Ever Heard Of A Shelf Help Book?

A few years ago, I thought maybe I would just give up on leadership and get an easy mundane job where I didn’t have to think too deeply or deal with people.

I just felt like the organization I was a part of would do better without me.

I was at my absolute lowest and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

I felt like a failure as a leader.

I was overwhelmed at work when I was planning things by myself and even more overwhelmed when I was with my people.

I couldn’t recognize myself physically or emotionally, and I certainly wasn’t the leader I thought I was going to be.

But I don’t believe in coincidences, and I came across Patrick Lencioni’s book right when I needed it.

Speaking of coincidences, it’s no coincidence you’re reading this now...

I remember deciding to pick up The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

Lencioni unpacks the five foundational layers of dysfunction every team needs to overcome.

Light bulbs started going off in my head like fireworks!

I read it in one night.

I quickly borrowed another Lenconi book from a friend - what I call a Shelf Help book that can make my leadership better, but just ends up sitting on a shelf :-)

I borrowed The Advantage, and let it just sit there for a while.

I sort of stared it down because I thought it might be one of those books that would only make me feel worse and tell me how damaging everything I had done was to the people I was leading and to the organization.

But instead, it changed my life and set in motion a chain of events that led me to you and this conversation we’re having today.

The book spoke to me in a way no other book or person had about leadership and the challenges of building a healthy team and organization where everyone is rowing in the same direction and I was hooked on the overall approach of Organisational Health.

I read The Advantage multiple times and it was in these weeks that I discovered the concept of The Four Disciplines of Organizational Health.

Not helping others with the four disciplines but actually trying it out for myself!

I finished the book on such a high that I was convinced I was a changed person and a changed leader and back-burnered the idea of any extra help from a coach or consultant.

I met with my team and announced how I had changed, and declared I would be implementing the four disciplines of organisational health and they would see I would be a better leader! Yay!

And then within weeks Yay! turned into more frustration!

(I came to understand later that there was neurological wiring in place that made it virtually impossible to just read a book and execute it well immediately - we’ll come back to this later.)

Sure enough, before I knew it I was overwhelmed again and dealing with more frustrating conflict that I just didn’t have an answer for.

My team would call me out and say, “Jonno, I thought you said you were going to be vulnerable and build a healthy team?”

Which made it all the worse because I WAS THE ONE WHO ANNOUNCED IT! Lame!

I was so frustrated that I had digressed so quickly.

And what do you know, shortly thereafter I met with a new mentor who understood the four disciplines of organizational health and had used it to help multinational organizations around the world for the past decade.

We sat over a coffee and I showed him my answers to the six questions of clarity and explained how I was frustrated with the lack of results in my team and in the organization.

The next several weeks were TRANSFORMATIONAL for both me and my team.

I’ll walk you through it tomorrow.

Until then!

Jonno

P.S. If my story sounds familiar to you and your experience, I would love to help you deal well with difficult people, build a high performance team and build a healthy organisation that achieves your leadership goals.

Click HERE to book a call to chat about how I might be able to help you, your team and your organization.