10 Questions to Ask in a Current State Review

Ready to transform your consulting or coaching practice with an effective current state review?

If you’re looking to make a bigger difference with your consulting and coaching and offer solutions that are strategic and transformational, you know that mastering the art of a current state review is essential.

When done right, a current state review not only helps you understand your client’s business and identify the root causes of organizational challenges but also is exactly what will position you as a partner and peer to the C-Suite.

And the key to the success of your current state review? The questions you ask and why.

The Secret to Consulting Success: Ask the Right Questions

What sets the best organizational consultants and coaches apart from their peers isn’t the advice that they give. It’s the questions that they ask.

With the right questions, you can get even the most high-ego senior executive to open up and share what’s on their hearts and minds. You can delve in the sensitive issues that are truly standing in the way of the organization’s goals.

10 Essential Questions for a Current State Review

If you have an opportunity to design and deliver a current state review and are not sure what questions to ask, let me give you my top 10 strategic questions that you need to get answers to by virtue of your current state review.

1. Who are our customers? What do we provide to them?

An organization that has the potential for stability, scale and to become #1 in their market must be super-clear on who their business exists to serve and why. All strategic decisions flow from here. If the people you’re asking this question to do not have a clear answer or everyone has different answers, it informs the first aspect of your consulting or coaching solution.

2. What is the value proposition or brand promise? In other words, what outcome or benefit do our customers get because of working with us?

The heart of a brand isn’t a logo, tagline, or reputation. It’s a promise that is made that is consistently delivered. It’s not enough for your clients to be clear on who they serve or even what they do. If this isn’t clear or compelling, it’s time to offer strategy development for your clients.

3. What is the source of our competitive advantage? Do we compete based on having the best product, the best price, or the best total customer experience?

To stand out in the market and to win against the competition, it’s not about being better. It’s about being different. Without this focus, your clients likely will be all over the map in terms of their strategic priorities. If this isn’t clear, you need to add identifying differentiators to your strategy sessions.

4. In what ways has our strategy changed? Are we pursuing new markets or customer bases? Developing new product lines or service types for existing customers? Transforming the way we deliver our products/services?

Many times consultants and coaches are brought in when a company is moving to a new growth stage, which begs changes to their strategy AND their leadership, people, and operating practices. If the answers to these questions are yet, it’s time for your clients to get to work on maturing those practices to the new phase of growth and strategy.

5. If we haven’t changed our strategy, should we? If so, how? Is the source of our competitive advantage changing? If so, in what ways?

The #1 root cause to organizational dysfunction is failure to mature and grow. In other words, when an organization is resistant to operating in any ways that are different from their start-up or growth mode. If you find that they should be changing their strategy but aren’t – this is where to focus.

6. How is our current organization designed? Is it by function, process, geography, customer, matrix, or hybrid? How did the current organization design get to the way it is?

There is no one-size-fits-all organization design. What’s important is that the organization design aligns with the strategy, workflow, culture, and people practices. If this isn’t aligned, you have all the data you need to justify your next six-figure consulting contract.

7. How well does our organization design enable or hinder our ability to deliver on today’s and our future strategy?

If there is a ton of duplication of effort or work falling through the cracks, an organization design is essential.

8. How well does our culture, workflow, and leadership enable or hinder internal effectiveness and efficiency?

The heart of the organization’s value proposition and brand promise is delivered by the front-line employees. If these people are not set up for success, the organization won’t achieve their goals.

9. To what degree is the senior team, especially the senior executive at the top, committed to long-term sustainable growth?

No matter what insight you uncover in your current state review, if the senior team isn’t committed to doing anything with it, nothing will change. Therefore, as you uncover what’s working or not in the organization, you also want to test the senior leader’s change readiness.

10. Does the organization have the capacity and talent to re-imagine new ways of operating and definition of success?

To guide your clients through transformational change, they must see it and want it way more than you do. Find out now if this client has the vision and commitment to making the changes that are needed to move them from today to their ideal state.

Next steps: How to Use These Questions

Consider these questions as your starting point for your current state review and the consistent “listen for” in all your interviews with leaders and focus groups with employees and/or customers. But you’ll want to customize these questions and the language you use to resonate with who you’re asking these questions to.

Where You Might Get Stuck

If you have never done a current state review before, or haven’t done it in a larger organization or for senior leaders, you’re likely to have a bunch more questions than simply the questions you should ask. You might wondering:

• How do you even land a strategic consulting engagement like this?
• How do you figure out how many interviews or focus groups you need and who should be involved?
• What do you do with the data once it’s collected?
• How do you present your findings to senior leaders (especially if the news isn’t great)
• How do you get people to open up and trust you?
• And so much more!

These are typical questions and challenges – for both new and seasoned consultants and coaches alike.

Introducing the Organization Development Consultant’s Toolbox

Instead of spinning your wheels trying to overcome these hurdles on your own or waste time online looking for resources, swipe mine! Before I became a Brand Messaging Strategist for consultants and coaches, I was an Organization Development (OD) Consultant. For almost 30 years I have been advising executives in Fortune 100 companies like Disney, Wyndham, and AAA. I put all my proven consulting frameworks, resources, tools, and templates into a step-by-step system that teaches you everything you need to become a credible and competent OD consultant.

You’ll get everything you need to conduct a current state review including:

• A question bank of 250+ power questions
• Executive stakeholder and leader interview discussion guide
• Employee focus group discussion guide
• Assessment report-out template and agenda
• Tips on how to get people to open up and start talking

And that's just one module! The toolbox also includes modules on how to position yourself as a strategic partner to executives, land high-paying consulting or coaching clients, design strategic change and leadership development solutions, and measure the impact of your work.

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