The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business

Praise for The Advantage

"The Advantage has more common sense in its 200 pages than I have ever found in a business book. A must–read."
—Colleen Barrett, president emeritus, Southwest Airlines Co.; coauthor, Lead with LUV

"Here is the next business classic. Even the best leaders will read this and wonder, ′Why aren′t we already doing this?′"
—Enrique Salem, president and CEO, Symantec

"We are doing what most said could not be done in a down economy—start and exponentially grow a business. Using Lencioni′s model for organizational health is an everyday choice and a way of life for our company."
—Liz Townsend, COO, My Fit Foods

"For more than a decade I′ve been using Lencioni′s approach to run the departments I lead, and it has never failed me."
—Rick Friedel, vice president, AT&T Service Management

"Our teams and leaders have really embraced Lencioni′s methodology. We′ve put these ideas into practice and we′re experiencing the results that prove it works."
—David Gordon, COO, The Cheesecake Factory

"In The Advantage, Lencioni cuts through the corporate ′bull′ that creates a culture of stonewalling and feet–dragging, and shows leaders at every level how to build up a culture of productivity and communication."
—Dave Ramsey, New York Times best–selling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host

Introduction xv

The Case for Organizational Health 1

The Four Disciplines Model 15

Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team 19

Discipline 2: Create Clarity 73

Discipline 3: Overcommunicate Clarity 141

Discipline 4: Reinforce Clarity 153

The Centrality of Great Meetings 173

Seizing the Advantage 189

Checklist for Organizational Health 195

More Resources 199

Notes 201

Acknowledgments 203

About the Author 205

Index 207

Patrick M. Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a management consulting firm specializing in organizational health and executive team development. As a consultant and keynote speaker, he has worked with thousands of senior executives in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 and mid–size companies to start–ups and nonprofits. Lencioni is the author of nine business books with over three million copies sold worldwide.
He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and four boys.

Consulting executive Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team) has an answer for floundering businesses—aim for organizational health. In other words, businesses that are whole, consistent, and complete, with complementary management, operations, strategy, and culture. Today, the vast majority of organizations have more than enough intelligence, experience, and knowledge to be successful. Organizational health is neither sexy nor quantifiable, which is why more people don′t take advantage. However, improved health will not only create a competitive advantage and better bottom line, it will boost morale. Lencioni covers four steps to health: build a cohesive leadership team, create clarity, overcommunicate clarity, and reinforce clarity. Through examples of his own experiences and others′, he addresses the behaviors of a cohesive team, peer–to–peer accountability, office politics and bureaucracy and strategy, and how all organizations should strive to make people′s lives better. This smart, pithy, and practical guide is a must–read for executives and other businesspeople who need to get their proverbial ducks back in a row. (Apr.) ( Publishers Weekly, 1/16/12)