Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business
The core premise of this book is that "the single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health". Lencioni goes on to say that despite this being simple, free and available to anyone who wants it, most leaders ignore it.
So what is organisational health and why is it so important?
Organisational health
Lencioni defines a healthy organisation as one that has integrity - i.e. is whole, consistent and complete. In other words, its management, operations, strategy and culture fit together and make sense. Healthy organisations have minimal politics, turnover and confusion, together with high morale and productivity.
To be successful, an organisation must be healthy and must also be smart (i.e. have good strategy, marketing, finance and technology). Yet most leaders gravitate to the smart side of the equation and ignore the health aspect.
The four disciplines model
An organisation doesn't become healthy through a linear process. Instead, Lencioni identifies four key disciplines that together will over time generate good health:
- Build a cohesive leadership team - for this, trust is essential and that entails letting go of the need for invulnerability
- Create clarity regarding 6 key questions: Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How do we succeed? What is most important, right now? Who must do what?
- Overcommunicate clarity through constantly communicating these answers to employees
- Reinforce clarity through consistent non-bureaucratic systems and practices
Centrality of great meetings
The final discipline that truly enables a healthy organisation according to Lencioni is the way in which leadership team meetings are conducted. Bad meetings, he says, are the birthplace of unhealthy organisations, and good meetings are the origin of cohesion, clarity, and communication. Essential aspects of good meetings include:
- keeping tactical and strategic discussions separate
- agendas are set only after a review of progress against goals
- enough time is allowed for discussion, debate and resolution (this must include permission for conflict to be honestly aired and resolved)
- quarterly off-site meetings to review what's happening in the industry, the organisation and the team
"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."Patrick Lencioni