has filled a need, because people can be better served elsewhere, or because you are not producing results.” Philip Kotler adds, “Our business is not to casually please everyone, but to deeply please our target customers.”What does the customer value? “Leadership should not even try to guess the answers but should always go to the customers in a systematic quest for those answers… People are so convinced they are doing the right things and so committed to their cause that they come to see the institution as an end in itself. But that’s a bureaucracy.”What are our results? “Look at short-term accomplishments and long-term change… One of the most important questions for leadership is, Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area?”What is our plan? “The plan begins with a mission. It ends with action steps and a budget … If you have more than five goals, you have none… Goals make it absolutely clear where you will concentrate resources for results… Goals flow from mission, aim the organization where it must go, build on strength, address opportunity, and taken together, outline your desired future.” The board should set the direction, but not micromanage: “The board must not act at the level of tactical planning, or it interferes with management’s vital ability to be flexible in how goals are achieved.”“Ask of any program, system, or customer group, ‘If we were not committed to this today, would we go into it?’ If the answer is no, say ‘How can we get out—fast?’… Planning is not an event. It is the continuous process of strengthening what works and abandoning what does not.”Peter Drucker wrote the first edition in 1993. This edition is supplemented with chapters by Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin, V. Kasturi Rangan, and Frances Hesselbein. There is also a section with more detailed questions organized in subcategories under the five main questions. In total the book is about 100 pages.

Il libro è un classico e lo consiglio. Peccato che sia arrivato con la copertina rovinatano non dal trasportatore ma proprio dal magazzino, con la pellicola che si solleva. Per un libro nuovo non è accettabile

Concise but insightful book, a must-read for any leader in a charity of non-profit organization

It's wonderful...

Frances Hesselbein wrote in the Foreword: 'If Peter Drucker were with you and your organization today, we believe he would ask the same questions of you that he asked more than fifteen years ago:What is our mission?Who is our customer?What does the customer value?What are your results?What is our plan?'Peter Drucker passed away on November 11th, 2005, eight days before his 96th birthday.He started to focus on these questions already more than fifty years ago when he published his classic book 'The Practice of Management' (1954).In his Chapter 5 'What is a Business?' he explained 'The Purpose of a BusinessIf we want to know what a business is we have to start with its purpose. And its purpose must lie outside of the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.' (Pg. 37).On page 38 Peter Drucker wrote:'The first man to see marketing clearly as the unique and central function of the business enterprise, and the creation of a customer as the specific job of management, was Cyrus McCormick. The history books mention only that he invented a mechanical harvester. But he also invented the basic tools of modern marketing: market research and market analysis, the concept of market standing, modern pricing policies, the modern service-salesman, parts and service supply to the customer and installment credit. He is truly the father of business management. And he had done all this by 1850. It was not until fifty years later, however, that he was widely imitated even in his own country.'In Chapter 8 'Today's Decisions for Tomorrow's Results' he described the essence of planning while 'Making Decisions' is explained in Chapter 28.Very often only the vocabulary is changing ' purpose becomes mission, decisions for tomorrow's results becomes planning ' while the essence is the same.'Managing for Results' published by Peter Drucker in 1964 'was the first book to describe what is now widely called 'business strategy' and to identify what are now called an organization's 'core competencies'' (see 'Management' revised edition by Peter Drucker revised and updated by Joseph A. Maciariello, published in 2008 Pg. 539).For further details about Cyrus McCormick I refer to the following books:'Cyrus Hall McCormick ' His Life and Work' by Herbert N. Casson in 1909 and'The Century of the Reaper' by Cyrus McCormick, his grandson, published in 1931;The beauty of this small book "The Five Most Important Questions" combined with the 'Participant Workbook ' The Five most important questions Self-Assessment Tool' published in 2010 is its simplicity and 'ease of use'.Whenever a business start-up is initiated or an existing business is reviewed, the start should be 'The Five Most Important Questions you will ever ask about your organization."Starting with these key questions and answering them sufficiently before entering into comprehensive strategic planning will save your very valuable time and money.Henry Mintzberg in his excellent book 'Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning' published in 1994 wrote the following: 'In effect, the strategy making process, whether its strategies are formulated deliberately or just form emergently, must be seen as an impenetrable 'black box' for planning as well as for planners, around which, rather than inside of which, they work." Pg. 331.Consulting firms and consultants like to elaborate widely and deeply on analyses outside and around the black box called 'Strategy Formation' which is the central task of entrepreneurs and top management.With Drucker's 'The Five Most Important Questions' you are immediately working within the 'black box' on 'Strategy Formation' without getting lost in endless studies.

This is a really worthwhile read. You can get through it in less than an hour, but its ideas might help to shape your thinking for a life time. Refreshing to revisit big ideas simply put.