PART I: DEFINING A PATIENT ORGANIZATION
THE BACKSTORY
Most organizations begin with a dream. Someone is passionate about a product, service, or cause and at some point, realize they can provide it better or faster or cheaper than the next guy. Founders take on the considerable risk of starting businesses because they know they are good at this thing, whatever it is, and they have a vision for an organization, a dream. Most worked for others before striking out on their own and were dissatisfied if not disgusted with the way those companies operated – the mismanagement, missed opportunities, mistreatment.
So many misses!
The more they think about it, the more they yearn for the chance to have a hit, to build an organization on their values, one that will maximize profit and its people’s potential. Their organizations will be innovative, react nimbly to markets, grow at a steady clip. They will surround themselves with talented hard-workers and create the place where they always wanted to work.
For a while, sometimes many years, the dream inches toward reality. Founders surround themselves with hard-workers who believe in the same thing, communicate well, and work together on targets. Profits start to flow and the business grows. “Business,” actually feels like the wrong word for what they’re creating. This thing that began as a dream is alive and growing. This thing has a soul.
The team expands. Founders are no longer pleased with everyone, but maybe this is inevitable, just as growth was bound to make communicating tougher. It’s hard to say exactly where or why communication is failing these days, but too many fires need dousing now to worry about that.
Profits aren’t quite where the owners hoped, so they introduce various business-school measures (there’s now an MBA, or several in the picture). Improvement comes in fits and starts, but they keep bumping into that invisible something that drains the momentum, and they can’t seem to break through. Key projects stall and important tasks slip. Too many employees lack drive and initiative. The status quo is seeping in. Owners have never worked harder or had less to show for their effort. They have never needed a vacation more or felt less able to take one. Their stomachs churn at the thought that the horrible old cliché has come true – they aren’t running the business, it’s running them.
What happened to the dream? It has become something awful – a company, or worse yet, a business. The once-living thing has morphed into a soulless machine. Like a machine, it is static and rigid. It can’t grow, evolve, or adapt, and founders aren’t sure where things went wrong.
This is when I meet most of the people I work with – some desperate, others only dissatisfied, but all aware of a significant gap between their original vision and the dysfunction they now see on a daily basis. The root of the problem – and the argument at the heart of this book – is that they are not running Patient Organizations. In this section I will explain exactly what I mean by a Patient Organization and introduce the Seven Questions that can transform even the most dysfunctional business into one.
In case the notion of Seven Questions implies otherwise, I want to point out right away that this is not an easy process. Just like Patrick Lencioni, author ofFive Dysfunctions of a Team,says about core values, an organization considering the journey to become a Patient Organization must first come to grips with the fact that when properly done, it will inflict pain. The 7 Questions will hold leaders to a higher standard and will make some of your teammates feel like outcasts. Getting back to your dream will not necessarily be a walk in the park. Some pain is unavoidable.
Patience, as I’ll explore shortly, has nothing to do with dragging feet, suffering fools, or reacting sluggishly. A Patient Organization takes the time to focus, to rise above the system, to make methodical impr
