The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business (J-B Lencioni Series)

The realization of the importance of organizational health is coming, and Patrick Lencioni's new book, The Advantage is leading the way. Lencioni is one of my favorite writers, his ability to weave together a story/parable that connects and then lay out principles that transform is always a winning recipe. Just one thing with The Advantage, no parable, just an incredible combination of teaching in all his books to lay not only why organizational health trumps everything else in business (and other organizations too), but even more how to build such organizational health in your organization. Yes, there are incredible stories of how these principles have worked in his organizational life as well as those he has consulted (with names changed of course to protect both the guilty and the innocent). It's a great advantage of the book -- not just a great story in theory, but great stories gathered together from actual life experiences. The opening line of chapter 1 captures the premise of the book, "The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to everyone who wants it." In pursuing such organizational health, Lencioni works through a 4 disciplines model: DISCIPLINE 1. Build a cohesive leadership team. As Patrick says, "Teamwork is not a virtue, it's a choice." He defines a leadership team as "a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization." Moving building from theory to practice builds on 5 behaviors: Trust, Mastering Conflict, Achieving Commitment, Embracing Accountability, and Focusing on Results. I remember these from The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, especially his charge to "step into the conflict" and how much better organizational health became as I learned to step into the conflict and leverage it towards resolution. DISCIPLINE 2. Create clarity. This is my favorite chapter of the book as the not only asks but fleshes out 6 critical questions. Why are they critical? As Patrick writes, "What is new is the realization that none of them can be addressed in isolation; they must be answered together. Failing to achieve alignment around any one of them can prevent an organization from attaining the level of clarity necessary to become healthy." What are the 6 critical questions? So glad you asked ... 1) Why do we exist? Think core purpose as in Jim Collins, Built to Last 2) How do we behave? Core values that are not the generic one size fits all, but the one size that fits us as in the start up company that identified "willing to sweep floors" as one of its core values. Answers to this question also addressed aspirational, accidental and permission-to-play values. 3) What do we do?This should be the easiest to answer, and should be clear and straight forward. 4) How will we succeed? Strategy is involved here, but Lencioni goes deeper speaking of "Strategic Anchors" (3 strategies that provide the context for all decision making). 5) What is most important right now? Answering this one has the most immediate impact. What is the thematic goal? What is the rallying cry that defines the next 3-6 months of focus? 6) Who must do what?Clarity for division of labor and the advantage of teams that bring multiple perspectives to accomplish the thematic goal. The challenge I have learned in leadership is to get everyone on the same page. A cohesive team that hammers out their answers to these 6 questions is on the same page, working out of the same playbook. DISCIPLINE 3. Overcommunicate clarity. When I first saw this, I thought that's a bit repetitive. Exactly. 7 times to be exact. Patrick emphasizes that this is necessary to pass on the clarity, the answers to the 6 questions, the playbook to the organization. The value I discovered in this chapter is a commitment for "the team to leave meetings with clear and specific agreements about what to communicate to their employees." DISCIPLINE 4. Reinforce clarity. Same as discipline 3, I thought this seems repetitive. Reading the chapter I realized this needs to be repeated from new hires to those who needed to be fired, from recognition, compensation and reward. Clarity, the playbook, the 6 questions, the cohesive commitment builds organizational health. After laying out the case for the 4 disciplines, Patrick moves on to the advantage of great meetings. Having applied the truths of Death by Meeting to my own leadership team meetings, they do produce greater organizational health and engagement. It's my next step with this book to hammer out our answers to the 6 questions, to build our own playbook. We have learned to focus our meetings and have found them to provide greater productivity. The greatest challenge that I picked up from the book is when Patrick writes, "the single biggest factor determining whether an organization is going to get healthier -- or not -- is the genuine commitment and active involvement of the person in charge." That's why I give The Advantage 5 out of 5 stars. It left me not only wanting to be a better leader of a great organization, but laid out practical principles for making that happen.

The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni is an insightful deep dive into why organizational health is the key driver of business success. Lencioni outlines clear, actionable strategies for improving team dynamics, communication, and clarity within an organization. The book emphasizes that a cohesive culture is more impactful than strategy alone, making it a must-read for leaders at all levels. Packed with real-world examples, it’s a practical guide for transforming any workplace into a thriving, healthy environment. Essential for anyone looking to boost organizational performance!

For Lencioni, organizational advantage comes not from better execution, strategies or tactics, but from organizational health. The health of an organization is driven not by employee health and wellness, but by four identified disciplines: 1. Build a Cohesive Leadership Team 2. Create Clarity 3. Overcommunicate Clarity 4. Reinforce Clarity Lencioni opens the book by making the case for organizational health. Organizational health is, according to Lencioni, ¡§the single greatest advantage any company can achieve. Organizational health is reflected by: * Minimal politics * Minimal confusion * High morale * High productivity * Low turnover Lencioni describes organizational health as being ¡§free, simple and available to anyone who wants it.¡¨ So why don¡¦t more leaders embrace organizational health? The answer: Because it is messy. It is messy because it requires leaders to be transparent and to engage in subjective conversations that can easily and quickly become emotional and awkward. Since no one wants to be uncomfortable, it is easier to avoid than to engage in the necessary conversations. Lencioni sees two requirements for organizational success: smarts and health. In today¡¦s information rich, connected environment, it is hard for any organization to maintain a smart advantage for any length of time. Leaders are, however, more comfortable working in the smart areas such as strategy, marketing, finance and technology ¡V areas that are measurable, objective and data driven. After successfully making the case of organizational health, Lencioni devotes the remainder of the book to each of the disciplines. Each discipline description is rich with theory and examples. Each discipline is concluded with a checklist to assist the reader with implementation of the discipline. The book is an easy, engaging read. The started and finished the book with a 24 hour period. While not described as being a book about leadership and leadership development, I think the book could be described as being such. As important as leadership is to organizational health, I feel I would be remiss if I didn¡¦t say that I believe organizational health is also about employee health and well-being. For another take on organizational health, check out Creating Healthy Organizations by Graham Lowe.

El libro cubre cómo crear un ambiente de confianza para después crear una organización saludable en todos los aspectos cubriendo la cantidad de reuniones, Cómo dar retroalimentación correctamente Y cómo mantener al equipo enfocado en los resultados basado en una cultura de alto rendimiento

Plein de bons conseils qui aident à lever un peu la tête du guidon et reprendre une meilleure trajectoire. Je recommande à tous les DSI, CEO mais aussi à leur staff qui peuvent aussi les influencer.

I was won over by this book. Lencioni reminds me of Marshall Goldsmith ('What Got You Here Won't Get You There' etc.): he offers a great deal of sound, straightforward advice about how to operate successfully within organisations, much of which is in fact based on very insightful observations, based on a lifetime in consultancy, of the way in which people in organisations actually behave and, more importantly, interact. The book's first chapter is a bit of a hard sell. No shame in that. Lencioni sets out to sell us the idea that organisational health is the most important thing in business - no, I mean THE most important thing. Really, really the most important thing. Did you know that organisational health will give your business a competitive advantage? I mean a really HUGE competitive advantage? That organisational health trumps everything else in business? You get the point (you really do!) - the chapter reads like one of those maddeningly successful direct marketing mailshots that has you running up a mental white flag by page three and agreeing that, on reflection, your life has indeed been blighted by the absence of whatever they are selling and that you absolutely must ACT NOW to remedy the situation. But Lencioni soon begins to spell out what a healthy organisation would look like and to set out his action plan for improving the health of any organisation, and I began to be won over. Many books about organisational behaviour offer a brilliant analysis of what is wrong with the organisation and suggest some profound changes that are needed to remedy this, but leave one wondering just how many companies will actually change their behaviour as a result, no matter how compellingly the author has spelled out the advantages. It's not that the new ideas don't make sense, or are not genuinely exciting, it's just that they often require truly fundamental changes to the way that organisations are structured and run. What Lencioni recommends, in contrast, is relatively simple, clearly understandable, and eminently do-able. I found myself recognising all too many of the aspects of unhealthy organisational behaviour but, more importantly, seeing also how Lencioni's recommended solution was sane, practical and achievable. Although Lencioni is not, on the face of it, proposing a radical overhaul of organisational structure, his programme for a healthier way of conducting business would, in fact, have quite profound effects on how organisations are run. Lencioni starts with 'building a cohesive leadership team', and has interesting things to say about how this involves building a high degree of trust among the leadership team, which involves a greater degree of interpersonal reaction than is usually considered necessary or even desirable. Senior teams tend to relate to each other at the 'purely professional' level, representing their own departmental interests, vying with each other for the boss's attention and focussing mainly on achieving their own agenda while looking more brilliant than their colleagues. Exactly, says Lencioni. Teams like this are not learning from each other, and are certainly not working together to achieve the overall objectives of the organisation. To do this, the leadership team need to be more aware of each other's personal strengths and weaknesses, more prepared to engage in constructive criticism and debate and, as a result, to be individually a little more vulnerable than we are usually comfortable with. Lencioni successfully paints an appealing picture of the benefits of a genuinely cohesive leadership team, working together to achieve common objectives, holding other team members accountable, playing to each other's strengths and reminding each other, in an intelligent and constructive way, of their individual weaknesses. And then, of course, the team needs to be clear on exactly what those common objectives are: we need 'clarity'. His recommendation for finding clarity is to answer six fundamental questions: Why do we [the organisation] exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How will we succeed? What is most important right now? Who must do what? It's a good and deceptively simple-looking list. The first three of those questions are actually very hard to answer, and any team that knew and fully agreed on all of the answers would indeed have a considerable advantage over the great majority of their competitors. Lencioni illustrates his points with down-to-earth, recognisable and relevant illustrations from his consulting experience. Having argued for a cohesive leadership team and the need to achieve clarity, the last two points in his four-point action plan seem a little like over-egging the pudding: 'overcommunicate clarity' and 'reinforce clarity'. But the sections addressing these ideas continue to offer sensible, practical suggestions about how to spread a clear understanding of core objectives throughout the organisation and to ensure that the clarity persists. I especially liked Lencini's focus on 'what is the most important thing right now'. It is difficult, but literally invaluable, for organisations to be clear on 'why we exist', 'how we behave' and 'what we do' but even with clarity on these defining ideals, organisations are often still derailed by failing to focus enough on some fundamental issue that threatens their very existence. 'The high point of being a leader in an organisation is wrestling with difficult decisions and situations,' writes Lencioni, while pointing out that, in practice, leadership teams tend to try to deal with such fundamental, life or death business issues far too superficially in a badly structured meeting that is attempting to achieve several other things at the same time. His recommendation for a programme of meetings with different purposes and functions is, again, pragmatic and entirely sane. What, as Lencioni says, could be more exciting than addressing a core business issue in a constructive and focussed 'adhoc topical meeting' with a team of committed colleagues, and without anything else on the agenda but finding a solution to the particular business problem? And how often in business does that actually happen? A deceptively simple and very readable book that offers achievable suggestions for changes to our working practises that would have profound effects on our effectiveness - and on the satisfaction that we get from our working lives. Jonathan Gifford - author of '100 Great Business Leaders'

Um livro de cabeceira para CEOs ou todos aqueles que querem entender como uma organização saudável funciona. Leitura rápida, leve e muito interessante.

Muy buen libro para entender las bases de la salud organizacional, con ejemplos, guía del paso a paso que debe seguirse.