Guest Sticky Book Review by Bob Bare

Would I recommend The FOUR OBSESSIONS of an EXTRAORDINARY EXECUTIVE?
Are you a one man show, or working with a small team? Forget this book, it’s not written for you. Are you part of a small to medium sized business, but don’t have the authority to make major changes? Then don’t read this book, either. You’ll be as frustrated as a pilot in coach section during a storm. You’ll see all the danger signs, but won’t be able to do anything about them.

If you are an executive or owner of a company that has at least one level of management between you and the ground troops, and you are concerned about the long term viability of your company, I would definitely recommend this book to you.

This isn’t a book about tactics for growth or market share, although your business will flourish if you become obsessive about the four obsessions. The book is about the health of your business, the culture and fitness of the organism of your company. It’s not like drinking a Red Bull to jazz you up for the moment, but it’s about a company management lifestyle that keeps your company healthy and kicking well after most others are relegated to the nursing home.

Overall stickiness:
I’d rate this as a four-sticky book—if you fit the target audience. The reason it gets lowered to a four-sticky has nothing to do with the readability or ideas. The lower rating comes because the applications are not easy for most people to do. There isn’t a quick check-off list for next week’s to-do list. Some of the applications involve real change, both in yourself and your organization. And as you may have already discovered, significant change is neither always quick nor easy.

Application:
Why only a 3 sticky? Even though there is an entire section called “Putting the Disciplines into Practice”, the solutions offered are not easy. Most of us get so busy “spinning plates” (did you see the same Ed Sullivan show I did as a kid?), that we don’t have time to contemplate principles and disciplines. If you’re serious about the long term success of your business (think generational), you’ll need to spend time thinking about and discussing how to implement these ideas.

Take just this one concept from Lencioni: “Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team”. That requires a greater commitment than most executives will give. It includes conflict, transparency, accountability, and committing to group decisions. If you want an enjoyable read and challenging ideas, you’ll get both in this book. But to implement it takes a “Braveheart” attitude.

Ideas:
I give this book a five sticky on ideas. Not only are there ideas on how to handle present team dysfunctions, but also on how to prevent future ones. Besides executives, there are ideas here that anyone involved in interviewing, hiring, and training employees should read and implement.

Have you seen conflict, jealousy, or personality conflicts in your organization? Patrick Lencioni not only points out why they occur, but gives great ideas on how to handle them, especially from the viewpoint of the management team. Old school management may have worked fine in the 1950s, but business and culture has changed. The same old carrot may not be appealing to your younger employees, and the stick that managers used to shake may not make them frighten them anymore.

Style:
O.K., I must admit I enjoy the “story telling” approach to business books, such as Og Mandino’s “The Greatest Salesman” approach. I can pick up the implications, and it keeps my interest. If you are a “what’s the bottom line” type of person, you can skip the novel and go directly to the back of the book, but you’d probably miss a lot of the “aha” moments. The story for the first two thirds of the book is what gives it a “five sticky” for me. The story is like going to a play, and the last third puts what you just read into perspective and tells you what needs to be done to bring the culture to your company.

My Biggest Insight:
My biggest insight was the realization of what only one bad apple on the management team can do to undermine the CEO, and cause havoc in the entire organization. Like an airborne bacterium in an elevator, only drastic treatment can sometimes bring the team back to health. The required cure may not be fun, but it may be necessary. The contrast between the two competing consulting companies helps evaluate the health of your own company.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):
Remember the old Wall Street Journal sales letter? Two young men start out from college, on turns into a successful executive who owns and runs a company, the other ends up as his employee. The pitch was that the man who was successful became so because he subscribed to the Wall Street Journal. Nice story, and it has sold millions of subscriptions, but I really doubt that reading the Wall Street Journal every day would have that dramatic an effect.

This book could be the story of those two men. If so, it would explain the real reasons for their success. What they did, besides read the newspaper, that made one the head of a healthy enterprise, and the other always trying to figure out how the other guy was so successful.

A person that reads this book at the beginning of his career, and applied the concepts, in my opinion, would get the kind of results promised by that sales letter. This is not a list of tactics to apply, but a book of foundational principles that can build a long lasting, healthy enterprise if followed.

The most powerful concept in this book is that the health of the entire organization is affected by the attitude, priorities, and emotional health of the person at the top. To improve your company, you have to improve yourself.

Introductory concepts:
1) Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team

a) Knowing one another’s unique strengths and weaknesses
b) Opening engaging in constructive ideological conflict
c) Holding one another accountable for behaviours and actions
d) Committing to group decisions

2) Create Organizational Clarity
a) Why the organization exists
b) Which behavioural values are fundamental
c) What specific business it is in
d) Who its competitors are
e) How it is unique
f) What it plans to achieve
g) Who is responsible for what

3) Over-Communicate Organizational Clarity
a) Repetition
b) Simplicity
c) Multiple mediums
d) Cascading messages

4) Reinforce Organizational Clarity Through Human Systems
a) Hiring
b) Managing performance
c) Rewards and recognition
d) Employee dismissal

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Obsessions-Extraordinary-Executive-Leadership/dp/0787954039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268324865&sr=8-1

·        Author: Patrick Lencioni
·        Hardcover: 184 pages
·        Publisher: Jossey-Bass – 1 edition (September 1, 2000)
·        Language: English
·        ISBN-10:   0-7879-5403-9
·        ISBN-13: 978-0787954031

Guest Author: Bob Bare
www.hearinghaven.com
www.expertclick.com/19-3158