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Patrick Lencioni is the Founder and President of The Table Group Inc., a specialized management consulting firm focused on organizational health. He has been described by the One Minute Manager's Ken Blanchard as "fast defining the next generation of leadership thinkers." Pat's passion for organizations and teams is reflected in his writing, speaking, and consulting. He is the author of four business books including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, published in 2002, which continues to be highlighted on the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today best-seller lists. Death by Meetings was published in 2004, and followed suit with appearances on both the USA Today and BusinessWeek best-seller list. His earlier successes included The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, published in 2000, and The Five Temptations of a CEO, published in 1998. Pat has also completed a companion guide on teamwork entitled Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team, A Field Guide, which was published in 2005.
Pat's work has also been featured in numerous publications such as Fast Company, USA Today, The Entrepreneur, The Drucker Foundation's Leader To Leader, and The Harvard Business Review. Pat's latest book is Silos, Politics And Turf Wars - A Leadership Fable; a book about how to destroy barriers that turn colleagues into competitors.
When Pat's not writing, he consults with clients and speaks to large organizations. His time spent with senior executives provides an endless source of learning and is critical to the development of his original theories. Clients who have recognized Pat's work include New York Life, Washington Mutual, Microsoft, HCA Healthcare, The U.S. Military Academy at West Point and FedEx.
Prior to founding his firm, Pat worked for Sybase, Oracle, and Bain & Company. He also served on the National Board of Directors for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America from the year 2000 to 2003.
Join Patrick Lencioni and HR.com in Las Vegas, Nevada October 24th-27th for the Employers of Excellence National Conference 2006. Patrick will be part of our outstanding lineup of world-class keynote speakers where he will be sharing his passion, insight and groundbreaking work in the areas of leadership, organizational health, teamwork, change and corporate culture. Find out more about Patrick Lencioni and our other outstanding keynote speakers here.
RD: Pat, your books have an interesting style. This book is told as the story of a consultant developing his business and finding the issue of silos is something customers cared a great deal about. Can you give us an overview of the book and tell us why you write books as fables?
PL: I write fables because I think people enjoy reading them. I certainly enjoy writing them, and I think people learn better when they are not reading a book that feels like it's preaching at them. I think they learn better when they can get lost in a story that they find to be realistic, that they can relate to and they get sucked into. I know I learn better that way. It turns out my readers have responded very favorably to the approach.
In the back of each of my books, I describe my theories in more standard prose.
RD: Please give us an overview of the book.
PL: The story is about a consultant who starts his own consulting firm. He starts to realize that all the companies he is working for have similar problems: some call it politics, some call it turf wars, some call it silos, but whatever it is, it's infighting. He says, "If I could only help them solve that problem, my practice would do pretty well." So he starts to take a look at why this happens. In addition, some things happen in his life that give him insight into the root causes of politics. He starts to share these with his clients and develops the idea with their help.
The book covers a single tool, although it is pretty involved. I would call it the most popular tool I have ever used with any of my clients. It is a simple way to get an entire company, starting at the executive level, to rally around a single priority. It allows a company to minimize ambiguity about what's most important, and allows everybody in the organization to understand why they need to be working together.
RD: About 18 months ago I interviewed Bob Herbold, the recently retired CEO of Microsoft, about his then new book entitled "The Fiefdom Syndrome." I asked him his definition of a Fiefdom and he said, "It is when an individual or group of people become fixated on their own activities, their own careers, and their own turf to the detriment of those around them. They become defensive about their own careers. Another characteristic of a Fiefdom is that the groups become very insular, they hoard resources and they are determined to do things their own way, often duplicating what should be done company-wide. They hire more people than they really need which leads to a lack of responsiveness, slowness, cost problems, but most importantly, there is a loss of responsiveness to the marketplace."
How were the problems you see caused by silos and turf wars, similar and different to what Bob is talking about?
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Richard DiGeorgio is the principal of Richard M. DiGeorgio & Associates, a management consulting firm. He is a change management consultant, leadership trainer and coach. Richard has twenty-nine years of experience as an executive and change consultant with three Fortune 500 firms, eighteen of those years were spent at Mobil Oil. His last assignment was as an internal change consultant on assignment to Project Horizon, Mobil Oil's effort to improve its effectiveness in building capital projects and save $500M a year. He has helped companies with mergers & acquisitions, improved technology transfer, team building and change management.
His firm incorporates a network of quality consulting firms who have worked in numerous industries and at all levels of Fortune 500 companies. Richard can be reached at 215.369.0088, changerich[at]aol.com and www.change-management.net. |
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