1. Tell me about our response simulation and rehearsal plans and activities. When was the last time we had a full-scale rehearsal of an IT disaster recovery?
2. What did we learn from it?
3. How do we learn from others’ business-continuity mistakes?
4. How will our recovery plan help the company financially?
5. Have our recovery planning activities made our company more resilient?
6. How can management know how quickly we’re responding in a real emergency?
7. What kind of event-monitoring system have we set up to give us some early warning so we don’t have to invoke our emergency plans?
8. Who’s accountable for IT disaster recovery?
9. How can we be sure our people are trained to respond effectively?
10. What other resources do we have for recovery other than our own staff?
11. I understand we’re prepared for hardware failure, but how prepared are we for a large-scale virus or malware attack?
12. What kinds of automated response capabilities do we have to rapidly communicate status and begin response implementation?
13. Do our recovery plans extend to business-support capabilities as well as technology capabilities?

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• How have you been trained as a business innovator? What investment has the company made in teaching you how to innovate?
• If you have a new idea, how much bureaucracy do you have to go through to get a small increment of experimental capital? How long is it going to take you to get 20 percent of your time and $5,000 to test your idea? Is that a matter of months or is it very easy for that to happen?
• Are you actually being measured on your innovation performance or your team’s innovation? Does it influence your compensation?
• As you look at the management processes in your company, do they tend to help you work as an innovator or get in the way?

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Physical Security

• Describe the physical security and disaster recovery and prevention features of the ASP’s data center.
• Who (including data center staff, other employees and vendors) has physical access to the host servers?

Network Security

• Are industry-standard firewalls deployed? Where are they deployed? How does the ASP keep the software for the firewalls current? Is administrative access to firewalls and other perimeter devices allowed only through secure methods or direct serial port access?
• What protocols and ports are allowed to traverse the network and firewall?
• Does the ASP use intrusion detection systems (IDSs)? How long are IDS logs kept?
• Are formal incident-response procedures in place? Are they tested regularly?
• Does the ASP engage third-party security services providers to perform ongoing vulnerability assessments?

Systems Security

• Are ongoing vulnerability assessments performed against the systems?
• Are file permissions set on a need-to-access basis only?
• How are operating systems kept up-to-date? How does the ASP keep abreast of software vulnerabilities? What is the procedure for installing software updates?
• Are audit logs implemented on all systems that store or process critical information? Are root commands logged?
• What change management procedures are in place?

Staff Security

• What are the credentials of the systems administration staff?
• Has the systems administration staff undergone complete background and criminal checks?
• Are hosting staff onsite or on-call 24/7?

Security Policy

• Describe the user account and password policy.
• Are screen-blanking mechanisms deployed on all employee workstations? Do sessions automatically time out after an idle period?
• Are user accounts for contract personnel created with expiration dates? How are user accounts closed after termination?

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1. Do I have a strong advocate? You need to know who wants your deal done. While you think it may be the partner you initially met with, it may not be them. It may be someone else who is pushing that partner to keep bringing you in, or it may be no-one at all, other than your persistence. You need someone. Further, you need to know that they really, really like you. It isn’t enough that they’re going through the process of bringing you by. They have to like you and be selling you to the partnership. If they’re not, you’re dead.
2. Do I have any strong opponents? You need to know who in the firm’s partnership — or associates! — doesn’t like the deal. A few adamant opponents can get a deal killed much more easily, in most firms, than can a single strong advocate get a deal done. So ask the question: Is there anyone here strongly opposed to this deal? How can I help get them past their concerns?
3. What other unrelated deals is the firm currently doing? Assuming they’re not looking at a competitive deal, your real issue is one of context: How busy is the firm? If they are in the middle of closing five other deals, yours may very easily fall off the table just because of time and resources to close. If that seems possible, ask whether you would be better off delaying until they have more time to deal with your transaction. If that doesn’t seem possible, take it as a soft “no” and move on.
4. Have I answered all the questions? Don’t assume you have answered all the questions that have been asked of you. Ask. And then ask again: Have I answered all the questions you folks have? Keep doing that. You’d be amazed how often people give up asking questions and kill a deal just because they’re tired of feeling like they’re asking the same questions.

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1. Do they like to gather information through words, and if so, what kind? Everyone responds to the spoken word, but some people are more “doers” than listeners or readers. For those who do rely more on verbal instruction, pay attention to whether or not they like to read and digest information through a kind of independent study process. If they like to read, give them things to read that will help them grow.
   
   If they learn best by spoken word or through discussion, then supply them with that kind of experience. Pay attention to whether or not they learn best by hearing stories and examples from you—based on your own experience—or if they respond best to thought provoking questions. Thought provoking questions can be very effective for some people, as in the classic Socratic method.
2. Under what conditions do they prefer to take action? Some people want and need to have a demonstration first of something new, a hands-on way that you can show them how to do a new task. Other people prefer to jump right in, maybe after some period of observation, which can be short or long, depending on the person’s needs and learning style. Pay attention to each person’s “action style” for new tasks, and adjust your tactics accordingly.
3. Do they need a “hands-on” or “hands-off” instruction style? There are some people who, through the process of mastering a new task, need to be prompted to try new things. They might not even take the initiative as confidently as some others do. Others can go on “auto-pilot,” and you can trust that they will let you know when they need to ask a question or refine their performances. Pay attention to how often you need to check in with people as they acquire new skills, and pay attention to whether or not they need you to prompt them or if they succeed best taking more of the initiative to check in for more learning.
4. Is the key to motivating them through the language of logic or of feeling? This is one way to understand a person’s motivational style. Pay attention to what words people use when they describe a result that pleases them. If their basic, underlying message is that thing went “smoothly” or that the final result “made sense,” that’s a clue that they will most appreciate seeing how new lessons will “make life easier” or be more “sensible” or “logical.” Likewise, if conditions that frustrate them most are things that to them seem “stupid” or “senseless,” then this is further evidence that teaching them requires showing them lessons they get will increase efficiency.
   
   On the other hand, if they describe good results as things that “made everyone happy,” and bad results in terms of how awful they felt, then new lessons need to be framed in terms of emotion – how they or others will “feel great” once the new way is adopted. When learning, people need to see “what’s in it for them,” so it’s the mentor’s job to get that message across in the way that best fits each person’s motivational style. Though people are usually a blend of thinking/feeling types, people usually “lead” with one more than the other – one side tends to be stronger for each of us, at least most of the time.
5. Do you know your own learning style, and can you broaden your approaches? Read through these different learning styles and think about your own learning experiences. Who have been the best teachers for you, and what approaches did they take with you? Recognize that all of us tend to have the habit of assuming—without even realizing it—that others learn the way we do. Then, when they don’t respond to our attempts to teach them, it’s easy to presume that they are unwilling, resistant or just not very sharp.
   
   We need to be able to recognize our own styles and broaden our approaches to fit the needs of those whom we lead. If the art of leadership is the art of getting things done through other people, then we have to be flexible enough to become experts on other people and their styles of learning.
6. Are you sure your best performers are learning lots and lots? Finally, learning by itself is highly motivational. People who feel that they are learning – that they are challenged – are people who are growing and who don’t have time to be negative. Leaders often make the mistake of thinking that their best performers don’t need to be challenged with new learning, but this is exactly the wrong approach!
   
   Challenge and stimulate the strongest performers the most, since they will also grow the most – yielding the highest dividends in productivity for the organization. If you don’t, your high performers can get bored and may jump ship, leaving your team with a talent drain that reinforces long term mediocrity.
   
   If you focus most of your attention on mentoring your weakest links, you will have weaker performance dividends for the team and accidentally place an artificial ceiling on the performance of your group—and of your top performers. So don’t be afraid to challenge people to discover their own potentials for greatness!

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1. Are we fit to fight? Before even thinking about engaging in war, it is safe to wonder whether one is fit to fight. Companies faring worst in the boom-bust of the 1990s were those with high debt levels and/or over-capacity. So, the first question is: have we cleaned our house sufficiently structurally to be fit to fight—no more overweight soldiers, no more obsolete gear, so to speak. As highlighted by the often-quoted General Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), a commander’s knowledge of the strengths, characters and capabilities of the people as well as the resources at his disposal is of utmost importance. Only by knowing this will he be able to understand how they will perform in various conditions. In business terms, this is about factors such as the health of the balance sheet, the efficient use of capital, the leanness of overheads and the complexity of the product and brand portfolio. In modern business, as in war, there seem to be times to fight and times to consolidate.
2. Are we fighting in the right arena? The fundamental strategic question is whether we are fighting in the right arena. Only when we have defined where we will fight can we know whether we are fighting against the right enemy, for the right cause and with the right strategy. This holds true for business as for war. Among the most prominent battlefield leaders to have understood this to its full extent was Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). He showed a remarkable understanding of the two most critical elements of success by always trying to determine the place and time of the battles he had to fight, thus altering the odds to his benefit well before he went into combat.
3. Which new fronts shall we open? Standing still is rarely an option, since competitors are all too eager to encroach on your terrain. Even though one may have achieved an important victory on one battlefield, one should not yield to the temptation of assuming that the final battle has been fought. As Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) is quoted as saying: “The most dangerous moment comes with victory.” Continuously breaking out and capturing new ground is imperative to winning the war. This is where innovation strategy comes into play. Innovation is about being sustainably smarter and faster than competitors in chosen areas. It is about using the right weapons to hit the target, time after time.
   
   The key question is: how can we pull these moves off profitably? What it takes is to understand how customer demands along the value chain are likely to evolve or can be influenced; to define a development path for product and technology platforms from which a multitude of new value propositions can be drawn economically; and to make a plan that dynamically synchronizes potential technology developments with emerging market opportunities.
4. With which allies shall we go into combat? Alliances are as old as war itself. From the early days of mankind, gathering coalition partners has had a strong influence on the progress of a war. Indeed, as illustrated by such examples as the conflicts of the Athenian and Spartan coalitions in 460 BC, war often has not been one party against another but a combat between coalitions. Parties have joined forces for a variety of reasons: to combine sheer manpower, leverage the other’s infrastructure, discourage a strike against one of them by a third party, preempt one of the parties from joining the enemy, co-finance the effort, obtain privileged access to the enemy’s citizens, demonstrate the war’s good cause, set up a joint weapons program, etc.
   
   What’s new, however, is that partnering is evolving from announcing strategic partnerships to pursuing a partnering strategy. Partnering becomes a competence in its own right.
5. How do we win the peace? Winning the war is one thing. Winning the peace afterwards is another – and ultimately the only thing that counts. Again, one may draw on Alexander the Great to illustrate this point in a historical context. Alexander, being taught by Aristotle, clearly understood that, in order to build an empire, it is necessary to demonstrate respect to former enemies and to convince the population that the new reign is just by showing nobility rather than vindictiveness.
   
   In business terms, it’s about customer strategy and management. It’s about convincing customers to abandon old loyalties and buy your product or service instead. It’s about knowing your customers so that you understand their desires and frustrations, creating emotional bonds so that customers will spread the word and convince others to do as they do: buy your product. It’s about broadcasting consistent messages and capturing the largest share-of-voice, and about creating a unique combination of features and pricing it such that your product is irresistible—without losing your shirt.
6. Do we have the right intelligence? Deploying intelligence agents, both before and during hostilities, in hot as well as in cold wars, is a practice of all times: putting the pieces together, seeing patterns, interpreting the signals and acting upon them. Battlefield control relies heavily on the adequacy and timeliness of information concerning the status of the actions demanded as well as the level of their execution. Most of the great battlefield strategists, including Napoleon Bonaparte, understood that the success of one tactical move ultimately depends on the correct and timely execution of the ones previously ordered.
   
   In business terms, we talk not only about well-known practices such as market and competitor intelligence but also about timely identification of topics of strategic relevance to the firm and about adequate knowledge-management support. The strategic value of knowledge management lies in the ability to respond to future events through the availability of appropriate knowledge. An effective knowledge-management approach copes with four dimensions. First, it establishes what is business-critical to know and defines a meaningful structure for the knowledge. Second, it puts into place a systematic process for creating, capturing, codifying, storing, distributing and using knowledge. Third, it overcomes behavioral barriers to knowledge transfer and sharing. Fourth, it provides for effective media and IT for knowledge transfer.
7. Do we have real-time control of the battlefield? War pigeons have long been replaced as a vehicle for sending information back and forth from one level of command to the next over long distances. What has not changed, however, are more subtle forms of control such as: sensing and influencing the mood of the folks back home; keeping the anti-war pressure groups at bay; using embedded journalists to shape media coverage; detecting and counteracting risks of desertion; preventing and punishing abuse of citizens and war crimes by soldiers or commanders; holding out the prospect of medals and promotions; etc.
   
   In business-speak, the above translates as follows: corporate governance and contented shareholders; corporate social responsibility; public affairs; preventing poaching of prized staff by competitors; preventing dishonest sales practices and corporate fraud; maintaining balanced scorecards and performance management systems; etc. Indeed, especially in large companies, the psychological and social distances between different stakeholders and units can be great.
8. Do we have well organized and motivated troops? In the Middle Ages iron discipline and unswerving loyalty may have been sufficient to keep the soldiers marching in unison but, as Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) pointed out, when there is a substantial deployment of mercenaries who have joined up for monetary reasons, achieving that unison is a task not to be underestimated. These days, both organizing and motivating the troops has become even more challenging. In today’s companies, the challenge is to reconcile the potentially conflicting objectives of “innovate and grow” and “improve efficiency and perform”. A smartly designed organization succeeds in doing so.
   
   Smart organization design considers four elements. First, there is governance, which addresses the overall organizational architecture, the management councils, the key decision processes and the senior positions. Second, there are the stable structures: the formal hierarchical tree (be it organized by product, customer segment, function, or geography) and the corporate center. Third, there are the lateral linkages to integrate the branches of the stable structures and make them more flexible (shared service centers, communities of practice, etc.), whether internally within the company or with outside partners. Fourth, there is the sustainability of the organization as fashioned by its people, their competencies and their behavior.
9. Do we have effective sustenance processes? One aspect of warfare that may not be spectacular but can decide its outcome is the effectiveness of the sustenance processes: feeding the soldiers, supplying the kerosene, treating the wounded, etc. These processes often occur behind the scenes—and are sometimes outsourced—but are an essential requirement to keep the organism going. As Frederick the Great (1712–1786) instructed his generals: “Without supplies no army is brave”.
   
   The same applies to companies. Paying customers visits, replenishing stocks, assembling widgets, handling customer complaints: these may be routine tasks, but flawless execution is crucial. No one notices when everything works as it should, but lo and behold when the slightest error occurs.
10. Can we afford to fight financially? Sufficient financing of campaigns has always proven to be of central importance to the chances of success. More than once history has proven that the one best able to find the funds to pay his army is surest of success. Likewise, taking account of the unexpected in the planning process has proven to be wise: as many a besieger had to learn the hard way, a siege is far less resource intensive for the defender than for the besieger.
    
    Obviously, business is not just about managing cash flows but also about creating value. And that brings us back to the first question—are we fit to fight?—and the subsequent ones about strategy and organization. To ensure smart growth, all 10 questions should be addressed in parallel. And some of the answers to one question may also apply to others.

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