20 questions • About 6 minutes
The Organizational Turning Point Assessment
For CEOs, Executive Directors, Boards, and Senior Leadership Teams navigating change.
Most leaders sense a turning point before they can explain it.
The conversations are getting harder. Decisions take longer. The strategic plan no longer reflects the reality you're leading. Funding, staffing, leadership, governance, or external pressures are creating questions that don't have easy answers.
Nothing may feel broken. But something no longer fits.
The Organizational Turning Point Assessment helps executive directors, CEOs, board members, board chairs, and senior leadership teams step back from the urgency of day-to-day decisions and see the bigger picture.
Because before deciding what to do next, you need to understand what your organization is actually experiencing.
20 questions • About 6 minutes • Your responses remain private
What is a turning point?
A turning point is not always a crisis.
It is the moment when the way an organization has been operating no longer matches what the moment requires.
It rarely shows up in one place. More often, it appears as a collection of signals that seem unrelated until leaders step back and look at them together.
This assessment explores twenty indicators across five areas that shape organizational health:
- Strategic Direction
- Leadership & Decision-Making
- Board Governance
- Financial & Funding Reality
- People, Trust & Organizational Capacity
It won't tell you what decision to make.
It will help you understand what your organization is telling you, where pressure is building, and what deserves your leadership's attention before deciding what comes next.
This assessment is designed for leaders who are asking…
- Are we reacting to isolated problems, or is something bigger changing?
- Are our board and leadership team seeing the same organization?
- Is our strategy still aligned with today's reality?
- What conversations are we avoiding because we haven't had a shared way to understand what's happening?
- How do we know whether we're facing a challenge we can manage or a turning point that requires a different approach?
What You'll Walk Away Knowing
Your organization's current turning point
You'll receive one of three organizational readings:
Emerging Turning Point
Your organization is beginning to outgrow the way it has been operating. Early signals suggest this is the right time to step back, ask better questions, and make intentional adjustments before pressure builds.
Defining Turning Point
Several changes are converging at once. The decisions your leadership makes now will shape the organization's next chapter and deserve thoughtful alignment rather than quick reactions.
Critical Turning Point
The organization can no longer rely on the same assumptions, structures, or ways of working. This is a moment for deliberate leadership, clear priorities, and shared direction.
Where pressure is concentrated
Rather than a single score, you'll receive a picture of how pressure is showing up across five areas of organizational life, helping you see whether the challenges are isolated or connected.
The conversations your leaders should have next
You'll receive practical discussion questions you can take directly to your executive team or board to help move from assumptions to shared understanding.
This isn't a diagnosis. It's a starting point for thoughtful leadership.
Leading this conversation with your board or executive team?
Download the printable Board & Leadership Team Edition, designed to help boards and executive teams complete the assessment together and facilitate a meaningful discussion about what the results are telling you.
The Organizational Turning Point Assessment
Board & Leadership Team Edition
Each person answers the twenty statements below for the organization as it is today, using this scale: 0 Not true of us · 1 Slightly true · 2 Somewhat true · 3 Mostly true · 4 Very true of us. Total the scores for each of the five areas (16 possible per area, 80 overall), then compare readings across the group and discuss where they differ.
Strategic Direction
- Our current strategic plan no longer reflects the conditions we are actually operating in. 0 1 2 3 4
- We have more initiatives underway than we have a shared sense of priority. 0 1 2 3 4
- If asked separately, our senior leaders would describe our direction differently. 0 1 2 3 4
- We know something needs to change, but the next direction is not yet clear. 0 1 2 3 4
Leadership & Decision-Making
- Decisions get revisited after they have already been made. 0 1 2 3 4
- It is not always clear who holds the authority to decide. 0 1 2 3 4
- Our senior leaders operate more as heads of their functions than as one leadership team. 0 1 2 3 4
- Difficult decisions are being delayed because the consequences for people are significant. 0 1 2 3 4
Board Governance
- The board and the executive team hold different expectations about direction or pace. 0 1 2 3 4
- Our board's oversight practices have not kept pace with what this moment requires. 0 1 2 3 4
- We do not have a current, written succession plan for our chief executive. 0 1 2 3 4
- Board meetings center more on reporting what happened than on the choices ahead. 0 1 2 3 4
Financial & Funding Reality
- A meaningful share of our revenue depends on a source we cannot count on continuing. 0 1 2 3 4
- We are facing real choices about what to reduce, consolidate, or stop. 0 1 2 3 4
- Demand for our work has grown faster than our capacity to meet it. 0 1 2 3 4
- We have not tested what we would do if a major funding stream disappeared mid-year. 0 1 2 3 4
People, Trust & Organizational Capacity
- Turnover, vacancies, or burnout are affecting our ability to deliver. 0 1 2 3 4
- Employees are unsure how decisions get made, or why. 0 1 2 3 4
- Trust in leadership communication has weakened. 0 1 2 3 4
- Our structure and roles have not kept pace with how the organization has grown or changed. 0 1 2 3 4
0–27 Emerging Turning Point · 28–54 Defining Turning Point · 55–80 Critical Turning Point
The greatest risk at a turning point isn't making the wrong decision. It's continuing to make yesterday's decisions after the moment has changed.
“The best leadership conversations begin with a shared understanding of what’s really happening.”