Books like Die fünf entscheidenden Fragen des Managements

The five most important questions are as follows...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?Here are some of my favorite thoughts from it..."You cannot arrive at the right definition of results with our significant input from your customers - and please do not get into a debate over that term. The danger is in acting on what you believe satisfies the customer. You will inevitably make wrong assumptions. Leadership should not even try to guess at the answers, it should always go to customers a systematic quest for those answers." "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." "If you have quick consensus on an important matter, don’t make the decision. Acclimation means nobody has done the homework. The organizations decisions are important and risky, and they should be controversial. Nonprofit institutions need a healthy atmosphere for dissent if they wish to foster innovation and commitment. nonprofits must encourage honest and constructive disagreement precisely because everybody is committed to a good cause." "Open discussion uncovers what the objections are." "Your commitment to self-assessment is a commitment to developing yourself and your organization as a leader. You have vital judgments ahead: whether to change the mission, whether to abandon programs that have outlived their usefulness and concentrate resources elsewhere, how to match opportunities with your competence and commitment, how you will build community and change lives. Self-assessment is the first action requirement of leadership: the constant reshaping, constant refocusing, never being satisfied." Question 1: What is our Mission?"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, understand it, lives it." "The effective mission statement is short and sharply focused." "Every board member, volunteer, and staff person should be able to see the mission and say, 'Yes. This is something I want to be remembered for.'” "If a great opportunity does not fit your mission, then the answer must be 'Thank you, but no.'""No matter how much the world changes, people still have a fundamental need to belong to something they can feel proud of." Question 2: Who Is Our Customer? ~Peter Drucker“'Who must be satisfied for the organization to achieve results?' When you answer the question, you define your customer as one who values your service, who wants what you offer, who feels it’s important to them.""The primary customer is the person whose life is changed through your work." S"Customers are never static. Their needs, wants, and aspirations will evolve. There may be entirely new customers you must satisfy to achieve results - individuals who really need the service, want the service, but not in the way in which it is available today. 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." "Often, the customer is one step ahead of you. So you must know your customer - or quickly get to know them." "Nobody can guarantee your job. Only customers can guarantee your job. The best companies don’t create customers. They create fans. Our business is not to casually please everyone, but to deeply please our target customers." "An old Chinese proverb says, 'If you cannot smile, do not open a shop.'"Question 3: What Does The Customer Value?"Many organizations are very clear about the value they would like to deliver, but they often don’t understand the value from the perspective of their customers." Customers value an organization that seeks their feedback and that is capable of solving their problems and meeting their needs. Customers value a leader and a team who have the ability to listen and the courage to challenge the 'business-as-usual' environment, all in service of the yearnings of the customer." Question 4: What Are Our Results?"Each organization must identify its customers, learn what they value, develop meaningful measures, ad honestly judge whether, in fact, lives are being changed." "To abandon anything is always bitterly resisted. People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete-the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and not longer are. Abandoning anything is thus difficult, but only for a fairly short spell. Rebirth can begin once the dead are buried: six months later, everybody wonders, 'Why did it take us so long?'"Question 5: What Is Our Plan? "The mission transcends today but guides today, informs today. It provides the framework for setting goals and mobilizing the resources of the organization for getting the right things done." "To further the mission, there must be action today and specific aims for tomorrow." "Goals are overarching and should be few in number. If you have more than five goals, you have none. Goals flow from mission, aim the organization where it must go, build on strength, address opportunity, and taken together, outline your desired future." "Appraisal will be ongoing. The organization must monitor progress in achieving goals and meeting objectives, and above all, must measure results in changed lives. True self-assessment is never finished. Leadership requires constant resharpening, refocusing, never really being satisfied." "Planning is the process of translating the organization’s strategic or mission goals to a set of actionable programs, and tracing the path of how those within the organization would meet the goals. A plan, is the action agenda that is aimed at reaching the goal."