Book Review

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, by Patrick Lencioni

ISBN-10: 0787954039

ISBN-13: 978-0787954031

Hardcover

Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition September 2000

Patrick Lencioni’s book “The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive” tells the story of two competing technology companies. Their CEOs, Rich and Vince, have the same background, both are hard working, intelligent and extremely driven. But it’s what drives them that ultimately leads to the discovery that a healthy organisation will eventually find ways to become smarter than their competitors. Vince is obsessed with being No. 1 and he spends most of his time learning everything he can about his competitors and how he can beat them, while Rich simply concentrates on his “four obsessions”; creating internal unity, having a clear purpose, communicating often and staying true to his own personal values.

This easy-to-read fable shows that it’s not enough to be smart; you need a healthy culture to be really successful. To succeed, you need persistence and a value system that encompasses:

- Building and maintaining a cohesive leadership team

- Creating organizational clarity

- Over communicating the organizational clarity and

- Reinforcing that clarity through human systems

In order to build and maintain a cohesive, trusting leadership team you need to resolve differences quickly and encourage animated and often heated discussions. Strong leadership teams don’t waste their time distrusting others or gossiping. They find ways to communicate and understand one another. They take time to agree on the fundamentals and set goals that create enthusiasm throughout the organisation. Their efforts are focused on making sure that everyone has clarity about what they want to achieve and they aren’t afraid to admit that they might be wrong.

Once everyone is moving in the same direction, successful organisations continually communicate where they’re going and what needs to be done to get there. They get the message out in writing, in marketing materials, on video, in newsletters, on banners, on badges, on business cards and by word of mouth. They reinforce their message by finding the right people and keeping them.

The book looks at a number of real-life examples of how to handle disagreements, problematic employees and non-performers and includes some self-assessment tools and suggestions for putting the ideas into practice.

I really enjoyed the book. Allegories have always been used to teach us valuable lessons without going into too much boring detail. I would recommend “Four Obsessions” to anyone who hates reading dull business books filled with big words and pie in the sky theories.