FALLING BEHIND? An Organizational Diagnostic for Board Members, Executives, and Founders
The organizations most likely to fall behind are not the ones that are struggling. They are the ones performing well enough that the gap between current results and what is now possible has not yet become visible. The numbers are tracking, the board is confident, and conditions have already changed in ways that are shaping what the organization is capable of achieving.
Falling Behind? is a self-guided diagnostic for the three seats where the gap looks fundamentally different: the boardroom, the executive suite, and the founder's office. Each reader works through an assessment calibrated to what their specific seat is positioned to observe.
Building on A Distinct Advantage, which establishes leadership, strategy, and technology as the three primary catalysts of modern organizational performance, this book moves directly to identifying where synchronization between those variables is breaking down.
This is not a book about crisis. It is a book about what becomes available when senior leaders examine the gap honestly, before the pressure to find it becomes acute.
WHAT THE BOOK OFFERS
- Readiness Assessment: honest starting conditions before looking for symptoms.
- The Five Diagnostic Signals: observable indicators of whether an organization is keeping pace.
- Implication Assessment: interpreting the pattern and the financial stakes.
- The Right Next Step: determining whether the self-directed or guided path fits.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Mawhinney is an advisor, author, and speaker whose work focuses on leadership, strategy, and technology as the three variables that determine organizational performance under modern conditions. He is the author of A Distinct Advantage and The Contemporary Leader series.
The gap is already there. The only question is whether you find it on your terms or on the organization's.
Review :
"Love the way this is laid out - specific advice for each of the three audiences which is helpful to get to the ROI quickly. I can't think of anyone in business who doesn't feel like they are perpetually falling behind, and this feels particularly relevant today."
"Refreshingly direct, and refreshingly specific. Most books in this space speak to 'leaders' in the abstract. This one met me in the executive seat and named the exact gaps I needed to look at. I came away with questions I'm still sitting with."
