Every highly effective company I’ve worked with has been led by people who work hard to create the four things highlighted in Patrick Lencioni’s The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. My favourite book of his – The Advantage – is essentially a more in-depth look at these four obsessions.
The Four Obsessions
If you lead a company, you’d do well to follow his advice and obsess about these four things…
1️⃣ Building and Maintaining a Cohesive Leadership Team
This involves creating a team based on trust, devoid of politics, where members engage in open, honest discussions and decisions are supported collectively. In other words, a tight-knit leadership team which functions as any good team should and doesn’t exhibit any of the The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
2️⃣ Creating Organisational Clarity
Achieving unity and focus within the organisation by answering critical questions about its purpose, values, goals, and metrics. This clarity empowers employees to make decisions autonomously within defined boundaries. This is often hard to do, because it requires us to make big, hard decisions.
3️⃣ Over-Communicating Organisational Clarity
Once clarity is established, it’s crucial to repeatedly communicate it to everyone using simple messages through various mediums to ensure understanding and alignment throughout the organisation. Again and again and again.
4️⃣ Reinforcing Organisational Clarity Through Human Systems
Embedding organisational clarity into the organisation's systems and processes such as hiring, performance management, rewards, and recognition. This ensures that all human systems support and reinforce the organisation's clarity and direction without creating unnecessary bureaucracy along the way.
Further Reading
I touched on this in my article on Organisational Health, but I’d strongly recommend picking up a copy of The Advantage and reading it through.
