Review: Five Important Questions

Title: The Five Most Important Questions (You will ever ask about your organization).

Author: Peter F. Drucker and the Leader to Leader Institute

Edition: 2007

Presentation:
Organization – Chapters are broken down by the five questions with two additional sections about Leadership and Self-Assessment. Each section is written by a different co-author who takes one of Drucker’s questions and expounds on it.

Readability – The book is concise but readability varies by the co-author.

Content: Drucker’s five questions, which have been published and discussed by many a management theorist over the years, are:

• What is our Mission?
• Who is our Customer?
• What does the Customer value?
• What is our Plan?
• What are our results?

Each chapter includes a breakdown of the question, and its importance, followed by a quick 1000 words-or-less summary transposing the idea to today’s business world. The book introduces the self-assessment model, the idea that planning is a constant process, and the importance of constructive dissent.

Applicability to expansion stage firms: Brevity is the soul of wit and while I’ll concede that the Leader to Leader Institute breaks down the importance of each of Drucker’s questions in as few words as possible, I’ll also point out that the book (overall) comes across more as a marketing tool for the Leader to Leader Institute  than something useful for an expansion stage firm. Part of the issue with the book is that many of Peter Drucker’s ideas have so permeated modern theories of organization management that, if it doesn’t occur to anyone on your management team to ask these questions before reading the book, you probably have larger issues to address.  Ultimately, the book is useful – but not so much that I’d recommend shelling out $15USD for it.