Silos Politics and Turf Wars or Wooden on Leadership

Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors

Author: Patrick M Lencioni

In yet another page-turner, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed management expert Patrick Lencioni addresses the costly and maddening issue of silos, the barriers that create organizational politics. Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals.

As with his other books, Lencioni writes Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars as a fictional—but eerily realistic—story. The story is about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.

Publishers Weekly

Marketing won't speak to engineering. Sales thinks production hogs the budget. Front desk believes back room's lazy. These sorts of turf wars, which turn outwardly unified companies into groupings of uncommunicative "silos," are the stuff of management lore. According to bestselling author Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team), "they waste resources, kill productivity and jeopardize the achievement of goals"-they also drive workers into tizzies of frustration. Like his previous books, Lencioni's latest addresses the management problem through a fictional story; this one revolves around a self-employed consultant named Jude, who has to dismantle silos at an upscale hotel, a technology company and a hospital. Split into two sections, Lencioni's book first shows Jude discovering a solution to silos, then summarizes Jude's lessons into a strategy that readers can apply to any business. Lencioni's proposal is so full of common sense-namely, end turf wars by getting departments to rally around a common goal-that managers will be eager to apply it themselves. Just as refreshing is Lencioni's use of character and plot, which is far above average for the business genre. As sympathetic as Jude is, he makes Lencioni's management lessons memorable. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Summary - Soundview Executive Book Summaries

According to bestselling author and management expert Patrick Lencioni, building a cohesive leadership team is the first critical step that an organization must take in order to give it the best chance of success. However, even when leadership teams become cohesive, there is another, more structural issue that often thwarts their efforts and creates unnecessary politics within an organization. That issue is silos.

Silos are nothing more than the barriers that surface between departments within an organization, causing people who are supposed to be on the same team to work against one another. And whether this phenomenon is called departmental politics, divisional rivalry or turf warfare, Lencioni writes, it is one of the most frustrating aspects of life in any sizable organization.

In most situations, he adds, silos rise up not because of what executives are doing purposefully, but rather because of what they are failing to do: provide themselves and their employees with a compelling context for working together. Without context, employees at all levels — especially executives — easily lose their way.

Even the most well-meaning, intelligent people get distracted and confused amid the endless list of tactical and administrative details that come their way every day, Lencioni points out. Pulled in many directions without a compass, they pursue seemingly worthwhile agendas under the assumption that it will be in the best interest of the organization as a whole.

But after a while, employees in different divisions begin to see their colleagues moving in different directions, and they begin to wonder why they aren't on board. Over time, their confusion turns into disappointment that eventually becomes resentment — even hostility — toward their supposed teammates. And then the worst thing of all happens — they start working against those colleagues on purpose!

The Silo Mentality
Lencioni writes that the maddening problem of silos exists, to different degrees, in most companies. And in too many of those companies, leaders who are frustrated by the silo mentality mistakenly attribute it to the immaturity and insecurity of employees who somehow just refuse to get along with one another.

But the fact is, Lencioni explains, most employees deep within an organization have a genuine interest in working well across divisions. That's because they feel the daily pain of departmental politics as they are left to fight bloody battles with their colleagues.

If there is a place where the blame for silos and politics belongs, Lencioni writes, it is at the top of an organization. Every departmental silo in any company can ultimately be traced back to the leaders of those departments who have failed to understand the interdependencies that must exist among the executive team, or who have failed to make those interdependencies clear to the people deeper in their own departments.

According to Lencioni, there is a simple and powerful way for leaders of any organization to create context around that interdependency: They must establish a thematic goal.

The Thematic Goal
Lencioni writes that a thematic goal is a single, qualitative focus that is shared by the entire leadership team, and ultimately, by the entire organization, and it applies for only a specified period of time.

To avoid politics and turf battles, Lencioni explains, executives must establish an unambiguously stated common goal, a single overriding them that remains the top priority of the entire leadership team for a given period of time. In turn, he adds, this thematic goal serves to align employees up and down the organization, and provides an objective tool for resetting direction when things get out of sync.

Key Elements
Lencioni explains that the key elements of a thematic goal include:

It is single. There can be only one true thematic goal in a given period.

It is qualitative. The thematic goal is not a number, and it is not specifically measurable. It is a general statement of a desired accomplishment.

It is time-bound. The thematic goal does not live beyond a fixed time period, because that would suggest that it is an ongoing objective.

It is shared. The thematic goal applies to everyone on the leadership team, regardless of his or her expertise or interest. Copyright © 2006 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Table of Contents:

Introduction.

The Fable.

Part One: Entrepreneurial Ambition.

Part Two: Roller Coaster.

Part Three: Rally.

Part Four: Moments of Truth.

The Theory.

Introduction to Silos.

Components of the Model.

Identifying a Thematic Goal.

Case Studies.

Managing and Organizing Around the Thematic Goal.

Thematic Goals and Long-Term Context.

Making Matrix Organizations Work.

Getting Started.

Acknowledgments.

About the Author.

New interesting book: Ugly Americans or The Answer

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

Author: John Wooden

"Team spirit, loyalty, enthusiasm, determination. . . . Acquire and keep these traits and success should follow."

--Coach John Wooden

John Wooden is without question one of the most respected and honored sports coaches in our nation's history. But it wasn't winning games that drove him; it was ensuring that, regardless of the final score, his players always put forth their utmost effort and performed to the best of their abilities.

One of the lesser-known aspects of Wooden is the notebooks in which, beginning in 1948, he regularly recorded his thoughts, inspirations, and life lessons. In Wooden on Leadership, the legendary coach and his longtime collaborator Steve Jamison combine the best of those notebooks with Wooden's far-more-celebrated Pyramid of Success to create a leadership skills guide designed to help anyone develop character, conviction, and remarkable achievement.

Whether discussing teamwork ("It takes 10 hands to score a basket"), organization ("Don't mistake activity for achievement"), or even discipline ("Use the carrot as a stick"), it constructs a masterful template for confronting limitations and achieving personal success in virtually any setting or situation.

John Wooden was the winner of 10 NCAA basketball championships in 12 years with the UCLA Bruins and was named Coach of the Century by ESPN. The only person to be inducted into basketball's Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, he is the author of They Call Me Coach and Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court.

Steve Jamison is a popular columnist and speaker. A close confidante ofJohn Wooden, he is coauthor of the bestselling biography Wooden.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

During his career as the head coach for UCLA, John Wooden won 10 NCAA national championships in 12 years, including 88 straight games and four perfect seasons. In Wooden on Leadership, the coach and his longtime collaborator Steve Jamison share Wooden's insights about motivating others, creating a coherent team and producing winning results. They also show how his leadership principles on teamwork, concentration and dealing with defeat, as well as his "Pyramid of Success," can be used to build a winning organization. Copyright © 2005 Soundview Executive Book Summaries