The Four Obsessions Of An Extraordinary Executive

Organizational Clarity

After reading The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, I think that the author brings up an excellent, although rather idealistic, plan for organizing and maintaining an upper-level management team. The four "obsessions" or disciplines as they are referred to in the text, cover the entire spectrum of the ideal team. The early stages of teambuilding are covered and he explains the high level of trust and accountability that are required, even comparing it to the closeness of an actual family. He than discusses the clarity of the team, touching on aspects such as values, goals, and my favorite, competition. He stresses the immense importance of over communicating this clarity until you feel that you have "beaten a dead horse". Finally, he discusses the reinforcement of this clarity throughout every part of the human resource system. This includes the interview process when hiring workers, the periodic evaluations, and even in the dismissal stage. In this paper, I would like to focus on the discipline that I feel is most commonly overlooked, reinforcement through human relations.

Almost every successful corporation can and does the first two disciplines listed in the book. It is a necessity for a company to build a close team and figure out what the team's goals and missions will be. Some teams, although often unintentionally, over-communicate these goals and objectives through posters and periodic team meetings. Only the best and most successful corporations make it to the fourth and most vital, final stage. I feel that it is essential because no matter how well you know and are communicating your mission, if you aren't putting it into action, then its just talk. For example, if I had the cure for cancer, but only talked about the cure and how amazing it is, and failed to actually use it to save people, then I might as well have never told anyone about it in the first place. The same is true in the business setting, if you know the business plan and don't put it into action, then it is absolutely useless.

As I earlier mentioned, outside of a family business or partnership of long-time friends, the concepts in the book are a bit idealistic, however, I feel that it is a positive aspect of the book because it allows readers to have something to always be striving toward and attempting to reach. So for the purpose of this consideration, we will assume that it is possible to reach the fourth stage or discipline without perfecting the first three. For Rich's company, the fourth discipline was in place, for most, like Vince's, it is something that is simply strived for, but more often never successfully achieved.

This discipline helps organizations to sustain their health in four major areas: hiring, managing performance, recognition, and employee dismissal. First is the hiring of new employees. Unlike most organizations who rely solely on resume items and the interviewer's opinion, you want to be like Rich's company. He didn't hire anyone based just on his or her skills and past experience, instead he had them go through a rigorous interviewing process and got everyone's opinion before hiring new people. He also would take them to odd places in order to get a better feel for how they would react under unusual circumstances. This allows a company to better see if someone has the core virtues and morals that the company wants to exhibit. Next is managing performance. Many organizations make two common mistakes that cause them to mismanage performance. First, many companies make the process too complicated with lots of lengthy forms and paperwork involved, only making the process tedious and even causing the evaluators to not want to do it. The other problem is that too many companies purchase evaluations systems from companies. These are not tailored at all to their business and therefore are not personal. In my opinion, companies should try to be more like Rich's when it comes to evaluation, simple and ongoing! He would have them every three months with him, and he would be short and to the point. This kept the workers from dreading the procedure and also kept problems from lasting longer than necessary. Third is the process of recognizing and rewarding successful employees. Consistency is vital in maintaining the health of the organization at this level. Rewards must be given on an even playing field, for the employees who do the best job and improve the organization's well being, rather than the employee who everyone likes the most, staying consistent with the same values used in hiring and performance management. Finally, dismissal of employees should be done without forgetting about organizational clarity. They should use the same values to make judgments on removing people from the organization. However, I feel that if the first three aspects of this discipline are in place and working, there will rarely be an employee that it is found necessary to remove.

In the fable, Rich's company had the disciplines in order and it worked well until someone slipped through the cracks while he was out of the picture on vacation. This however, is something that should be thought about because there