Imagine for a moment that you are in charge of the country.

Your country needs you to increase its competitiveness… you know the best way to do this is to improve its productivity.

Of course, what you might do will depend very much on the country you are in charge of … its current economy, its current industrial strengths, the skill levels of the workforce, the nature of the infrastructure, etc.

So what you do depends on where you are.

The same is obviously true when improving organisational productivity. You need to know where the organisation is in terms of its development, in terms of its aspirations and aims, in terms of its progress towards meeting those aims, etc.

So, whenever you need to move forward, you first need to know where you are.