Every relationship your business runs on, mapped on one page.

What is SQ?

SQ™, the Stakeholder Quotient™, is a company’s practiced capacity to build durable, mutual value with everyone it depends on.

IQ has been measured and developed for a century. EQ changed how companies hire and develop leaders once it was broken into parts people could work on. SQ™ takes that same step for stakeholder relationships. Once a capability has a name, a leadership team can talk about it, look at it and improve it.

The SQ is one-page operating document your team fills in together. It covers four areas:

1. The leadership lens. How you lead here, the qualities your leaders must embody, and how those show up in daily practice.
2. The stakeholder map. For each of stakeholder groups: who they are (be specific), what you owe them, what they give you, where value is leaking, and who owns listening to them. Add any group that matters to your business that is not already listed.
3. Conscious culture. Your core values, the practices that carry them, and where they are built into hiring, reviews and promotion.
4. Your why. One sentence on why the business exists, written last, once everything else is on the page.