This edition of "A New Leaf" offers insight into the important areas of organizational health and your personal ability to change. The featured book review of "The Advantage" defines and identifies six key questions assessing the "health" of your organization. Our feature article provides three important questions to consider in assessing whether you are positioned for sustainable personal growth and development.

See Change Management remains fully engaged in working closely with both leaders and their organizations in improving their health and development. Second quarter activity included:

• Continuing to lead the financial and organizational restructuring of a $50 million family owned business
• Facilitating a strategic planning and team building process for a global leader in the design and manufacturing of microscopy imaging equipment
• Challenging three management teams as to progress related to their 2012 strategic planning goals and objectives
• Engaging in leadership coaching with six C-level leaders dedicated to performance improvement.

With the perceived slowing of national and global economic growth, it is now more important than ever to ensure personal and organizational alignment with your critical success factors. Continued best of luck during this summer season in challenging yourself and your team to turn a new leaf in reacting to your current challenges and opportunities.

- Mike 

Book Review: "The Advantage"

For over a decade, Patrick Lencioni has authored numerous best sellers on important business topics ranging from dysfunctional teams to organizational silos, meeting schedules and obsessions of CEO's. In his most recent best seller, "The Advantage", Lencioni combines all the best practices from his prior books to address what he posits is the single most important competitive advantage available to all businesses…..their organizational health.

Lencioni defines organizational health as a state where an organization "is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when management, operations, strategy and culture fit together and make sense". The four key disciplines of his health model include building a cohesive leadership team, creating clarity, over communicating clarity and creating systems to reinforce clarity at all levels.

In addressing the key discipline of building a cohesive leadership team, Lencioni relies on the functional team model first introduced in his highly regarded "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team". For a team to be functional under this model, it must possess a high level of trust, embrace conflict, be successful at obtaining commitment, foster accountability and be focused on thematic, team based results. The more effective a team is in addressing these key areas, the more likely they will be in achieving their goals.

The most important discipline of Lencioni's organizational health relates to the need for organizational clarity. He defines this clarity as the leadership team being intellectually aligned and committed to the same answers to the following six simple but critical questions:

"Why do we exist?"
"How do we behave?"
"What do we do?"
"How will we succeed?"
"What is most important, right now?"
"Who must do what?"

Lencioni acknowledges that answering these questions is not an overnight exercise. He is quick to point out thought that "more than getting the right answer, its often more important to simply have an answer-one that is directionally correct and around which all team members can commit." While the author chooses not to acknowledge this, answers to many of these questions may already exist within a company. Feedback as to "why do we exist" may be currently captured in a company's vision statement. "How do we behave" may be articulated in the company's values. "What do we do" may be found in a company's mission statement. Guidance to the final three questions may be previously addressed as part of a dynamic planning process.

Having addressed the important need for "clarity, "The Advantage" shares insights into how best to communicate and reinforce this prerequisite to organizational health. Checklists are provided for leaders to assess how their organization measures up for each of the four key disciplines.

In closing, Lencioni states that "as more and more leaders come to the realization that the last frontier of competitive advantage will be the transformation of unhealthy organizations into healthy ones, there will be a shift in the mind set of executives away from the technical pursuits and toward the disciplines outlined in (his) book". As a leader, if you are committed to improving the health of your organization, a thoughtful reading of "The Advantage" will provide you with a roadmap as to how to get there.