Review: Silos, Politics and Turf Wars July 01, 2006
Skip Corsini
By Skip Corsini
Patrick Lencioni has another hit on his hands. His best-known work thus far, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, set a high standard that he exceeds this time. As with all his books, fiction and realism blend to tell the story of Jude Cousins, who leaves a cushy corporate gig to start his own consultancy and finds out how challenging it can be keeping everybody pulling on the same end of the rope.
Cousins decides to develop a tool not unlike Jim Collins' tool from Built to Last, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and here, it is the single unifying message in the form of a thematic goal.
More than a simple rallying cry, the thematic goal is by definition a single qualitative focus shared by the entire leadership team and, ultimately, the whole organization, but it applies for only a specifie time. Everything that happens in the organization is built around the thematic goal. It's a sound framework for any organization facing outside threats and inside squabbles. Which means every organization. If yours is like the rest, go buy some Lencioni. —S.C.
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