The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable [Hardcover]

Patrick Lencioni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

In this stunning follow-up to his best-selling book, The Five Temptations of a CEO, Patrick Lencioni offers up another leadership fable that's every bit as compelling and illuminating as its predecessor. This time, Lencioni's focus is on a leader's crucial role in building a healthy organization--an often overlooked but essential element of business life that is the linchpin of sustained success. Readers are treated to a story of corporate intrigue as the frustrated head of one consulting firm faces a leadership challenge so great that it threatens to topple his company, his career, and everything he holds true about leadership itself. In the story's telling, Lencioni helps his readers understand the disarming simplicity and power of creating organizational health, and reveals four key disciplines that they can follow to achieve it.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Allegories and parables have long been effective ways to impart serious bits of knowledge and wisdom without getting too pedantic, and business readers seem increasingly receptive to sensible management theory that employs this lively age-old literary technique. Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, a "leadership fable" by Patrick Lencioni, continues the trend with a solid prescription for organizational health--aiming for less politics, lower turnover, more productivity, and higher morale. Presented as a fictional tale of two technical consultants and their competing companies, the story is structured in a fashion that recalls his previous book (The Five Temptations of a CEO, whose main character and firm are even slipped into this narrative). Lencioni uses this hypothetical setting to show how his concepts might look and work in the real world. In this case, his "four disciplines at the heart of making any organization world class" are revealed and explained through the philosophy and behavior of Rich O'Connor of Telegraph Partners. Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team, create organizational clarity, communicate organizational clarity, and reinforce organizational clarity through human systems. Through his tale of Telegraph and its rival Greenwich Consulting, Lencioni illustrates how these principles can be beneficially employed--and how an organization can be stymied when they're missing. The story moves quickly and is followed by a comprehensive analytical summary, which includes self-assessment tools and suggestions for putting the ideas into practice. --Howard Rothman

From Booklist

This fictional tale by a screenwriter and head of a consulting firm that specializes in organizational development is billed not as a novel but as a "leadership fable." Just like Lencioni's earlier The Five Temptations of a CEO (1998), this new "fable" serves as a vehicle to illustrate the author's philosophy of management. The story is short and simple, but its lesson is large. Organizations must not only be smart; they must be healthy. For one thing, healthy companies can make themselves smarter, but unhealthy organizations squander intellectual advantage through infighting and cross-purposes. To drive home his moral, Lencioni follows his story with a discussion that explicitly sets down his four "actionable steps," or disciplines, that are the hallmark of a healthy organization--build a leadership team, create organizational clarity, communicate that clarity, and then reinforce it through human systems. Lencioni offers concrete examples of steps to take to establish these disciplines and suggests ways to assess whether they have been effective. David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787954039
• ISBN-13: 978-0787954031
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,277 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Management Science
  • #68 in Books > Business & Investing > Organizational Behavior > Workplace
  • #89 in Books > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > Entrepreneurship

More About the Author

Patrick Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to helping leaders improve their organizations' health since 1997. His principles have been embraced by leaders around the world and adopted by organizations of virtually every kind including multinational corporations, entrepreneurial ventures, professional sports teams, the military, nonprofits, schools, and churches.

Lencioni is the author of ten business books with over three million copies sold worldwide. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, and USA Today.

Prior to founding The Table Group, Lencioni served on the executive team at Sybase, Inc. He started his career at Bain & Company and later worked at Oracle Corporation.

Lencioni lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their four sons.

To learn more about Patrick and The Table Group, please visit www.tablegroup.com.

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#10 in Books > Business & Investing

#22 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#10 in Books > Business & Investing

#22 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An answered prayer October 23, 2000

By Gilbert P. Brady

Format:Hardcover

Patrick Lencioni has once again presented a concise, compelling, simple, and wise look at the role of a leader in an organization. 5 temptations of a CEO, a title I felt should have been 5 temptations of any manager, was a much needed look at the insecurities that hit once we are in charge. The trouble I had with that book, and the author deserves no blame for this, is that the individuals who truly needed it would probably not recognize their areas for improvement.

Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive answers that need. I am sure that all executives, all of us, feel extraordinary. We will pick this book up expecting a pat on the back for a job well done. Instead, this book challenges the role of the leader and presents 4 disciplines that should be at the Heart of any World Class organization. In fable format, which is far less threatening, and much more enjoyable to read, Lencioni shares the 4 simple disciplines of healthy organizations- 4.Reinforcing Clarity through Human Systems- 3.Overcommunicate Organizational Clarity- 2. Create Organizational Clarity- 1.Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team

It is impossible to read this book and not learn from the past experiences that one has as a leader. It also reminds the reader that it is at the very top that an organization derives it's health. Without leadership committed to health, the organization will never find it.

For all the leaders out there, buy this book, open your mind and read it. You may have to face some tough truths, but the individuals who work for you, will thank you for it.

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Overlooked wisdom: Simple but powerful January 31, 2001

By Max More

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The first three-quarters of this book consists of a fictional account of a technology consulting company run by CEO Rich O'Connor. O'Connor runs his company according to four disciplines which together powerfully maintain the health of the organization's culture. The four disciplines are: Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team; Create Organizational Clarity; Over-Communicate Organizational Clarity; and Reinforce Organizational Clarity Through Human Systems. While none of this will appear astoundingly new, the message is important and often not implemented. The fictional portrayal is followed by a more detailed analysis of the four disciplines. Most readers will find this a quick and enjoyable read that should ignite productive thinking about healthy organizations. Without a sound corporate culture even the smartest strategies and business models will not work optimally. Definitely worth reading.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Engaging the head at a heart level... January 6, 2003

By Ruth Varney

Format:Hardcover

A simple yet intriguing story that had me hooked from the beginning. As I read with eagerness and anticipation the plights of Rich O'Conner and Vince Green I awaited to discover the "Four Obsessions". Lencioni is a fabulous and effective story teller. He uses story to help the reader experience the emotions of the scenario. This is powerful because all too often leadership books focus on communicating with the head in isolation. Lencioni beautifully captures both the head and heart of the reader. I felt the anguish and aspirations experienced by the two main characters, while at the same time found myself in my head, problem solving, working out what I thought the issues were.

To my dismay, the revealing of the "Four Obsessions": 1. Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team; 2. Create organizational clarity; 3. Over-communicate organizational clarity; 4. Reinforce organizational clarity through human systems, fell short of expectations. Simply yet profound, truth often falls short of our expectations because we expect deeply profound and complicated answers to issues of relational concern.

I believe this is an excellent tool to begin conversations of organizational health and wellbeing with leaders that may not be readily open to this. I would recommend it to leaders at any level of an organization who are struggling with problems and are unaware the true nature of there issue begins with relationships.