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Frame Failure Diagnostic

Most organisations have a strategy problem. Some have something harder — where the strategy is fine, but something underneath it won't move. This takes six questions.

1. We keep encountering a version of the same problem. The details change — the people, the project, the label — but something familiar is happening again.

1. We keep encountering a version of the same problem. The details change — the people, the project, the label — but something familiar is happening again.
A
B
C

2. We have capable people working hard on the right priorities. The effort is real. The situation is not improving at the rate we'd expect.

2. We have capable people working hard on the right priorities. The effort is real. The situation is not improving at the rate we'd expect.
A
B
C

3. There is something people sense is wrong that does not get named in meetings. Everyone is too professional, or too polite, or too uncertain to say it directly.

3. There is something people sense is wrong that does not get named in meetings. Everyone is too professional, or too polite, or too uncertain to say it directly.
A
B
C

4. When someone proposes a genuinely different approach — not a variant on what we already do — it tends not to get taken seriously. It falls outside what we can actually consider.

4. When someone proposes a genuinely different approach — not a variant on what we already do — it tends not to get taken seriously. It falls outside what we can actually consider.
A
B
C

5. We have brought in outside expertise and it helped technically. But the core issue is still there, in some form, underneath the improvement.

5. We have brought in outside expertise and it helped technically. But the core issue is still there, in some form, underneath the improvement.
A
B
C

6. We could analyse this further. We have probably already done that. More analysis has not resolved what is making this hard.

6. We could analyse this further. We have probably already done that. More analysis has not resolved what is making this hard.
A
B
C