The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business

by Patrick Lencioni

CHECKLIST FOR DISCIPLINE 4: REINFORCE CLARITY Members of a leadership team can be confident that they’ve mastered this discipline when they can affirm the following statements: The organization has a simple way to ensure that new hires are carefully selected based on the company’s values. New people are brought into the organization by thoroughly teaching them about the six elements of clarity. Managers throughout the organization have a simple, consistent, and nonbureaucratic system for setting goals and reviewing progress with employees. That system is customized around the elements of clarity. Employees who don’t fit the values are managed out of the organization. Poor performers who do fit the values are given the coaching and assistance they need to succeed. Compensation and reward systems are built around the values and goals of the organization.

Leaders do the same thing when they put all of their issues into one big discussion, usually called a “staff meeting.” All too often they combine administrative issues and tactical decisions and creative brainstorming and strategic analysis and personnel discussions into one exhausting meeting. And like that cook, somehow they are surprised when the result doesn’t turn out so well.

the human brain isn’t meant to process so many disparate topics in one sitting. There needs to be greater clarity and focus, which means that there needs to be different kinds of meetings for different kinds of issues. And, yes, that means there will be more meetings, not fewer.

What is most important, right now?

Tactical Meeting Scorecard

Essentially this part of the meeting is about stepping back and asking, How are we doing against the things we said are most important?

don’t know of a better system than green for “things are good, we’re ahead of schedule,” yellow for “we’re doing okay, but we’re not yet where we ought to be,” and red for “we’re way behind on this one.” (Okay, we allow teams to use lime green and orange for those in-between evaluations.) It should take a team only five or ten minutes

The beauty of this real-time agenda system is that the team will avoid the all-too-common problem of sitting through a presentation or a discussion of something that everyone knows is of little importance to the organization.

When leaders put together agendas ahead of time, they’re often influenced by people in the organization who do a good job lobbying them for face time at the next staff meeting. Before anyone knows what’s happening, they’re

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or even a troubling drop in morale, among many others.

the high point of being a leader in an organization is wrestling with difficult decisions and situations. Truncating those high points just doesn’t make sense.

The thesis behind all of this is worth repeating: a great deal of the time that leaders spend every day is a result of having to address issues that come about because they aren’t being resolved during meetings in the first place. That’s why it’s really hard for executives to make a credible case for spending less time in meetings, assuming those meetings are good ones.

CHECKLIST FOR MEETINGS Members of a leadership team can be confident that they’ve mastered meetings when they can affirm the following statements: Tactical and strategic discussions are addressed in separate meetings. During tactical staff meetings, agendas are set only after the team has reviewed its progress against goals. Noncritical administrative topics are easily discarded. During topical meetings, enough time is allocated to major issues to allow for clarification, debate, and resolution. The team meets quarterly away from the office to review what is happening in the industry, in the organization, and on the team.

there with the most obvious piece of advice yet: the person in charge of an organization’s leadership team is crucial to the success of any effort to build a healthy organization.

When it comes to building a cohesive team, leaders must drive the process even when their direct reports are less than excited about it initially. And they must be the first to do the hardest things, like demonstrating vulnerability, provoking conflict, confronting people about their behavior, or calling their direct reports out when they’re putting themselves ahead of the team.

The leader must also be the driving force behind demanding clear answers to the six big questions, even when everyone else wants to end the discussion and just agree to disagree.

challenging them about everything from their behaviors in relation to the organization’s values to their co...

leaders must not abdicate or delegate responsibility for communication and reinforcement of clarity.

be on guard against contradictory and inconsistent processes that can confuse employees and against bureaucracy that can creep into an organization when people get complacent.

CHECKLIST FOR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH Members of a leadership team can gain a general sense of their organization’s health and, more important, identify specific opportunities for improvement by completing the following checklist. Discipline 1: Build a Cohesive Leadership Team The leadership team is small enough (three to ten people) to be effective. Members of the team trust one another and can be genuinely vulnerable with each other. Team members regularly engage in productive, unfiltered conflict around important issues. The team leaves meetings with clear-cut, active, and specific agreements around decisions. Team members hold one another accountable to commitments and behaviors. Members of the leadership team are focused on team number one. They put the collective priorities and needs of the larger organization ahead of their own departments. Discipline 2: Create Clarity Members of the leadership team know, agree on, and are passionate about the reason that the organization exists. The leadership team has clarified and embraced a small, specific set of behavioral values. Leaders are clear and aligned around a strategy that helps them define success and differentiate from competitors. The leadership team has a clear, current goal around which they rally. They feel a collective sense of ownership for that goal. Members of the leadership team understand one another’s roles and responsibilities. They are comfortable asking questions about one another’s work. The elements of...

MORE RESOURCES If you’d like more information about the advantage of organizational health, visit our Web site at www.tablegroup.com/theadvantage. You’ll find the following resources there: Video clips about organizational health Complimentary organizational health survey Glossary of key terms Downloadable images for reference Road map for implementation Other dynamic tools and resources If you’d like someone to help you implement any of the concepts in this book, please contact us at The Table Group by calling 925–299–9700, or visit www.tablegroup.com.