Review: The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The presentation of a leadership book as a fable (story) is brilliant.

Patrick Lencioni's timeless classic outlines 4 disciplines that every executive / leader should focus on:

DISCIPLINE ONE: BUILD AND MAINTAIN A COHESIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM.
DISCIPLINE TWO: CREATE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY.
DISCIPLINE THREE: OVER-COMMUNICATE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY.
DISCIPLINE FOUR: REINFORCE ORGANIZATIONAL CLARITY THROUGH HUMAN SYSTEMS.

An important part of this book is the fact the leadership groups, and in particular executive meetings have the following elements (spoilers ahead):

- Passionate. Intense. Exhausting. Never boring.
- For cohesive teams, meetings are compelling and vital.
- They are forums for asking difficult questions, challenging one another’s ideas, and ultimately arriving at decisions that everyone agrees to support and adhere to, in the best interests of the company.
- Members hold their peers accountable for behaviors that are not conducive to team performance.
- No one reads e-mail or does ancillary busywork during meetings, even when the issue on the table is not directly related to them.
- Everyone is involved and awake. If an issue hits the agenda and it is not compelling or critical, team members question whether it is worth their time.
- Finally, cohesive teams fight. But they fight about issues, not personalities. Most important, when they are done fighting, they have an amazing capacity to move on to the next issue, with no residual feelings.

This can all be summarised into,

BE COHESIVE. BE CLEAR. OVER-COMMUNICATE. REINFORCE.

View all my reviews