Technique 2.7 Some Essential Questions
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Answer the following questions to help identify "a sense of urgency"
1. What is your business?
2. What are you trying to accomplish?
3. What makes you distinct from your competitors?
4. How do you define results?
5. What are your core competencies?
6. What do your core competencies have to do with achieving your results?
7. What feedback do you need?
8. What are your priorities?
9. What is going to be the central theme of your future business?
10. What are the future issues that are going to be important to you?
11. How are you going to derive value into the long term?
Notes
. The importance of knowing what your core competencies are and sticking with them is demonstrated by the toymaker Lego. When the company decided to move into secondary products, such as lifestyle products, it neglected its core customers, ie boys aged 5 to 9 years old. Lego was revitalized by going back to basics and marketing Lego as a traditional product to solve modern problems, ie children hooked on video games, iPods and cell phones, who are time-poor for free-spirited, creative play. Furthermore, the toy market was flooded with low-cost copies and high-tech gadgets plus changing demographics, such as falling birth rates and children becoming increasingly fickle customers as they are growing up faster (age compression). Luckily, research suggested children who play with building blocks rather than passive toys such as video games have improved language acquisition skills. Thus parents can help foster their children's cognitive development by providing them with Lego.
. Lego also has modified its approach in another area. Previously Lego had been very protective about its property rights, but now it lets customers download it system code for its products for free so that customers can be creative themselves.
(sources: Peter Drucker, 2006; Andrew Birrell, 2006; Brad Hatch, 2007a)