What We're Reading Now
18 February 2011
Allison read Silos, Politics and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni. We love it when clients give us reading assignments.
Tags: allison read, culture, leadership
We like Lencioni's approach to writing about important leadership and organizational issues. In fact, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team made our reading list of our seven all-time favorite books. So when a client asked me if I thought Silos, Politics and Turf Wars could be used to help her organization, I made a beeline for the local bookstore.
All of Lencioni's books follow a similar model. You get about 150 pages of fable (think Ken Blanchard's approach in books like The One Minute Manager, but with a bit more breadth and depth and maybe a little more sophistication.) Then you get 40 or so pages on the theory behind the fable and practical tools and exercises you can use to apply the theory to your organization.
In this book, the main character happens to be a consultant who works with a variety of different organizations who are struggling with silo issues. I'll skip all the stories for you and just share the big "ah-ha." Very often organizations in the midst of isolated or ongoing crisis (think hospital emergency room) are able to get beyond silos because they have a rallying call to move individuals and departments from "me" to "we." The consultant in this book asks his clients, "Why wait for the crisis?" Instead of waiting for the crisis, Lencioni's consultant suggests that organizations identify a rallying call and the daily operational objectives that help get work done. Those two breakthroughs (as straightforward as they sound) help equip individual departments to work for the good of the whole.
While this isn't my favorite Lencioni book, I do think it does a good job of naming the problem that might allow an organization to have an interesting conversation about how to move toward "we." However, I'm not sure it does a good enough job of really diving into the underlying relationship and behavioral issues that have to be addressed before you can get everyone to work side-by-side for the greater good.
Now I can't wait to talk to my client about what she thought about the book and how we might be able to use it to support her goals. By the way, if you really want to make our day at Allison Partners, ask us to read something to discuss with you. Maybe you could reply to this blog post and do just that!
Comments
Our Comment Policy:
Our blog posts are only half of the conversation. What our readers have to say is equally important to us, and we're grateful for all the comments that continue the dialog.
To ensure that the discussion here is as useful as possible to all of our readers, please be respectful of our contributors and refrain from harassing, threatening and/or vulgar language. We reserve the right to screen and remove any comments from the site. If you have a question about a comment or want to discuss our policy, please contact us. We'll talk it over.
There are no comments for this entry yet.