|
|
The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable (Hardcover)
by Patrick M. Lencioni
| Category:
Business, Management, Leadership |
| Market price: ¥ 248.00
MSL price:
¥ 208.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
MSL Pointer Review:
In this stunning business fiction debut, Patrick Lencioni delivers a powerful wake-up call to all of us who dare to lead.
|
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Patrick M. Lencioni
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Pub. in: September, 1998
ISBN: 0787944335
Pages: 160
Measurements: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00806
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0787944339
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- Awards & Credential -
The fable stresses five things that every manager, educator, community member, or parent might use on their way to success. It forces one to engage in ongoing behavioral self-examination, which is hard for many leaders to do.
|
|
- MSL Picks -
As he stared out the picture window from his office, Andrew O'Brien wondered how it had come to this.Tomorrow would be the one-year anniversary of his promotion to CEO. It would also be the first board meeting where he would be accountable for the results of an entire fiscal year. Those results, as he had grown accustomed to saying, were "unspectacular at best."Andrew could not deny that he was at a low point in his brief tenure as CEO, a point he never expected to reach so soon.Then things got worse.In this stunning business fiction debut, Patrick Lencioni delivers a powerful wake-up call to all of us who dare to lead.Young, ambitious, and overwhelmed Andrew O'Brien personifies a part of every leader as he wanders in search of the elusive silver bullet that will propel him to success. He happens upon an unlikely guide who distills the seemingly infinite list of leadership perils into the five temptations of a CEO. In an intense and often combative exchange, the two debate fundamental issues faced by all leaders-issues involving personal integrity and effectiveness in the ongoing struggle for success. While some of these topics have been bandied about in the leadership literature for years, here they actually begin to make sense.Refreshingly original and utterly compelling, Andrew's story (written to be read in one sitting) will be enjoyed, remembered, and reread for years to come. It serves as a timeless and potent reminder that success as a leader can come down to practicing a few simple behaviors-behaviors that are painfully difficult for each of us to master.
(Quoting from The Publisher)
Target readers:
Businessmen, entrepreneurs, CEOs.
|
|
- Better with -
Better with
Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box
:
|
|
Jossey-Bass is president of The Table Group, a San Francisco Bay Area management consulting firm. In addition to his work as an executive coach and consultant, Pat has also written a number of screenplays. Previously he held key positions at Sybase and Oracle. He began his career at Bain & Company. Over the years, Pat has worked with hundreds of executive teams and CEOs-all victims, at one time or another, of the five temptations.
|
|
Absorbing, compelling, and utterly memorable, The Five Temptations of a CEO is like no other business book that's come before. Author Patrick Lencioni - noted screenplay writer and sought-after executive coach - deftly tells the tale of a young CEO who, facing his first annual board review, knows he is failing, but doesn't know why.
"This book provides extraordinary insight into the pitfalls that leaders face when they lose sight of the true measure of success: results. This model is required reading for my staff."
- Eric Schmidt, chairman of the board and CEO, Novell
Any executive can learn how to:
- recognize the mistakes that leaders can make
- avoid errors before they occur
- and much more!
Refreshingly original and utterly compelling, the story of this executive (written to be read in one sitting) will be enjoyed, remembered, and reread for years to come. It serves a timeless and potent reminder that success as a leader can come down to practicing a few simple behaviors - behaviors that are painfully difficult for each of us to master.
"Lencioni delivers a provocative message: CEOs mainly have themselves to blame when things go wrong. If you're a CEO (or any manager for that matter), do you have the courage to face the blame? Doing so could change your future-for the better."
- Dr. Jerry Porras, coauthor, Built to Last; professor, Stanford School of Business
You won't find any dry management rhetoric in this razor-sharp novelette. Apply these riveting lessons in leadership with the self-assessment at the end of the book. It will change your career!
|
Introduction
Being the chief executive of an organization is one of the most difficult challenges a person can face in a career. But it is not a complicated one.
Some CEOs, especially the struggling ones, might disagree with this statement. They'll tell you their jobs are riddled with complexities and subtleties that make success impossible to predict. If their organizations fail, they may point to a tired list of causes like strategic errors, marketing inadequacies, competitive threats, and technology failures. But these are only symptoms of their troubles.
All chief executives who fail - and most of them do at one time or another - make the same basic mistakes; they succumb to one (or more!) of the Five Temptations of a CEO.
If this is true, if a CEO's success hinges on just a few behaviors, then why don't more of them succeed? Why do they keep looking at the same financial statements, product development schedules, and marketing reports in search of a silver bullet? I think Lucille Ball answers this question best.
In an old episode of the I Love Lucy show, Ricky comes home to find Lucy crawling around the living room on all fours. When he asks her what she+s doing she explains that she has lost her earrings. "You lost your earrings in the living room?" Ricky asks. Lucy replies, "No, I lost them in the bedroom-but the light is so much better out here."
For many CEOs the light is best in places like marketing, strategic planning, and finance, safe havens from the painful darkness of behavioral self-examination. Unfortunately, they find little opportunity for meaningful improvement in these areas.
Even relatively progressive executives often stay in the comfort of their - living rooms,+ sampling management fads and leadership trends in search of relatively painless remedies for their ills. While some of those remedies appear to work for a while, they eventually leave executives exposed to the same basic issues that caused their problems in the first place, the ones explored in this book.
The tragedy here is that most executives are intuitive enough to understand all this-but many of them struggle to do anything about it. Instead, they unconsciously distract themselves and others from their personal leadership issues by getting overly involved in the details of their businesses, often to the point of creating complexity where it shouldn't exist.
Essentially, what they are doing is putting the success of their organizations in jeopardy because they are unwilling to face - and overcome - the Five Temptations of a CEO.
|
|
| View all 8 comments |
CEO reviews (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
"A must read for all leaders, not just CEOs. Take it from someone whohas been tempted. Better than a personal coach." - Boyd Clark, president and CEO, The Tom Peters Group
"Pat Lencioni delivers a provocative message: CEOs mainly havethemselves to blame when things go wrong. If you're a CEO (or any manager for that matter), do you have the courage to face the blame? Doing so could change your future-for the better." - Dr. Jerry Porras, co-author, Built To Last; professor, Stanford School of Business
"A truly enjoyable story. I found myself immediately trying to decidewhether I had fallen victim to the temptations. I think most executiveswill be able to recognize parts of themselves in this well-written,enlightened book!" - Ellyn McColgan, president, Fidelity Investments Tax Exempt Services Co.
"This book provides extraordinary insight into the pitfalls that leadersface when they lose sight of the true measure of success-results. Thismodel is required reading for my staff." - Dr. Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO, Novell Corporation
"The most fascinating book I have ever read about management. Pat Lencioni thrusts into the psyche of a CEO in an extremely shrewd manner and reveals the vulnerabilities there. I could not help but feel I was the one being confronted while reading it." - Tadao Kobayashi, Executive Vice President, American Honda Motor Company
"Lencioni goes right to the core of what is at once simple and profoundly hard to do as a leader: to take actions that are conscious and honest, always. He challenges us to be authentic - at precisely those moments when we are most tempted to act out of ego, vanity, or fear. When I am doing a good job, I'm aware of following the principles he suggests." - Dr. Diane Flannery, CEO, Juma Ventures
"Leadership is about motivating others to achieve superior results. It demands that individuals rise above the inherent human temptations so clearly articulated in this book. Insightful and entertaining, The Five Temptations of a CEO provides a practical construct that will help every general manager become more effective." - Thomas J. Tierney, Worldwide Managing Partner, Bain & Company
|
Max More (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
Patrick Lencioni has a talent for cutting through the complexities of leadership and teamwork to highlight core principles then presenting them in easily digestible fictional form. In this book (in the UK going by the title of Five Temptations of a Manager) technology company CEO Andrew O'Brien has a mysterious encounter with an unlikely mentor on a deserted commuter train the night before the annual meeting of the board of directors. He's in trouble but doesn't understand why. The enigmatic Charlie leads him through an exploration of five "temptations" that often trip up ambitious executives: Choosing status over results; choosing popularity over accountability; choosing certainty over clarity; choosing harmony over productive conflict; choosing invulnerability over trust. Easily read in a single sitting, this book conveys the temptations effectively in fable form, followed by a summary and discussion by Lencioni. This may not be a comfortable book for some leaders to read. It doesn't let them off the hook for any of a company's problems. The message is timely as CEOs exit failing companies with massive severance packages. If you read only one of Lencioni's books, you will probably find his style further developed and even more effective in his second book, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, or his third, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
|
John Kevin (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
Pat Lencioni delivers a strong message in this book to anyone in a leadership position, not just CEOs. And that message is that when things go wrong, leaders have themselves to blame. And it offers a challenge to all leaders asking whether the have the courage to accept the responsibility of failure and make the necessary adjustments. The book is effective in its story telling, as well as, being a capable tool for self-assessment. The story of Andrew O' Brien, the CEO of a failing company facing his yearly review, was compelling and all too real. I believe everyone has a little Andrew O' Brien in all of us and, at times a lot more of him in us. This book read like a good Hollywood screenplay with a surprise ending. Along with the story, the book also discussed the points that were mentioned in the story and offers a questions and exercises which can be used as self assessment to determine what temptations the reader may be suffering from. As a graduate student, I am so glad that I have found this book because it has helped me discover some potential temptations that I have and I can get an early start on not falling victim to them. I recommend this book highly to everyone who is in a leadership position. And it should be on the course syllabus for any class teaching leadership or management skills. When I'm in a leadership position this book will definitely be required reading for all of my subordinates.
|
Roger Herman (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
Every CEO understands that "it's lonely at the top." That loneliness contributes to temptations that can cause an otherwise dedicated executive to go down the wrong path. In this leadership fable, Lencioni, president of The Table consulting group in the San Francisco area, stimulates our thinking with an enjoyable story that captivates the reader's attention. Identifying with Andrew, a troubled CEO, isn't difficult at all... and may even be a bit uncomfortable. The discomfort dissolves with the learning that comes in page after page.
Working late on the night before an important board meeting, Andrew O'Brien finds himself on a commuter train. Alone. Except for Charlie, who appears to be a janitor. A conversation develops through which Charlie, an unexpected source of wisdom, shares valuable insight and perspectives with Andrew.
The lessons are built around the five temptations that lead CEOs astray. The fable is well-woven and thought-provoking. Following the story, Lencioni presents his model: a summary of why executives fail. A self-assessment concludes the book. Though I wasn't that excited about the self-assessment, the value of the balance of the book overcomes any deficiencies I might see in those few pages.
The Five Temptations are choosing status over results, choosing popularity over accountability, choosing certainty over clarity, choosing harmony over productive conflict, and choosing vulnerability over trust. Lest you think that you can now avoid reading this book because you know the secrets, let me admonish you that merely knowing the words is considerably different than understanding the concepts. That benefit will come with reading the book, then applying the learnings to strengthen your personal performance.
This quick read can make a significant difference in your effectiveness and happiness.
|
View all 8 comments |
|
|
|
|
