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The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business
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There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healt
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Hardcover, 216 pages
Published
March 13th 2012
by Jossey-Bass
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3 stars because I'm rating it as it is: a detailed checklist on how to build a cohesive team, set goals, communicate within the organization, have effective meetings, and so on (otherwise, I'd give it a 2 for an awful writing style, rushed last part and general consultant patronizing feel). It is like listening to a person you don't like at all, and yet knowing that there's some sense and truth in what he says. I'm focusing on the latter.
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Great book. Some takeaways:
"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. An organization that is healthy will inevitably get smarter over time. That's because people in a healthy organization, beginning with the leaders, learn from one another, identify critical issues, and recover quickly from mistakes."
There are six critical ques ...more
"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. An organization that is healthy will inevitably get smarter over time. That's because people in a healthy organization, beginning with the leaders, learn from one another, identify critical issues, and recover quickly from mistakes."
There are six critical ques ...more

Disclaimer: I absolutely detest business books. For me, they are self-help books (which I also detest) for monolithic organizations. I don’t care about the habits of leaders; I don’t care about the dysfunctions of teams; I don’t care about strategy or process improvements. I read for good prose (which all business books lack), and I read for good stories (also, which business books lack). Every business book I’ve ever read I read because I was forced to read them; reading this book was for the s
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The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
The Advantage is about organizational health improvement. The four disciplines are building a cohesive leadership team, create clarity, over communicate clarity and reinforce clarity. That might not sound like much to you, but it’s everything. Having read almost all of Patrick Lencioni’s books, this is the first one I read that was not a parable. That made it a little difficult to start really getting into but once I reached page 20 I was hooked. What he presents ...more
The Advantage is about organizational health improvement. The four disciplines are building a cohesive leadership team, create clarity, over communicate clarity and reinforce clarity. That might not sound like much to you, but it’s everything. Having read almost all of Patrick Lencioni’s books, this is the first one I read that was not a parable. That made it a little difficult to start really getting into but once I reached page 20 I was hooked. What he presents ...more

This is the first book I’ve read by Lencioni and I really enjoyed it. The premise is simple: the single greatest “x factor” that gives an organization, company, church, or team an advantage is their internal health as a unit. This comes when leaders in an organization stave off confusion by fighting to pursue lock-step unity with one another around their ideals, values, and purpose for existing. Once this happens, leaders must clearly articulate and actively communicate their values and their pl
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This one is a must read for anyone who wants to run a healthy organization. He provides the six questions every leader must ask and answer with their team in order to be effective when it comes to vision, mission, goals, strategy, and objectives. It includes how to develop trust on a team, how to think about performance evaluations, how to run effective meetings, and what kind of meetings to have in the first place. Highly recommend.

Lencioni is one of my favorite business leaders to learn from. "The Advantage" might pack the most punch in terms of the advice Lencioni offers, but being a personal fan of his fable style, it was my least favorite book of his to read. That isn't because it is poorly written, it is just written in a typical business style.
In "The Advantage," Lencioni asks the question: what is the most important thing a business can do? The answer to that isn't found in an organization's strategy, intelligence, ...more
In "The Advantage," Lencioni asks the question: what is the most important thing a business can do? The answer to that isn't found in an organization's strategy, intelligence, ...more

I had not read any Lencioni before this; that might have to change. From what I understand, several of his other books use narrative stories to convey leadership points; this book sought to bring together many of those lessons together with the key focus: that organizational health is the most important thing for a leader to focus on and for an organization to succeed. On why he wrote the book on organizational health: "it has never been presented as a simple, integrated, and practical disciplin
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This easy-to-read leadership handbook is Patrick Lencioni's follow up effort to his earlier and very effectively presented business fables. The subtitle - why organizational health trumps everything else in business - is a theme that resonates with me, and would with any manager who knows what attempting to lead in a dysfunctional organizational feels like. Nothing gets done until you fix the core issues.
Lencioni presents the deceptively simple 4 disciplines model, which is centered on building ...more
Lencioni presents the deceptively simple 4 disciplines model, which is centered on building ...more

Today I finished the first book of 2021, "The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business" by Patrick Lencioni. In this book, the author introduces a model for achieving success for companies through organizational health. The following four disciplines are necessary for a healthy organization.
DISCIPLINE 1: BUILD A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM
The first and most critical step in a healthy organization is creating a cohesive leadership team that is committed to do the ongoi ...more
DISCIPLINE 1: BUILD A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM
The first and most critical step in a healthy organization is creating a cohesive leadership team that is committed to do the ongoi ...more

Jul 11, 2017
David
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
business,
leadership
My pastor had all the team leaders at our church read this book. Leadership organization and business books are not usually my cup of tea, though they can be quite helpful. This one was great! I see lots of lessons and principles in here to use in my full-time ministry as well as my volunteer work at my church. It is great for ministry leaders, but is not faith based. Actually, it barely mentions churches at all. So if you're a business leader, this book would be great for you too. Basically, an
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Like most of Lencioni's books, this one was written primarily for business, but I find it helpful when looking at universities as well. If the organization is not healthy, it will fail, and there are some basic things that leaders can do to ensure that health. Lencioni argues that there are six fundamental questions to ask to determine how the organization sees itself, the first of which is "Why do we exist?" A simple question that I imagine will have many answers.
This one is going to stick with ...more
This one is going to stick with ...more

The book starts in an unfortunate "I'm the expert, let me share my stories supporting my theories" way. Recently, whenever I read a book like this, I get a rash. Fortunately, beside patting on his own back, author delivers value.
The value delivered in this book, would create a perfect mix with "E-Myth Revisited". This one is all about creating a clear mission statement for the company, dividing between strategy and tactics, making the company better. One could argue that some arguments and appro ...more
The value delivered in this book, would create a perfect mix with "E-Myth Revisited". This one is all about creating a clear mission statement for the company, dividing between strategy and tactics, making the company better. One could argue that some arguments and appro ...more

I had read one of Lencioni’s other works—5 Disfunctions of a Team—and thoroughly enjoyed it. This one was pretty dry and underwhelming. I actually really resonate with his thesis regarding the importance of organizational health. I just found myself wanting more—more anecdotes, more insights, more something.

Wow. This was terrific. There's no fluff here. Every paragraph serves its purpose, and there's just enough review for it to be helpful and not redundant. The clarity and comprehensiveness of this book is exhilarating. As a local church pastor, I plan to put much of this stuff to work. Thankful I've run across such an amazing resource.
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the thing is, we’re reading this as a leadership team but who wants a book just chilling on their goodreads for the three months it takes us to get through? no no, friends — i read it all (also so i could be done with it) (also so i wouldn’t have to wake up at 6 am on the mornings of our review meetings to cram it in)

Great book, short and very useful. Rhymes a lot with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (and probably with other books of his), but isn't too repetitive to be boring.
Will definitely re-read and will start by implementing some of the things in the small(-er) team, not execs. ...more
Will definitely re-read and will start by implementing some of the things in the small(-er) team, not execs. ...more

As a former high school English teacher, I would have FAILED Lencioni. Never have I seen arguments so sloppily built and glaringly lacking specificity. I got an hour into the audiobook and had no evidence that Lencioni had ever actually met another person, let alone that he had any expertise in business worth listening to.
Coming on the heels of Kim Scott's magnificent RADICAL CANDOR, this was a non-starter for me. ...more
Coming on the heels of Kim Scott's magnificent RADICAL CANDOR, this was a non-starter for me. ...more

I would say this book falls into the category of books which are good to introduce you into the topic. However, if you are already exploring psychology, how motivation works, learnings and how other soft skills work I don't think there will be too much new information you can get out of this book. It can help you refresh your memory but I haven't expanded my knowledge. If you want to start learning those things I think this would be a solid start. There is a couple of recommended sources in this
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It is a good and handy book, could be an actual handbook in a lot of cases. It still leaves me wanting something, just not sure what. Maybe that's inherent in topics when the ball is now in the reader's court, but maybe something more than that. I'm glad I read it, while not sure how much practical use this advice will see.
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Check out my review here:
http://www.sojournintoexile.com/thead... ...more
http://www.sojournintoexile.com/thead... ...more

Very easy reading, very easy concepts. But then love is an easy concept, but hard to get right. Creating a healthy workplace is hard work with simple, even common sense steps to take to get there. I'm sure many readers will react with a "duh" followed by "oh wait, I don't really do that. I totally neglected that."
While this is a book about leadership I couldn't help but read it as someone who left a job because of a lack of leadership. It helped me shape a new story for my experience at the U. ...more
While this is a book about leadership I couldn't help but read it as someone who left a job because of a lack of leadership. It helped me shape a new story for my experience at the U. ...more

Mar 05, 2016
Rusty Fulling
added it
June 2012 - Was a little disappointing after reading his other books that were fable style. This was definitely a more "how to" traditional approach of many business writers. While it is a good stand alone business management book - don't compare it to his previous writings.
Summary:
There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that ...more
Summary:
There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that ...more
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Patrick Lencioni is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker, consultant and founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to helping organizations become healthy. Lencioni’s ideas around leadership, teamwork and employee engagement have impacted organizations around the globe. His books have sold nearly three million copies worldwide.
When Lencioni is not writing, he consults to ...more
When Lencioni is not writing, he consults to ...more
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