It?s a fact of life. People die earlier than they have to because they didn?t take steps to prevent health problems. We know that prevention is better than cure. This applies equally to the world of work. How healthy is your small, medium or large organisation or business or work group? Ten minutes spent pondering this question might be among the best 10 minutes of your life (OK, I think it will be valuable but if it?s the best 10, it?s time you got out a bit more). In this week?s column I will describe some of the factors you could consider in assessing the health of your organisation, business or work group. By doing this assessment you will identify those areas in which you most need to take action now to prevent more serious problems later. Free. You can do the full 80-item Health Check on-line at www.space123.com click Health Check and get an instant assessment. See how you score. Shareholder responsibility: How well do we improve value for the shareholder? How well do we manage economic viability and sustainability? Skill development: How well do we plan, manage and measure the skill development of staff and management? Social responsibility: How well do we ensure that our operation has no or minimal adverse impacts on society? Strategies: How well do we manage and implement our existing strategies? Strategies: How well do we manage the development and implementation of new strategies? Stress: How well do we identify and manage the causes and levels of stress? Structure: How effectively does our structure fit our mission, strategy and operating environment? Succession: How well do we manage succession and career path planning? Suppliers: How well do we manage the availability, timeliness, cost effectiveness and quality of our suppliers? Support: How well do we provide support to facilitate employee performance? Systems: How well do we apply continuous and sustainable improvement to systems and procedures as a standard operating procedure? Teamwork: How well do we measure and improve the effectiveness of teamwork? Technology: How well do we ensure that technology is serving the user or the customer?