REVIEW: "The heart of the company," Patrick Lencioni

What associations do you have when you hear the word "successful organization"? Most likely, you will say that this company is the market leader, in her multi-million dollar, and the name of the organization on everyone's lips. And how do you describe a healthy organization?

Many believe that a healthy organization = successful organization. But it is not so. Healthy company - is not only financially successful company with a good reputation. It is also an organization, a team which is a command, not just a group of people who paid and spend hours in the same room. This is a company whose corporate culture is not only in the joint and cheerful pastime employees, but also in the fact that employees share the values ​​of the organization. This is a company, every employee who did not hesitate to openly express their thoughts on the general meetings. In such companies do not avoid

conflictsBecause they know that they can not only be destructive, but also productive.

It is about how to create a healthy organization, says in his book, Patrick Lencioni.

"The heart of the company" captivates his sincerity from the first pages. Lencioni begins his book with laudatory odes to himself, declaring himself omniscient professional. He writes that this work - "the result of an unexpected journey." Travel is started in the childhood of the author, when his father, a talented sales agent, "often returned from work upset, lamenting about how to manage his company." Even as a child, Patrick understood that this should not happen.

Still studying in college, Lencioni started working, got the first ideas about management, and after graduation got a job at a consulting firm. And then he felt something of what his father said. According to the author, he taught finance, strategy, marketing, but is almost never - the principles of functioning of the organization as a whole.

The greatest opportunity to gain a competitive advantage is not in strategy, finance and marketing; is something less clearly - and it soars along the road on which the organization go.

Patrick Lencioni

And then Patrick decided to devote his career finding this missing component of a healthy organization. He began working in the field of organizational development in corporate America, and later, together with his colleagues set up his own company and began counseling. Now Patrick Lencioni - founder and president of The Table Group, since 1997 engaged in assisting managers seeking to improvement of their companies.

the company's recovery task

The first chapter of the book "The heart of the company" demonstrates to the reader that the company's recovery objective should be a priority for managers. Examines prejudices and mistakes managers, which often interfere to create a healthy organization. The author also tells and shows the reader with concrete examples, that the price of the company's ill health is too high.

In fact, the recovery of the company - it's integrity, but not in ethical or moral terms, it is often assumed today. The organization has integrity - health - when it is monolithic, self-sufficient and stable, that is, when the management, operations, strategy, and culture coordinated and meaningful.

Patrick Lencioni

Four necessary steps

This chapter describes the four mandatory steps that you need to do on the way to a healthy organization:

1. Create a cohesive management team.
2. Gain clarity.
3. To extend clarity.
4. Reinforce clarity.

As is known, the fish rots from the head, and if among the governing structure of the organization there is no understanding, there is no clearly defined goals if after the meeting leaders leave the porridge in the head and then give their subordinates instructions themselves did not understand why they do it, the organization will be short-lived successful player. To learn how to avoid these dire consequences, and is told in the second chapter of the book.

Lencioni says about how to rally the team leaders how to motivate them to work towards a common goal, how to teach them to be open with each other. When you have a management team that works consistently and clearly understands facing the company goals and objectives, you can proceed to the next step: to disseminate clear, that is clear and clearly communicated to the rank and file employees of the meaning of the tasks that before they stand.

The fourth step - to enhance clarity - is to ensure that all employees in their labor activities were guided by the values ​​and goals of the organization. Also in this chapter the author explains why it is important to hire only those who share the values ​​of the organization, and say goodbye to those who do not accept these values.

Saving even a strong employee who does not fit into the culture of the organization, it sends the rest employees a clear signal: the leaders are not too serious about the values ​​that declare.

Patrick Lencioni

Each of the four steps in this chapter ends with control statements. If you give them a positive answer, you can be sure that the necessary steps to improve the health of the company you have completed.

The leading role of meetings

If someone offered me to choose the only way to assess the health of the organization, I would prefer to watch the management team during the meeting.

Patrick Lencioni

Many employees do not like meetings, considering them to be a waste of time, which rarely leads to concrete results. Lencioni believes that the main reason for this attitude is that many managers spend Meeting in style "conference stew", that is dumping all operational issues in one pile and call it work Meeting. As a result, employees can not normally focus on any issue, as too many questions, and they broadcast them for a short period of time. What results from this meeting? That's right, zero.

"Meeting stew," the author proposes to replace the following types of meetings:

• Daily "flying detachment" (Duration: 5-10 minutes). The management team meets every day for a few minutes to discuss current affairs and exchange of operational information. If the management team is not possible to arrange personal meetings each working day, the daily flying detachment can be carried out by electronic messengers.
• Weekly (tactical) meeting (Duration: 45-90 minutes). Can be carried out once a week, once every two weeks or once a month. Lencioni believes that this type of meeting can approach "conference stew" and become useless discussion dozen questions. In order to avoid this, it offers no pre-form the agenda of the meeting, and in real time: the first 10 minutes Meeting to devote to each of the leaders identified two or three questions, which, in his opinion, are worthy discussion. This will help to turn the meeting into productive to address the real, not imaginary problems.
• Thematic meetings (Duration: 2-4 hours). This meeting on current topics, during which leaders are involved in dealing with difficult situations and problems. Problems can be very diverse: a sharp drop in the level of income, lack of staff or resources, and so on.
• Quarterly offsite meetings (Duration: 1-2 days). Such meetings are recommended away from the office. This will help managers a fresh look at the company's business, to evaluate the effectiveness of the team. During such meetings, leaders should make sure that they fulfill the four necessary steps, which we discussed above.

Mastering advantage

Organizations that were among the first to come to health will reap the fruits of the competitive advantages that will increase as the achievement of even greater separation from lagging competitors.

Patrick Lencioni

In this chapter, the author again emphasizes how important it is - take care of the health of the company. Lencioni also notes that the main role in the process of improvement of the company should play the head of the organization. That he should constantly remind team managers and employees that is really important for the organization. The CEO must own example to prove that the organization values ​​- is not just a line from a mission the company, and what every working day to guide staff in their professional activity.

I think that the head of the company in this context can be compared to a king who leads his army into battle and fought side by side with his soldiers. Remember how it raises morale, and how important it is in a battle? The company, which is headed by a responsible, active and genuinely interested in the affairs of man, will always have a competitive advantage.

It should be recognized that the impact of a healthy company goes far beyond it extends to customers and suppliers, and even spouses and children of employees. In the morning they escorted a family member to work with confidence, hope and expectation, and in the evening he returned home with a sense of accomplishment, the right to self-esteem and understanding of the contribution, made in order to the common cause. This influence is so important that it can not be measured.

Patrick Lencioni

Impressions from the book

In my opinion, the book "The heart of the company" - this is not a work that can be read once, even from cover to cover, and send it gather dust on a shelf. This is a real table textbook, which must constantly seek every manager who wants to create not only successful, but also a healthy organization. Although this book is not only for the leaders - I would advise you to read it HR-managers and PR-specialists who work with the internal organization of the public.

HR-managers, the people who are responsible for finding new staff - in order to understand what is required, not only in healthy organizations talented professionals, but also people who are able to share the organization's values, to become an active part of the team, not the stone that will pull it down. PR people learn much from this creation, for example, understand that corporate standards and values ​​were not Only university essays and term papers - this is what is built on the work of all employees' health organization.

Book pleased with the abundance of case studies of real companies, with whom Patrick Lencioni and his team had a chance to work. It has upset the lack of practical tasks. When it comes to such an important issue as the improvement of the company, a person reading a book would be very useful take a pen and paper and write down the points of how to apply just read the advice in the work with his organization.

Overall, "The heart of the company" - this is a very useful book for anyone who wants to build not only financially successful organization, but also the company, which employees see themselves as a cohesive team; proud of the success of the organization as their own; They feel that they are not just doing the tasks that put in front of them leaders, but also to actively contribute their suggestions and are not afraid to express their point of view.

"The heart of the company," Patrick Lencioni

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