The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business

by Patrick Lencioni

I’ve always been amazed that even teams that embrace conflict and honest debate can still struggle with commitment. That’s because they fall short of arriving at specific agreements at the end of their discussions. Although they are sitting in the same room and speaking the same language, they often leave with different ideas about what was just decided. There is only one way I know to prevent this. At the end of every meeting, cohesive teams must take a few minutes to ensure that everyone sitting at the table is walking away with the same understanding about what has been agreed to and what they are committed to do. Unfortunately, people are usually eager to leave the room when a meeting is coming to a close, and so they are more than susceptible to tolerating a little ambiguity. That’s why functional teams maintain the discipline to review their commitments and stick around long enough to clarify anything that isn’t crystal clear. A good way to ensure that people take this process seriously is to demand that they go back to their teams after the meeting and communicate exactly what was agreed on. When team members know that they are going to have to stand in front of the people they lead and vouch for a decision, they are much more likely to push back on that decision if they don’t understand it or don’t agree with it. As painful as this may be to a group of executives who are more than ready to get out of a meeting, the only thing more painful than taking additional tim...