Rating: 8
April 29, 2008
This is Patrick Lencioni’s fifth book, but I put his last three books in a trilogy of sorts. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team was the first, and highlighted a model to help a team function with health and vibrancy. It’s the best of the three. Then, he followed that book with Death by Meeting, which offers a solution to the problem of boring meetings. It’s the worst of the three, because the solution can be hard to implement. But his concepts are still solid, and it’s still worth the read. Then comes this book.
He offers a really helpful model to help break down the departmental turf wars and politicking in an organization. Again, it’s solid. He delivers an entertaining fable, and then backs it up with a model. But I always find the fable part more insightful and compelling (but I have many friends who would disagree with me).
Lencioni calls organizations to create a thematic goal: something that an organization should chase for a short period of time ranging from a month to a year. If an organization has a BHAG (a Big Hairy Audacious Goal from the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras), then these thematic goals go a long way to help bridge the long-term dream with short-term strategic practicals.
Then, the thematic goal and each of its defining objectives are to be used as a report card for each meeting. It can help an executive team have a quick understanding of their progress toward the thematic goal.
Thus, if the first book in the trilogy helps you have a functioning team, and the second tells you how to run a meeting, the third helps give some direction about how to use those meetings for greater organizational goals.
Overall, it’s a helpful read that really seems to have the ability to tear down silos and silence turf wars so that you’re organization can reach its goals.
You can view its Amazon detail page by clicking the image above.
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