Lencioni's Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

I've been working my way through yet another Lencioni classic: The Four Obsession of an Extraordinary Executive. In his usual fashion, Lencioni begins with a fable describing a realistic scenario.

In this book, Lencioni focuses on what leaders do to make their organizations healthy -- to have a healthy climate/culture. Essentially, there are four disciplines exercised by leaders of a healthy organization:

1. Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.
2. Create organizational clarity
3. Over communicate organizational clarity
4. Reinforce organizational clarity through human systems
   

Although each of these points are critical, and are usually followed in the order presented, I was struck by the importance of the second step. A healthy church minimizes the potential for confusion by clarifying ...

• why this particular congregation exists
• which behavioral values are fundamental
• what its specific calling and ministry is
  
• who the competition is (and this may or may not be another local church)
• what it plans to achieve
• who is responsible for what

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But the consistent application of each of Lencioni's steps is hard work.