This simple question launches thousands of meetings every day in offices around the world. It is not a particularly bad question. The discussion that ensues brings personal clarity and organizational focus to many situations. The response to the question may foster our capacity for meaning and fulfillment. The problem with the question lies in what we do with our responses.

Too often, people end up living for a result. Life misses them while they are waiting for everything to come into alignment. In a world where goals are often unclear, competing for attention, and ever changing, the wait can be deadly. Nothing ever concludes finally and for sure in thriving organizations. Ultimately, successful individuals in organizations achieve their goals because they are aware of change.

Lance Armstrong's seventh win in the Tour de France provides a powerful lesson in determination for organizational leaders. To achieve goals, leaders sustain individual focus amidst substantial distractions. Leaders get involved in situations and develop personal capacity for learning. Credentials and experiences only serve as a baseline for achievement. Like Lance Armstrong, organizational leaders create a covenant with success.

Goal achievement requires clarity. It requires equal measures of expectation blended with genuine concern for others. Leaders do not focus on everything nor do they take success for granted. Goal-achievers acknowledge that outcomes outlast goals, and they never give up!

There is no single best model for collaborating in organizations. Yet, some partnerships thrive while others languish. Individual attitudes, capabilities, and styles contribute to successful partnerships. True partnerships extend beyond formal role-based interactions to include relaxed and friendly exchanges. Success occurs because those involved honor the goals and methods of partnership.

Accountability is essential in partnerships. Accountability partnerships create value and impact; these partnerships do not succeed because of checklists. Partnerships demand honesty about both facts and circumstances. In partnerships that foster and propel organizational objectives, risk and reward are evident. Accountable partnerships are a choice.

Partnerships build and sustain performance cultures. A partnership is similar to a legal contract. Like contracts, partnerships require informed consent - regardless of the task. Individuals are always willing participants in true partnerships because they realize that success and survival depends on performance. Partnerships flourish when the contract invites emotional attachment.

Unremitting allies replenish personal motivation and increase optimism about the possibilities for organizational success. Partnerships remain relevant to the extent that they focus on goals and objectives and connect with organizational outcomes. Partners engage in work that serves a purpose larger than a job, a unit, or a division. Are you working in partnership with others?

Management succeeded for decades because of uniformity. The dominant organizing theories were centralization and chain-of-command. Managerial and organizational behavior focused on fine-tuning an organizational machine to achieve profit. Beginning in the middle of the last century, business schools began to instruct students that human contributions increased if employees felt valued and respected. This middle-of-the-last century theory continues to dominate business school lectures but organizational behaviors remain relatively unchanged from the decades of uniformity.

Many organizational cultures resist forces for change despite overwhelming and accelerating environmental pressures. As a result, organizations falter and expire. Our work in organizational culture acknowledges competition, complexity, and diversity in the pursuit of stakeholder power and value. Information creates possibilities for new network forms of organization.

Perceptive executives and organizational change leaders recognize the power of culture in transforming an organization. Transformation requires an appropriate blend of control and accountability. Control is essential for driving stakeholder value and accountability is essential for performance. Leadership is the strategic force in creating the appropriate blend of control and accountability.

Several factors contribute to growing performance and value cultures. First, leaders and managers understand the exceptional role of culture in shaping performance organizations. Secondly, a dedicated focus for achieving change must exist. Finally, leadership recognizes that there are no substitutes for vision and preparation in achieving genuine change. Achieving change on this scale incorporates recognition that culture shapes organizational behavior.

Good organizations foster leadership development and recognize the covenant between organizational success and community well-being. Outstanding organizations incorporate gratitude as a basic belief. In outstanding organizations, the leadership discussion extends from structure to culture and from team to community. Good organizations create positive returns while outstanding organizations sustain value.

The shift from good to outstanding does not require the sacrifice of self-interest. Community interests advance when partnerships and relationships spotlight common rights and responsibilities. Exemplary organizations encourage the meaningful and thoughtful exercise of leadership beyond boundaries. Because there are seldom one-size-fits-all approaches to developing leaders for service, organizations encounter difficult choices in leadership development.

Values drive our decisions among alternatives in leadership development. Some organizations engage leaders throughout their careers while others regard leadership development as an event. These, and other organizational choices, influence the preparation of leaders for service beyond boundaries.

In a world where the ideals of partnership and participation are increasingly common, outstanding organizations seek out new models for leadership development. These organizations recognize the relationship of leadership resources to organizational performance. Bold actions in leadership development assist in creating cultures where every person shares the duty for success.