The diagnostic process includes in-depth phone interviews, review of existing strategy and budgeting documents, available analysts’ reports and, sometimes, original Accelerator interview data from different parts of the organization.
For 30 years, Tom Curren has used in-depth interviews with senior leaders to create a composite picture of the barriers and opportunities to improve strategy development and implementation.
In terms of gathering information, the overall context is business performance—always. Therefore, Tom will not only ask questions about leadership and culture, but also about alignment, key challenges, strategies, implementation issues, and processes. He is looking for clues about how to improve performance and organizational health by doing “real work in new ways.”
As he progressively learns more about the system and its issues, Tom will start to tailor his questions more specifically—so the interviews become an iterative process or a sort of action-inquiry. For example, after a handful of interviews, he will begin to supplement the standardized questions with ones that probe into some emerging hypotheses. Tom will also include probes around what the CEO has expressed as a point of specific concern.
Tom requires 60 – 75 minutes for these conversations, conducted by phone or Zoom. The interviews are confidential, with the understanding that he will use a few representative quotes for the purposes of representing themes or varying points of view. He tries to ensure that any representative quote that is used will not be attributed to a specific person.
Below is a list of the kinds of generic questions he draws upon. He does not ask them all in linear sequence. He builds upon and probes based upon what participants have already said.
Where is the company heading? What are you trying to accomplish in a “big picture” way?
Where would you like to see it go?
What are the biggest constraints to success?
How satisfied are you with your overall strategy?
What do you like about it?
What are your key concerns?
How satisfied are you with the implementation of the strategy (0-10)?
What keeps it from being a 10?
What’s most needed for the implementation to be successful?
How would you describe the culture here?
What’s working well around here? What accounts for this success?
What’s not working well? Why?
What does management seem to care about most?
What’s important to you?
How do people succeed around here?
What is the biggest problem you face as a leader?
How do decisions get made?
Who makes what kind of decisions?
What decisions are not being made?
What are the core processes for getting things done?
Where are there pockets of difficulty? What’s going on there?
If you had a “magic wand” and could change 1 – 2 things, what would they be?
What haven’t we talked about that may be important to cover now?