Lencioni, Patrick 1965-

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LENCIONI, Patrick 1965-

PERSONAL: Born 1965; married; wife's name, Laura; children: Matthew, Connor, Casey. Education:

ADDRESSES: Offıce—The Table Group, Inc., 3640 Mt. Diablo Blvd., Suite 202, Lafayette, CA 94549. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Former vice president of organizational development for Sybase; has also worked for Oracle Corporation and Bain & Company; The Table Group (consulting firm), Lafayette, CA, founder and president, 1997—. Member of national board of directors, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, 2000-2003.

WRITINGS:

The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 1998.

Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The FourDisciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2000.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2002.

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2004.

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A FieldGuide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2005.

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Harvard Business Review.

ADAPTATIONS: Sound recordings have been made of The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, Simon & Schuster Audio (New York, NY), 1998, and Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business, Audio Renaissance (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Patrick Lencioni, a specialist in management consulting and a leading expert on executive team development, is the author of several business books expounding his theories on business management. Unlike most other business book authors, Lencioni presents his approach and theories with a short fictional story. For example, in The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable the author tells the story of a young CEO named Andrew, who rose to the executive ranks in only five years but finds that he is failing at his job. Finally, he is facing the imminent arrival of his first annual board review. On the train ride home the night before the meeting, he encounters an old man named Charlie who is dressed like a janitor. Charlie's father was a railroad executive, and he proceeds to instruct Andrew through a series of questions that show how he has fallen under the spell of the five deadly management temptations. Through Andrew's story, Lencioni addresses the pitfalls that executives encounter when their focus strays from producing results. In addition to providing lessons on leadership through the fable of Andrew, the author includes a segment at the end of the book that aids readers in a self-assessment of their work. He also provides summaries of his suggestions for changing management style and bolstering careers. Writing in the Journal of Leadership Studies, John Hannon commented, "What Lencioni skillfully weaves is a fable that applies to leaders of any organization at all levels." Robyn D. Clarke, writing in Black Enterprise, called the book "thought-provoking and engaging."

In Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making Any Organization World Class Lencioni tells the story of Rich, a CEO who begins to delegate more of the work within his consulting firm and focuses instead on meetings with employees and other aspects of being a CEO that he really enjoys. When a new human resources director is hired while Rich is away on vacation, the CEO returns only to find that the new director does not fit in with the company's culture and philosophy. Furthermore, he does not understand the four important principles Rich relies on to guide his company: establishing a cohesive leadership team, creating organizational clarity, communicating that clarity throughout the organization, and then reinforcing it through human resources and systems. Lencioni includes many concrete examples of how to establish these four disciplines and ways to assess whether or not they have been effectively instituted. A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that Lencioni's "characters are flat" and noted that his "goal might have been more effectively achieved if the practical advice at the end of the book had been recast as the body of the book" with the fable used only to provide illustrative examples. In a more favorable review in Booklist, David Rouse commented that while "The story is short and simple, . . . its lesson is large."

Lencioni addresses the pitfalls that lead to a business team's failure and ways to help ensure a team's success in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. This time, the author tells the story of a CEO who takes a dysfunctional executive team and helps them break the bad habits that are causing them to fail. The five dysfunctions the author addresses in his fable are lack of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. For those business leaders who encounter these dysfunctions in their work teams, Lencioni includes suggestions and exercises for helping to rectify them. Writing in the Library Journal, Bellinda Wise called the book "concise and easy to follow." Booklist contributor David Siegfried commented, "Lencioni demonstrates his points effectively by getting the reader involved in the characters and the tension between them."

In Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business Lencioni focuses on what many professionals consider a necessary evil that often accomplishes little. In this story, a young college graduate helps change a company's fortunes by revitalizing its business meetings, and in the process the reader learns the basic lessons for holding timely, effective meetings. While some of the lessons, such as keeping the meeting focused, are basic and easily understood, others are counterintuitive. For example, Lencioni recommends that conflict be encouraged in meetings because it helps invigorate the participants and leads to more open discussions, which, in turn, can lead to informed decisions and possibly even a consensus. Calling the book a "page turning work of business fiction," an African Business contributor felt that Lencioni's recommendations for effective meetings are "both simple and revolutionary."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Business, July, 2004, review of Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business, p. 65.

Association Management, December, 2002, "Conflict or Consequences," p. 44.

Black Enterprise, February, 1999, Robyn D. Clarke, review of The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, p. 76.

Booklist, September 1, 1998, Barbara Jacobs, review of The Five Temptations of a CEO, p. 66; October 15, 2000, Davie Rouse, Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: The Four Disciplines at the Heart of Making any Organization World Class, p. 396; April 1, 2002, David Siegfried, review of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, p. 1288.

Business Record (Des Moines, IA), March 8, 2004, review of Death by Meeting, p. 19.

Canadian Manager, winter, 1999, review of The FiveTemptations of a CEO, p. 29; summer, 2000, review of The Five Temptations of a CEO, p. 31; fall, 2002, review of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, p. 31.

CMA Management, May, 2004, review of Death byMeeting, p. 6.

Denver Business Journal, June 23, 2000, "CEOs Should Avoid These Temptations," section A, p. 29.

Fast Company, June, 2004, "Two Words You Never Hear Together: 'Great Meeting!,'" p. 38.

Journal of Leadership Studies, fall, 1998, John Hannon, review of The Five Temptations of a CEO, p. 143.

Library Journal, April 15, 2002, Bellinda Wise, review of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, p. 102.

Publishers Weekly, September 11, 2000, review of Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, p. 82; March 25, 2002, review of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, p. 54; May 3, 2004, Death by Meeting, p. 30.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 2004, Dave Murphy, review of Death by Meeting, p. C1; May 12, 2002, Dave Murphy, "War May Be Hell, but Conflicts Aren't" (interview), p. J1.