The Advantage - Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything - by Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni is one of my favorite writers on leadership. I've used his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team in many settings. It always resonates with church governing boards.

In this new book he pulls together the five dysfunctions and a host of other ideas under the rubric of organizational health.

Outstanding organizations need to be both smart and healthy. Being Smart implies that an organization has its act together with its strategy, marketing, finance, and technology. It's fair to say that many churches don't do too well on this side, but given all the canned programs that are available, most churches have sharp enough leaders to make sure these things are taken care of.

What's being Healthy imply? Minimal politics, minimal confusion, high morale, high productivity, and low turnover. Lencioni asserts that many companies are really good at the Smart side and are terrible with the Healthy side. I've certainly seen lots of churches who are paralyzed with destructive politics, are confused, crushed with low morale, have a revolving door, and consequently aren't productive (and often have no clue about how God wants them to be productive).

He declares that "Health Begets - and Trumps - Intelligence. An organization that is healthy will inevitably get smarter over time. That's because people in a healthy organization, beginning with the leaders, learn from one another, identify critical issues, and recover quickly from mistakes. Without politics and confusion getting in their way, they cycle through problems and rally around solutions much faster than their dysfunctional and political rivals do. Moreover, they create environments in which employees do the same."

Here is an annotated Table of Contents (Lencioni's words are in italics.  Mine are not.  I'll make some specific applications to leading a church.) 

Introduction

The Case for Organizational Health

Stooping to Greatness

The Three Biases

Understanding Organizational Health

The Four Disciplines Model

#1 - Build a Cohesive Leadership team

#2 - Create Clarity

#3 - Overcommunicate Clarity

#4 - Reinforce Clarity

Discipline 1 - - Build a Cohesive Leadership team (uses the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model)

I have covered this in previous newsletters. It's also on my website. Each behavior is critical. The base is trust. If members of your church, especially leaders, don't trust one another, then building trust is job #1! Otherwise you're wasting your time.

What's it Worth to You?

Behavior #1 - Building Trust

#2 - Mastering Conflict

#3 - Achieving Commitment

#4 - Embracing Accountability

#5 - Focusing on Results

Discipline #2 - Create Clarity

Six Critical Questions

#1 - Why do we exist?

Lencioni challenges us to ask why should our church even exist? What is God calling us to be and do that makes this world a better place, that leads us to God's new reign??? Lencioni says "In order to successfully identify their organization's purpose, leaders must accept the notion that all organizations exist to make people's live better. Again, that sounds idealistic, but every enterprise - every last one - ultimately should exist to do just that. To aspire to anything less would be foolish."

Remember, he writes primarily for a business audience. How much more his words should resonate with church leaders!

Why does your church exist? I've seen some churches whose reason for existence might be:

• provide fine classical music to the community
• be a vehicle for dispensing aid to poor people
• be a venue for hatching, matching, and dispatching (i.e. baptizing, marrying, and burying)!
• take care of the building and cemetery that have been here for generations

All good reasons, but do they really capture the essence of Jesus' great commandment and great commission?

Why does your church exist??? 

#2 - How do we behave? What are our 3-4 core values - our real, not idealized values?

#3 - What do we do? Write a simple description.

#4 - How will we succeed?  Identify three strategic anchors that guide decisions.

#5 - What is most important, Right now? This has to do with clarifying the one thing that you need to focus on that is truly most important right now. It echoes Jesus' command to prune our vine. We can't do everything at once. What does Christ want us to focus on to bring about his new reign of love, peace, justice, and joy???

#6 - Who must do what?

The Playbook

Discipline #3 - Overcommunicate Clarity - how often I've heard pastors and members moan about how nobody knows what anyone else is doing. What confusion and conflict arise when a Board springs something on a congregation without have good conversations and making sure that everyone is clear on issues and decisions.

Cascading Communication

Upward and Lateral Communication

Discipline #4 - Reinforce Clarity

Non- Generics

Recruiting and hiring

Orientation

Performance Management

Compensation and rewards

Recognition

Firing

The Centrality of Great Meetings

The Four Meetings:Lencioni (expanded in his book Death by Meeting) points out that organizations often get confused about why they are meeting. What's the purpose? He suggests these four types of meetings that accomplish a range of objectives, from very short term communication to long term vision and strategy. These are similar to the distinctions Dan Hotchkiss makes in his book Governance and Ministry. It's important to avoid mixing longer term strategic meetings with nuts and bolts stuff. I've added some notes about how this idea might be applied in a church.

1. Daily Check-Ins - 5-10 minutes - brief updates by leaders on team - with lay leaders, it might be a quick meeting on a Sunday morning

2. Weekly Staff - 45 - 90 minutes - tactical - Real time agenda - what's on top - he has a fairly simple process of assessing and then dealing with things. This might be done in the monthly Board meeting by working with leaders to decide what is most important to focus on at that meeting. This is tactical - i.e. it's very practical. Alternately, if you have Ministry Teams who head the nuts and bolts ministry, then they would handle most of these items.

3. Ad-hoc - strategic - 2-4 hours - topical - The Board could focus on one or two big issues at their meetings, e.g. responding to changes in the neighborhood, planning and implementing a new Sunday morning format, launching a small group initiative. These involve everyone in big plans and coordinating big ideas. A key is to separate strategic conversations from tactical ones.

4. Quarterly off-site review - 1-2 days - Developmental - Deal with the really big questions that require significant study and reflection, team building, etc. Most church boards wouldn't take this much time every quarter, but might you do an all day meeting twice a year? This might be especially important to do as you bring new members on to the Board.

(at the end of each meeting, double check that you have agreement and commitment as to who is doing what)

The Leader's Sacrifice

"At every step in the process, the leaders must be out front, not as a cheerleader of a figurehead, but as an active, tenacious driver.... They must be the first to do the hardest things, like demonstrating vulnerability, provoking conflict, confronting people about their behavior, or calling their direct reports out when they're putting themselves ahead of the team."

Again, I urge you to get this book. Lencioni's insights apply very directly to congregations.  

Further, I'd love to coach you as you apply these insights.  Based on this framework, I'd ask you lots of questions to help you lead your church to be more healthy.