The four obsessions of an extraordinary executive
MONTHLY BOOK FEATURE:
The Four Obessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni
Our book of the month, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, is a leadership fable that has a true-to-life feeling throughout the story and paints a picture of a successful company built around what Patrick Lencioni considers the four obsessions:
Maintain and build a cohesive leadership team.
According to Lencioni, maintaining and building a cohesive leadership team is the first essential step in creating a healthy organization. A cohesive leadership team moves the whole company in the same direction. In order to create a Breakthrough Culture in any organization, the leadership team must be on the same page and be willing to move toward the accomplishment of major goals.
Create organizational clarity.
Organizational clarity means that you know who the company is, why you exist and the greater purpose the organization serves. This obsession develops the goals, strategies, mission, vision and values of the company – the heart of the company. Being clear on these things allows you to align every decision with what you stand for and creates a healthy organization.
Over-communicate organizational clarity.
Once the executive team has clarity, the task becomes over communicating the information to the whole organization. When every person in a company understands the vision, goals and expressed purpose of the organization, work can be delegated more effectively, employees feel empowered and have true confidence. Rather than speculating on the true motivations of the executives, employees feel included and connected to the company.
Reinforce organizational clarity through human systems.
Reinforcing the clarity - the values, vision and purpose of the company through human systems creates a culture that can sustain itself. When making the decision to hire or even fire an employee, that decision must align with the heart of the organization. When you choose to hire someone, look beyond the skills listed on the resume to see if the individual’s personal values, goals and purpose are compatible with your organization. Each person in your organization acts as an ambassador of who you are, and being vigilant on this front allows you to truly move toward being a world class employer.
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive explains these concepts through the highly readable story of two competing organizations, Greenwich Consulting and Telegraph Partners. The CEO of Greenwich, Vince Green struggles with the competition to the point of obsession – wanting to know what could possibly make Telegraph more successful. When he brings in an organizational development professor to compare the organization’s cultures, the differences become apparent – and they have everything to do with four disciplines listed above.
Before reading this book however, we have one warning: once you read a single Patrick Lencioni book you will be tempted to read them all. Luckily he’s only written five. His talent for crafting true to life, completely relatable stories may be unparalleled within the world of leadership studies.
