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Real-Life Book Review: “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni

“A team that isn’t behaviourally cohesive won’t be able to engage in the level of passionate, messy dialogue that is required to achieve real buy-in around these questions.”  Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”

book cover of 'The Advntage' written by by Patrick Lencioni

In 2016, Delta’s Senior Management Team (SMT) started planning for the company’s second 5-year strategic plan. In advance of this major undertaking, the Team collectively read a timely book written by Patrick Lencioni entitled “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business”.

The concepts in “The Advantage” shaped the strategic plan development process as we worked through the five concepts:

  1. Build a cohesive leadership team,
  2. Create clarity,
  3. Over-communicate clarity,
  4. Reinforce clarity, and,
  5. Run great meetings.

However, the most significant impact of Lencioni’s ideas occurred more recently during the time of COVID.  As all organizations had to do in March 2020, SMT deliberated about how to respond to the unprecedented impact of the illness and of the public policy response to it.

One of the foundational pieces for us was the document advocated by the author, called “The Playbook”.  Early in the aforementioned strategic planning process, SMT had worked through the six critical questions pertaining to Concept #2 above:

We had been updating and referring to this two-page summary to guide our decision making since 2018.  In the early days of the pandemic, our 2020 Playbook took a central role in helping develop our overall Guiding Principles and our Priorities as we wrestled with the novel situation:

Guiding Principles:

  1. Giving employees hope.
  2. Giving employees direction.
  3. Giving employees choice.

Priorities:

These principles and priorities flowed directly from our Playbook.  We included them in every set of SMT minutes pertaining to COVID and communicated them to staff in memos and emails.

Because we had answered the six critical questions in advance to develop our Playbook, we were able to rely on them for guidance in the crucial moment.  As a result, Delta was able to continuously remain in operation, to retain all employees, and to meet customer requirements throughout the pandemic.  More importantly, our employees had the benefit of continued stability at work and the benefit of continued remuneration to support their families at home.

For organizations looking to improve their cultural health, we highly recommend the ground-breaking philosophy laid out in “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni.