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July 9 - July 16, 2023
An organization has integrity—is healthy—when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense.
A good way to recognize health is to look for the signs that indicate an organization has it. These include minimal politics and confusion, high degrees of morale and productivity, and very low turnover among good employees.
Most leaders prefer to look for answers where the light is better, where they are more comfortable. And the light is certainly better in the measurable, objective, and data-driven world of organizational intelligence (the smart side of the equation) than it is in the messier, more unpredictable world of organizational health.
No magazine or newspaper wants to run a story about a humble leader who continues to run her medium-sized company with discipline, common sense, and consistency.
DISCIPLINE 1: BUILD A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM
DISCIPLINE 2: CREATE CLARITY
DISCIPLINE 3: OVERCOMMUNICATE CLARITY
DISCIPLINE 4: REINFORCE CLARITY
A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.
Inclusivity, or the basic idea behind it, should be achieved by ensuring that the members of a leadership team are adequately representing and tapping into the opinions of the people who work for them, not by maximizing the size of the team.
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 talent or insight to the table.
Collective responsibility implies, more than anything else, selflessness and shared sacrifices from team members.
The kind of trust that is necessary to build a great team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. This is what happens when members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest, and naked with one another, where they say and genuinely mean things like “I screwed up,” “I need help,” “Your idea is better than mine,” “I wish I could learn to do that as well as you do,” and even, “I’m sorry.”
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. To hold someone accountable is to care about them enough to risk having them blame you for pointing out their deficiencies.
Conflict is about issues and ideas, while accountability is about performance and behavior.
These are the six questions: 1. Why do we exist? 2. How do we behave? 3. What do we do? 4. How will we succeed? 5. What is most important, right now? 6. Who must do what? If members of a leadership team can rally around clear answers to these fundamental questions—without using jargon and smarmy language—they will drastically increase the likelihood of creating a healthy organization.
enduring, successful companies adhered strictly to a fundamental set of principles that guided their behaviors and decisions over time, preserving the essence of the organization.
values are critical because they define a company’s personality. They provide employees with clarity about how to behave, which reduces the need for inefficient and demoralizing micromanagement.
Essentially we decided that an organization’s strategy is simply its plan for success. It’s nothing more than the collection of intentional decisions a company makes to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate from competitors. That means every single decision, if it is made intentionally and consistently, will be part of the overall strategy.
“If everything is important, nothing is.”
I will repeat, yet again, that without a clear understanding of what a cultural fit—or misfit—looks like, without a proper mix of consistency and flexibility, and without the active involvement of the leadership team, even the most sophisticated hiring process will fail.
