As a business leader, do any of these situations seem familiar?
Vision. You have trouble clearly articulating your vision in a meaningful way to your customers and staff and creating an execution plan that adopts realistic goals. Do you end up doing a lot of things, but not necessarily the ones that provide the most impact and value?
Structure. Your organization's structure and processes do not efficiently support your business model, and you are not clear on how to quickly get from where you are to where you want to be. You are not sure if you have the "right people on the bus" in the "right seats." Do you spend a lot of time on false starts and changing plans in the hopes that something will work?
Priorities. Your budgets and staff are leaner, yet there is continuing internal and external pressure to do more with less. Are sure how to quickly evaluate your projects to objectively prioritize your next steps, or how to diplomatically negotiate stakeholder expectations when something has to give?
Balance. You can't quite find the right balance between how to proactively lead your organization, while still dealing with daily operational issues. Are you and your resources become mentally, physically, and financially drained while making little progress on what is truly important in the long run to your business?
Motivators. You have a company vision and high-level roadmap, but personnel roles and incentives are not aligned throughout the organization, creating undesirable and uncooperative behavior. Instead of leading a cohesive team, are you spending more time acting as referee instead of visionary?
Communication and Information Flow. You do not have a way to easily and objectively measure and report progress or tie actions back to defined goals to communicate to people that "need-to-know." Without an early warning system, do you find recovering from a derailed project to be a slow and costly process?
Decision Making and Accountability. Your business and approval processes are not efficient or clear, and either too many or too few people are involved in making decisions. Without clear accountability, have people learned to work around the system to get things done, and no one takes responsibility when a venture tanks?