Fly, or Crash and Burn?

Some years ago, I chartered a flight in a small, privately-owned aircraft. As I waited for the flight, I was surprised to see the pilot walking around the plane with a written checklist. He checked the landing gear, the wings, the tail and so on, and at each step consulted his list and made the appropriate notation. I admit the procedure made me a little apprehensive about the imminent flight. Was this a rookie pilot who needed to consult his paperwork to make sure he didn’t miss anything? Was he forgetful and likely to overlook something if he didn’t use a list?

When I asked the pilot about it, he assured me that he was very experienced and all his faculties were completely intact. “I use this list,” he told me, “even though I’ve done hundreds of pre-flight checks, because the stakes are just too high if I forget just one item just one time.”

Certainly, the stakes are high for corporate boards and CEOs, now more than ever before. To make sure a company is operating at maximum efficiency, certain critical questions need to be asked and answered and any deficiencies addressed.

I recently attended a meeting of a board of directors for a young company as a guest and advisor. Some of the board members felt that the company had not reached its potential. At the end of the meeting, I was invited to make suggestions that I thought would be constructive with respect to company management. I asked several key questions, but time constraints prevented the board from considering in a single meeting all of the issues I believed were important.

Subsequently, I developed a list of 101 questions to use as a checklist in assessing the operational health of corporate organizations. Using this list is akin to checking the landing gear, wings and fuel levels before a flight. “Is the expertise of senior management congruent with current critical success factors?” “Are unprofitable products and services abandoned?” “Is outstanding performance recognized and rewarded significantly?”

Each item in the checklist is phrased as a question, just like on Jeopardy, because I don't presume there is a one-size-fits-all answer for every organization. And the questions should be asked, answered, then asked again some months or years later. Often, a company's needs will change over time as will the answers to these critical questions.

Anyone who needs to evaluate the “flight-worthiness” of a company will benefit from a discussion of these significant questions: board members, potential investors, executives, and everyone else concerned with the company’s ultimate results. Armed with this initial checklist, you can begin to determine whether your organization is poised for flight or about to crash and burn.