Book Review: Getting Naked

Getting Naked: A Business Fable about Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty by Patrick Lencioni

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Great consultants are leaders.  They develop a particular area of expertise and use it to influence their clients to make decisions that are in their organizational best interests.  Much time, effort, and money can be wasted whenever a consultant fails to persuade, which happens whenever s/he is not liked or trusted by the people in the client group.  Patrick Lencioni is a well-regarded organizational development consultant whose previous books (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting, for example) address specific issues faced by consultants and client groups.  In Getting Naked, Lencioni turns his attention to the business of consulting itself and offers clear and cogent advice about how to build and maintain strong relationships with clients. 

Among the golden nuggets:
           *Always consult instead of sell. (Answer their questions and don't worry about whether you have a contract.)
           *Give away the business. (Don't worry about the so-called problem of free advice.  Just help people and eventually you'll have all the business you need.)
           *Enter the danger. (Dive into the conflict between group members. They need an outsider to help, and you are it!)
           *Take a bullet for the client. (The consultant is expendable. Let them throw you under the bus.)
           *Do the dirty work. (Type up the meeting notes, wash the whiteboard, spare the others.)

The "getting naked" idea has to do with being vulnerable, admitting when you don't know something, or acknowledging an error.  Most consultants struggle with a perceived need to be the expert all the time (after all, they are paying you money for your guidance.)  But we are people too, with weaknesses like everyone else.  It's OK - even preferable - to let others see that.  Clients are more likely to reward that than to punish it. 

Like all of Lencioni's fable-style books, this is a good read, fun and practical.  As a consultant, I'm sure glad he turned his attention to our unique situation and needs.  Very helpful. For those who are interested to learn more, you can download a free two-page summary, written by me, by clicking here.


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Book Review: Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars

Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable about Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick Lencioni

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The thing to know about Patrick Lencioni's fables is that they are written from a consultant's perspective.  Since I am a consultant, I deeply appreciate that. It helps to have established methods and models to effectively help client organizations work through their challenges.  Both Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death by Meeting contain excellent tools I have used to help others identify their specific needs and take steps to improve.  It's fun work. 

In my practice I have sometimes found it difficult to convince clients that their team is dysfunctional or that their meetings don't have to suck.  In those cases, I can rely on one or more of the tools in Lencioni's books to help then diagnose their issues themselves, which of course increases buy-in for whatever solutions are chosen.  With Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, however, no such tools exist.  When units within an organization are siloed (not communicating effectively) or when people are spending energy guarding their turf rather than contributing to team success, it seems particularly easy to blame others. "It's the fault of the people in that other department. They are causing the problems." That's when my client really needs me to share my observations directly and suggest strategies for changing their own habits and practices. And that's where Lencioni lets me down this time.

In the fable, an aspiring consultant identifies turf issues at play in each of the first three clients he takes on. As the story progresses, we see how he addresses the problems and reveals his method for helping them work through it.  We even get to see him fall on his face, causing real damage by ham-handedly pointing out how internal politics is holding one organization back.  Though it almost gets him fired, he pulls it out in the end.  This was an excellent caution for me as a consultant... but Lencioni then provides little guidance on how to avoid the same mistake myself.

As with all of Lencioni's works, the "model" is described in the last 30 pages.  For Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, the prescription includes 1) identifying an over-arching, organization-wide "thematic goal", 2) establishing "defining objectives," 3) developing a set of "ongoing standard operating objectives", and 4) choosing the "metrics" with which to measure progress.  All good stuff and hugely beneficial for any group of two or more people. I just wish I knew how to convince more of my clients that this is the way to go. I think the need for goals, objectives, and metrics is so obvious to Lencioni (as it is to me) that he struggles to articulate the "why" part, though that is exactly the part that people outside of our professional field need most.

Still, I am glad I read this one and I will also recommend it to anyone I think will benefit.  Maybe someday I will be the one who figures out how to explain the why part, and write that book myself. 



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Book Review: Death by Meeting

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick Lencioni

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nine times out of 10, when someone says "we need our nonprofit board to be more 'business-like,'" what they are really saying is "we need these meetings to suck less."  That's one reason why I enjoyed this book.  The other reason is this: I love meetings.  Working collaboratively with others is a big thrill for me, one of my strengths, something that gets me going in the morning.  But good collaboration requires face time, sometimes in large-ish groups, and it can be difficult to convince others to set a meeting or attend one if their usual experience of meetings is a slow death.

Lencioni goes directly at the resistance so many of us have to meetings and offers straightforward, easily implementable advice for making each meeting worthwhile and productive.  Following the fictitious fable, in which our hero introduces an effective meeting method to a group of skeptical stock characters, Lencioni spells out his plan for stopping the endless string of boring and ineffective meetings that dominate most of our work lives. He encourages readers to differentiate meetings based on their desired outcome and to plan each accordingly: a daily check in with your team is a different thing than an annual planning meeting.  Don't you wish everyone in your community knew that?

It's always good to find an unread Lencioni fable on my shelf at the end of a long day when my eyes are still working well enough to read but my brain is a bit saturated.  The short story part is quickly read and easily digested, usually good for a knowing giggle or two.  The description of the method is well-organized and concise.  This is why Lencioni is one of our favorite business authors today... and why I'll keep picking up his fables as long as he keeps putting them out.  





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Books with Tools, Part 1

Some of the best books in personal and organizational development contain assessment tools or exercises that enrich the learning experience for individuals or groups.  I have found many of these tools useful in my consulting practice, working with organizations on planning, team building, or otherwise improving their processes or operations.  Here are some of my favorites. Click on the title of any of these books to download a free two-page summary written by me.  

The Strengths Series:  One of the fastest and best ways there is to help a group of people unite as a team is to have them each take the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment online and then share their results with each other.  The code for the online test comes with several books, each building upon the last.  Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton (The Free Press 2001) explains the strengths theory in some detail and provides tips for managing or working with individuals who have the various signature themes of talent.   Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie (Gallup Press 2008) breaks the signature themes into categories and shows how well-rounded teams make the most of each individual's unique talents.  Another great one by Marcus Buckingham, Go, Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance does not make use of the 34 signature themes but provides its own online tool for identifying strategies individual readers can use to offer more of their best at work.



Building Functional Teams:  The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni (Jossey-Bass, 2002) is a fable-style story about the most common barriers work groups most overcome if they are to be effective.  The book contains a 15-question self-assessment that I have used productively both to help client organizations determine how they might work together better and also to measure progress over the course of a team-building project. 



Understanding the Nature of Trust: When Stephen M.R. Covey and Rebecca Merrill first published The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything (Free Press, 2006) I was truly amazed at what a rich and deep subject matter the nature of trust can be.  The authors provide easy-to-understand bullets on what they call the "Four Cores of Credibility" and also the "13 Behaviors of Trust" which make a nice handout for groups wrestling with trust issues.  Because the most important action anyone can take to rebuild trust where it has been lost is to address their own trustworthiness, the authors provide two self-assessments that individuals always find eye-opening, if not disturbing. 


The Habits of Successful Organizations:  Those interested in a book that is more worksheets, checklists, and templates than actual narrative will be glad to pick up Six Disciplines for Excellence: Building Small Businesses that Learn, Last and Lead by Gary Harpst (Synergy Books, 2007).  Harpst, the founder and CEO of an organizational development firm, provides dozens of illustrations for each of the six areas of the cycle of excellence he describes: 1) Decide What is Important, 2) Set Goals that Lead, 3) Align Systems, 4) Work the Plan, 5) Innovate Purposefully, and 6) Step Back.  There are tools for analyzing likely return on investment, for collecting stakeholder feedback on draft goals, for conducting brainstorming exercises, and hundreds more. 

There are many books such as these with tools and exercises to explore and deploy, so check back here next week for more.

Book Review: Five Dysfunctions of a Team

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I use a lot of books in my consulting practice... popular works I think will connect with whatever group or individual professional I am working with.  Over the years, I have turned to Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team over and over again.  The concepts are quick to grasp and hugely familiar to just about anyone who has ever had to work with others to accomplish an objective.  We can all recognize ourselves in the fable's characters, and then learn some strategies and tactics for overcoming the problems we have created together.

Note that I am not crazy about the term "dysfunction."  It can feel judgey to people and it usually helps to show clients you are on their side when you are trying to help them.  Sometimes, I recast the "dysfunctions" as "characteristics of a high-functioning team" - High degree of trust, Ability to disagree with each other, etc.  Still, I always give credit to the authors whose work I use and Lencioni called it Dysfunction so dysfunction it is. 

If you can't get your colleagues to read the book (it'll take all of two hours), then draw them the pyramid at your next opportunity.  If just one lightbulb clicks on, you'll be ahead of where you were. You can also use a copy of the two-page summary I have posted here.



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