Much of our work is helping leadership teams formulate the right questions. Once they get the questions right, the answers tend to appear.

You know you have execution issues if three things exist:

1. There is needless drama in the organization (e.g., something shipped out late; the invoice was wrong; someone missed a meeting; etc.).

1. Everyone seems to be working more hours, spinning his wheels, or spending too much time fixing things that should have been done right the first time.

1. Most important, the company is generating less than three times industry average profitability.

Nothing is tougher and more time-consuming than having to replace people who haven’t kept up with the growth of the business.

The point is to have someone pay attention to the accounts payable people!

Also specify a due date (May 31, for example) on the invoice rather than include the standard “due in 30 days.

We say “additional” because whenever management tells us there’s a cash-flow problem, we always start with fixing profitability, unless the company is broke and needs an immediate cash infusion to make payroll.