The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business

By Patrick Lencioni

“And so, being smart -- as critical as it is -- has become something of a commodity. It is simply
permission to play, a minimum standard required for having even a possibility of success.” - p. 8

“Of course, this kind of misattribution, where we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt but
assume the worst about others, breaks down trust on a team.” - p. 33

“Great teams avoid consensus trap by embracing a concept … [called] ‘disagree and commit.’
Basically they believe that when people can’t come to an agreement around an issue, they must
still leave the room unambiguously committed to a common course of action.” - p. 48

“Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness.” - p. 59

“A meaningful drop in measureable performance can almost always be traced back to behavioral
issues that made the drop possible.” - p. 60

“Conflict is about issues and ideas, while accountability is about performance and behavior.” - p.
60

“The ultimate point of building greater trust, conflict, commitment, and accountability is one
thing: the achievement of results.” - p. 65

“There is no getting around the fact that the only measure of a great team -- or a great
organization -- is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish.” - p. 65

“Alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for
confusion, disorder, and infighting to set in.” - p. 74

“Leaders underestimate the impact of even subtle misalignment at the top, and the damage
caused to the rest of the organization by small gaps among members of the executive team.” - p.
74

“Most mission statements have neither inspired people to change the world nor provided them
with an accurate description of what an organization actually does for a living.” - p. 75

“These are the six questions [for creating clarity]:

1. Why do we exist?
2. How do we behave?
3. What do we do?
4. How will we succeed?
5. What is most important, right now?
6. Who must do what?” - p. 77
“Here’s the thing: there are no right or wrong answers [when it comes to setting the direction of
the organization] … More than getting the right answer, it is important to simply have an answer
-- one that is directionally correct and around which all members can commit.” - p. 78

“What they were really good at was not necessarily having the right answer, but rather being able
to rally around the best answer they could find at the time.” - p. 79

“A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” -
General Patton, p. 79

“Organizations learn from making decisions, even bad ones.” - p. 80

“An organization’s core purpose -- why it exists -- has to be completely idealistic. I can’t
reiterate this point enough. Many leadership teams struggle with this, afraid that what they come
up with will seem too grand or aspirational. Of course, that’s the whole point. Employees in
every organization, and at every level, need to know that at the heart of what they do lies
something great and aspirational. They’re well aware that ultimately it will boil down to tangible,
tactical activities.

In order to successfully identify their organization’s purpose, leaders must accept the notion that
all organizations exist to make people’s lives 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. After all, no one doubts that every company must have some sort of value
proposition -- a compelling reason that customers or constituents want to interact with it. And at
the heart of that is the expectation of a better life.” - p. 82-83

“Eventually, by answering that question (why) again and again, a leadership team will get to a
point where they’ve identified the most idealistic reason for their business. That point will be
somewhere just shy of to make the world a better place. That’s how they’ll know they’re done.”
- p. 86

“When it comes to creating organizational clarity and alignment, intolerance is essential.

After all, if an organization is tolerant of everything, it will stand for nothing.” - p. 91

“An organization that has properly identified its values and adheres to them will naturally attract
the right employees and repel the wrong ones.” - p. 91

“There are different kinds of values: core values, aspirational values, permission-to-play values
and accidental values.” - p. 93

“… willing to sweep the floors …” - p. 100

“An organization’s strategy is simply its plan for success. It’s nothing more than the collection of
intentional decisions a company make to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate
from competitors.” - p. 108-109
“Every decision they made would need to be evaluated in light of and informed by these
anchors.” - p. 114

“Every organization, if it wants to create a sense of alignment and focus, must have a single top
priority within a given period of time.” - p. 120

“What is most important right now?” - p. 121

“The next step: … overcommunicating [answers to the six critical questions] -- over and over
and over and over and over and over and over again.” - p. 141

“People are skeptical about what they’re being told unless they hear it consistently over time.” -
p. 141

“One of the best tests of seriousness is whether they continue to repeat themselves over a
prolonged period of time.” - p. 142

“Great leaders see themselves as Chief Reminding Officers.” - p. 142

“What leaders fail to realize is that employees understand the need for repetition. They know that
messaging is not so much an intellectual process as an emotional one. Employees are not
analyzing what leaders are saying based solely on whether it is intellectually novel or
compelling, but more than anything else on whether they believe the leaders are serious,
authentic, and committed to what they are saying. Again, that means repetition is a must.” - p.
143

“The point of leadership is … to mobilize people around what is most important.” - p. 143

“An organization has to institutionalize its culture without bureaucratizing it.” - p. 154

“Most executives get enamored with what candidates know and have done in their careers
and allow those things to overshadow more important behavioral issues. They don’t seem
to buy into the notion that you can teach skill but not attitude.” - p. 156

“Keeping a relatively strong performer who is not a culture fit sends a loud and clear message to
employees that the organization isn’t all that serious about what it says it believes.” - p. 170