Bestselling author Patrick Lencioni has penned eight books on leadership and organizational health and is the founder and president of San Francisco-based management consulting firm The Table Group. Lencioni will speak at the Medical Group Management Association’s annual conference in San Antonio on Oct. 23. He recently discussed his presentation with Healthcare Finance News Editor René Letourneau.
Q: What will be the key takeaways from your MGMA presentation?
A: I want leaders to understand there is a framework to revolutionize their organizations available to them. Addressing organizational health will allow their medical groups to create a productive, effective environment where they will outperform their counterparts, free themselves of politics and confusion and create an atmosphere where star performers never want to leave.
Addressing organizational health does not take money, but it does require time, energy and commitment from the leadership team. The results of this effort will be great. When ambiguity, dysfunction and confusion are reduced to a minimum, people are empowered to serve customers, solve problems and help one another in ways that unhealthy organizations can only dream of. At the end of the day, at the end of the quarter, employees are happier, the bottom line is stronger and executives are at peace. This is because they know they've fulfilled their most important responsibility of all: creating an environment of success.
Q: What is organizational health?
A: Organizational health is essentially about making a company function effectively by building a cohesive leadership team, establishing real clarity among those leaders, communicating that clarity to everyone within the organization, and putting in place just enough structure to reinforce that clarity going forward. Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent and complete, and when its management, operations and culture are unified.
Q: What is your number one piece of advice for a leadership team looking to improve the health of its organization?
A: Creating a healthy organization begins with the leadership team. My advice to leaders is to learn to be vulnerable with each other. This is what happens when team members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest and naked with one another, where they can say things like, “I screwed up” and “I need help.” Along those lines, leaders must be willing to confront themselves, their peers and the dysfunction within their organization with an uncommon level of honesty and persistence. They must be prepared to walk straight into uncomfortable situations and address issues that prevent them from realizing the potential that eludes them. Once this behavior is in place, addressing the disciplines will go smoothly and quickly.