Catalyst Conference 2012 – Patrick Lencioni

Speaker: Patrick Lencioni
Topic: Quiet: The Advantage 

Patrick Lencioni spoke on, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else. Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in business. There are two requirements for success:

1. Be Smart
   • Smart, Marketing, Finance, Technology
   • 98% of leaders focus on being a smart organization.
2. Be Healthy
   • Minimal Politics
   • Minimal Confusion
   • High Morale
   • High Productivity
   • Low Turnover

Healthy organizations include: results, accountability, commitment, conflict and trust. Remember, any organization that wants to make a difference in anything it does must be healthy. Additionally, there are 4 disciplines of a healthy organization:

1. Build a Cohesive Leadership Team
   • Team members must be behaviorally aligned.
   • Mastering the Five Behaviors of a Healthy Team
     • Trust - Completely vulnerable and open with one another.  Team members given permission to say the last 10%. The role of the leader is to go first.  Vulnerability based trust is key in building a healthy team. The truth is, people will walk through walls for leaders that are true and human.
     • Conflict - Conflict is nothing but the pursuit of truth, but conflict without trust is politics.  Relationships are built from the recovery of difficult moments.
     • Commitment - Force clarity and find closure.
     • Accountability - On a great team peers hold one another accountable.  If we love our team members, we owe it to them to enter the danger of holding them accountable.
     • Results - Focus on collective outcomes.
2. Create Clarity
   • Example: Dunder Mifflin Mission Statement 
   • A mission statement is not how to identify clarity within an organization. Here are 6 clarity questions to help:
     1. Why do we exist? Core Purpose – “Sometimes why you exist is has nothing to do with what you do, it’s why you do it.” Knowing why you exist guides every decision. Sometimes why you exist has nothing to do with what you do or sell.
     2. How do we behave? Core Values – Identify two to three values which accurately capture the essence of your church. Avoid aspirational values, values you wished described your church. Do NOT violate your core values.
     3. What do we do?
     4. How will we succeed? Strategy – Accessible to everyone. Myriad of organizational decisions that separate from other organizations.
     5. What is most important, right now?
     6. Who must do what?
3. Over Communicate Clarity
   • If people can’t imitate you when you are not around, you’re not communicating enough.
   • Consistently and clearly communicate why you exist to your staff and members.
4. Reinforce Clarity
   • Build organizational systems built around your values. Your systems will uphold and reinforce your values.

Ministry Application

• Why do you exist? Yes, every church is called to glorify God and make disciples. However, every church is uniquely designed by God. How you live out the Great Commission as a church must be defined by who you are in your pure DNA.
• Focus more on health rather than ministry busyness.
• Healthy Teams = Healthy Organizations. Be very selective who is on your team. Use core values to shape your hiring.
• Oftentimes church leaders focus on ministry development, worship programming, event planning, etc. Church leaders need to focus on being a healthy organization, first.
• Churches struggle with core values. Why? They imitate other churches. They attempt to be all things to all people.
• Based on your values, sometimes you need to ask people to leave your church staff. It’s the best thing for them & the church.
• You cannot be all things to all people. To be all things to all people is to be nothing to no one. Your church needs a strategy. A strategy based on 3 Strategic Anchors. Anchors = 3 ways your church is drastically different than any other church.