The Advantage - Book Review

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni

Unlike most of Lencioni's books this is not a parable.  Instead it draws together the principles presented in his books into a cohesive strategy for implementing organizational health.  At slightly less than 200 pages, it is an easy read, yet full of the kind of information that can enhance productivity at the same time avoiding the dysfunctions which seem to plague most businesses.  

I am constantly amazed that with this kind of excellent material available there are so many CEOs whose grasp of leadership is either poor or nonexistent . . . and I wonder how they came to their position to begin with and somehow manage to keep it in spite of such poor leadership?  Ahhhh well, I think some things are beyond my powers of comprehension.

In Advantage, Lencioni identifies four core disciplines for a healthy, productive organization:

1.  Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team

2. Discipline 2: Create Clarity

3. Discipline 3: Overcommunicate Clarity

4. Discipline 4: Reinforce Clarity

He states throughout the book that the concepts he is presenting are not that complex, but are too often ignored by organizational leaders as being somehow beneath them.  I have experienced this and know his observation to be true.  

I've included a few quotes from the book which I found insightful/helpful:

"...the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre or unsuccessful ones has little, if anything, to do with what they know or how smart they are: it has everything to do with how healthy they are." p. 8,9

"the only reason that a person should be on a team is that she represents a key part of the organization or brings truly critical talen or insight to the table." p. 24

 "When leaders preach teamwork but exclusively reward individual achievement, they are confusing their people and creating an obstacle to true team behavior." p. 26

"...peer-to-peer accountability is the primary and most effective source of accountability on the leadership team of a healthy organization." p. 54

"Firing someone is not necessarily a sign of accountability, but is often the last act of cowardice for a leader who doesn't know how or isn't willing to hold people accountable.  At its core accountability is about having the courage to confront someone about their deficiencies and then to stand in the moment and deal with their reaction, which may not be pleasant.  It is a selfless act, one rooted in a word that I don't use lightly in a business book: love."p. 57

"...the only measure of a great team -- or a great organization - is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish." "See, no matter how good a leadership team feels about itself, and how noble its mission might be, if the organization it leads rarely achieves its goals, then, by definition, it's simply not a good team." p. 65

"...healthy, alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for confusion, disorder, and infighting to set in." p. 73,74

"there is probably no greater frustration for employees than having to constantly navigate the politics and confusion caused by leaders who are misaligned." p. 75

"Once an organization successfully identifies and describes its core values and separates them from other kinds, it must then do its best to be intolerant of violations of those values.  It must ensure that every activity it undertakes, every employee it hires, and every policy it enacts reflects those core values.  Few organizations actually take this important step, instead allowing their values to be minimized as mere idealism." p. 101

"Many leadership teams struggle with not wanting to walk away from opportunities that seem basically good and easily justifiable outside the context of having a strategy, but which would distract the organization and pull it away from its stated intent." p. 117

"On a cohesive team, leaders are not there simply to represent the departments that they lead and manage but rather to solve problems that stand in the way of achieving success for the whole organization." p. 123

"...almost no employees willingly leave an organization where they are getting the levels of gratitude and appreciation that they deserve just to make a little more money, unless, of course, they are so grossly underpaid that they can't justify staying in the job for the sake of their livelihood." p. 168

Using the concept of an organizational playbook Lencioni describes a process which if followed will generate clarity and functional alignment capable of achieving high performance.  I will definitely be using this information to guide me in my new position and with my new team.

I highly recommend this book and encourage you to add it to your library.