The Advantage
by Patrick Lencioni · first published 2012
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical, organization-level guidance on building a healthy leadership team, with concrete steps to address the problems raised in Lencioni's fable-style books; suits leaders and managers working on team culture.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are. In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage
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The last book on the list (The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni) is indeed gold. I really like 'The Ideal Team Player', too, as well as his other books. Other books with immediately-actionable advice for improving company processes, systems and…
on “5 Books That Changed My Business” ↗"The Advantage" by Patrick Lencioni is also a great read on this topic of Organizational Health and how much it matters.
on “The WhatsApp Story Challenges Some of the Valley’s Conventional Wisdom” ↗…same group behind Getting to Yes. It presents a clear mental model for how to better predict the way your words will be perceived and how to avoid misperceiving what other people are trying to say. The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni: The first part of this presents a clear model the prerequisites for a team to be effective. The Second part presents a model of how to get agreement on mission and strategy. If you…
on “Ask HN: Favourite books on leadership?” ↗A good book on this is The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
on “How to Manage Work Culture?” ↗It's quite difficult to transition an organization to identifying and coupling upside-downside relationships, but it's worthwhile. I like the values model in Patrick Lencioni's The Advantage and think the upside-downside model could be effectively combined with them. http://thesummitblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-you-hope-to-b... On a lighter note: Many of the super successful class think…
on “10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned” ↗For another book on leadership, I'm a big fan of The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Advantage-Audiobook/B...
on “Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?” ↗…Patrick Lencioni has a few great of books on this. If you like narratives or "buisiness parables" then read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you prefer a more direct/didactic style, then read The Advantage. Difficult Conversations from the Harvard Negotiation Project is also a useful read.
on “How to Pick Your Battles on a Software Team” ↗Note that it is in "Business Novel" style. If you don't like that style, you should read The Advantage by Lencioni instead.
on “Ask HN: Which non-programming books are a beneficial read for programmers?” ↗fsloth recommended Lencioni's "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" I'd second that, and suggest reading his other books, too. Particular 'The Advantage', which provides practical steps to solve the problems highlighted in his other fable/story books. It's unlikely you will change the culture single-handedly. Maybe try to find others who have similar…
on “Ask HN: How to disagree with the rest of management?” ↗+1 for The Advantage as well. I really appreciate Lencioni’s ability to combine advice for cultural team dynamics along with practical steps to improve efficiency. His guidelines are both helpful on the tactical and strategic…
on “5 Books That Changed My Business” ↗…leadership (and management) John Maxwell is solid. Easy to read practical advice in a "I knew that but this is a good reminder" sort of way. Given your founder background you might also appreciate "The Advantage" by Patrick Lencioni. It's more C Level, but much of can apply to a team (e.g., the importance of trust, a feeling of purpose, etc.) https://www.amazon.com/Advantage-Patrick-Lencioni/dp/8126537... There…
on “Ask HN: How does a developer learn to be a IT manager?” ↗…getting distracted. For an illustrative narrative of this, consider the character John from The Phoenix Project. Patrick Lencioni writes about this in books like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage. For a quick read on part of this, see: https://hbr.org/2002/07/make-your-values-mean-something
on “Culture and Conduct Risk: The Normalization of Deviance” ↗…have, but i'm gonna surely read the other 8 I haven't read yet! 1. Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman. 2. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. 3. Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais. 4. The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni 5. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle. 6. Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock 7. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. 8. The Law…
on “Reading List from CZ (Of Binance) - Any good?” ↗…executive or director, people and hiring will be your primary concern. There are many management books, and I don’t have any particular to recommend (all of them will provide tools, but none is perfect: The Advantage and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni, The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim). I also enjoy taking ideas from biographical stories like Creativity Inc. by Ed Camull or Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda.…
on “Ask HN: What are good books/blogs to read for a first time CTO?” ↗