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

It is often said that the simplest questions are the hardest to answer. But could this really be true? Doesn’t logic tell us that simple questions should be the easiest to answer? No. Simple questions can be profound, and answering them demands that we make honest, and sometimes painful, self-assessments. We do a great disservice to our organizations, whether business, non-profit, or public sector, and to our customers if we do not ask the five simple, yet essential questions first posed by Peter F. Drucker.

Drucker is widely considered to be the world’s foremost pioneer of management theory. For three quarters of a century, until his death in 2005 at the age of 95, Drucker was a writer, professor, and consultant on the contemporary organization. His groundbreaking work turned management theory into a serious discipline. Through his 31 books that have been translated into more than 20 languages, Drucker has influenced nearly every facet of management, including decentralization, privatization, empowerment, and the understanding of the “knowledge worker.”

Our summary of The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization is based on a newly updated edition of a work that Drucker completed 15 years ago. Drucker’s original subject was a self-assessment of non-profit organizations. In the new edition, Drucker’s ideas are combined with insights into applying the five questions to for-profit businesses as well as non-profits by leading business writers, consultants, and executives Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin, V. Kasturi Rangan, and Frances Hesselbein.

According to Collins, the author of Built to Last, “Good leaders come up with answers, but the great leaders ask the right questions – and this wonderful work helps all leaders do exactly that.”