Question 1:

How is it possible for individuals and organizations to fail to focus on customers?  [Remember that customers can be external - customers in the ordinary sense of the word - and internal, e.g., other departments are the customers of the corporate IT department.] Some functions can have both internal and external customers (e.g., marketing). What are the similarities and the differences between serving internal and external customers. Describe customer focus strategies - internal or external - from you own experience

Question 2:

Middle managers are often at the center of efforts to develop tactical plans to implement established strategies. How are tactical plans typically established? What challenges confront middle managers charged with strategy implementation?

Beer and Eisenstat identify what they call 'silent killers' of strategy implementation and learning. Provide concrete examples - preferably from your own experience - of how these 'silent killers' sabotage strategy implementation. Why do Beer and Eisenstat add 'learning' to the list of victims of these 'silent killers'?

What are the fundamental tensions that Dodd and Favaro identify? How does finding the balance among these tensions impact middle managers? Give examples from your experience.

Question 3:

Strategy formulation presupposes a set of goals and objectives. Why aren't goals and objectives obvious? What characteristics of people and organizations can make setting goals and objectives difficult?

Objectives function at various levels of scope and specificity. Objectives need to be prioritized, or ranked. What techniques assist managers in ranking objectives? What obstacles stand in the way of achieving agreement as to the ranking of objectives and prioritizing tasks?