A key message of author, Patrick Lencioni, is that the financial cost of running an unhealthy organisation is huge because of waste, decreased productivity, increased employee turnover and lost customers – and I agree with him.
But the personal cost can be much higher, as he also explains:
“When leaders of an organisation are less than honest with one another, when they put the needs of their departments or their careers ahead of the needs of the greater organisation, when they are misaligned, confused, and inconsistent about what is important, they create real anguish for real human beings. And they experience that anguish themselves too.”
The author offers three reasons why leaders may choose to eschew organisational health:
- The sophistication bias: It’s too simple
- The adrenaline bias: It’s too much fun putting out fires
- The quantification bias: It’s challenging to accurately quantify, which makes it difficult for overly analytical leaders.
But he asserts that the most successful and long-lasting companies do proactively make an effort to focus on organisational health. In fact, after one chief executive was asked why competitors didn’t do so too, they answered almost sadly: “You know, I honestly believe they think it’s beneath them.”
Aligning goals
But Lencioni posits that organisational health, far from just being something touchy-feely, is bigger and more important than company culture alone. “More than a side dish or a flavour enhancer for the real meat and potatoes of business, it is the very plate on which the meat and potatoes sit,” he says.
In the bulk of the book, the author outlines the four disciplines that help to create organisational health, with the focus being on effective communication and ensuring that individuals and teams throughout the whole organisation are truly aligned with corporate goals.
While such advice may sound obvious, it isn’t always as easy as it seems to achieve in practice. But Lencioni explains the importance of this approach when clarifying the negative impact on staff of small misalignments within the leadership team – even if those staff really do want to work together:
“By failing to eliminate even those small gaps, they are leaving employees below them to fight bloody, unwinnable battles with their peers in other departments,” the author says.
Having recently experienced just that situation with a client myself, I couldn’t agree more.
To illustrate the point, Lencioni cites examples from BBC TV’s The Office series, takes an in-depth look at values, explores recruitment, rewards and meetings and also offers the best advice on employee communications that I’ve seen in a non-professional communicators book.
Reviewer’s rating
Lencioni is a favourite business author of mine and I have read all of his books. While ‘The Advantage’ was just as compelling a read as the others, be careful not to be taken in by the simplicity of his style as the content is really rather profound.
I think the work would be especially helpful for HR practitioners who prefer ‘bigger picture’ thinking and are already competent in implementing programmes or are fabulous with people.
Having said that, the book does contain a wealth of practical yet profound advice that would be of benefit to any HR or organisational development professional.
It would also be an excellent gift for leaders and managers, especially if they don’t necessarily understand what it is that you are attempting to achieve…
- Our reviewer this time was Una Doyle, an accrediting Talent Dynamics consultant and intrapreneur coach.
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