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Summary: CEO's should read this book in front of a mirror.
Review: There are few books that I have come across that strike at the heart of the challenges of leading an organization better than The Five Temptations of a CEO. Given that the attention spans of organizational leaders are short, and the need to adopt a 21st century approach to leadership is critical, Patrick Lencioni has hit a home run in crafting a message that is engaging and to the point. Charlies of the world must find the collective voice to help leaders grow. Leaders must find the courage to listen.
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Summary: Decent airport business book fare
Review: This book is a mildly interesting diversion, suitable for passing the time at the airport or elsewhere. It offers some interesting comments on CEO's failings, mainly around that they put themselves and their own egos and intersts above the company's.It is written in classic almost formulaeic management-book style: a simple story is given a title with numbers and a simple "law" it is also so basic that it can be applied and expanded to many situations, epsecially if you are gullible. Gives the impression that this was witten entirely for the money.
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Summary: Simply The Best
Review: This book is impossible to put down and Lencioni mixes a healthy dose of reality with a fictitional context. I am ordering this book for every executive in our company. A must read. -Scott Sorochak VP Bus Dev-DoDots
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Summary: DON'T BE A VICTIM OF THE FIVE TEMPTATIONS
Review: This book is written in the style of "the one minute CEO", with the idea that if the CEO falls to these temptations, he or she will not be CEO for long? The fable brings out many interesting insights. In fact, I thought the fable was a better learning tool than the summary at the end because the complexity of many CEO responsibilities came through during the fable. The idea that CEOs get weighed down in minutia is accurate. A large and well-respected chemical company hired a statistician about four years ago to follow the executive team around to watch how they spent their time. The result was that 85% of what they did was react to blips rather than important trends. THE FIVE TEMPTATIONS OF A CEO reminds me of the stalls that all managers face because of the inherent culture of so many of our companies. In fact, being tempted by accuracy over clarity was the problem for our chemical friends. This is the Communications Stall. Make sure people know and understand what they should be doing. Being tempted by status rather than pursuing results (Temptation 1) is related to The Disbelief Stall (How can I not succeed!). And the Bureaucratic Stall fosters the temptation of harmony rather than healthy disagreement, because it is easier to hide behind policies and practices. Eliminating stalls and ensuring good communication lead to alternatives the discussions, which are requirements for a better future.
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Summary: Not a typical leadership book - but good!
Review: This book kept me reading to the end - it only takes no more than an hour to read and it's easy but powerful reading! The book will keep you asking yourself what are YOUR OWN temptations and he does a great job of giving examples of real-life (or so) situations to make you understand it better. Neat ending too! Not so much a refernece manual on leadership, but a good read!
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Summary: Temptations are common sense
Review: This book outlines, in a fable mode, the five temptations of a CEO. The temptations are : - choosing status over results (i.e. wanting to protect own status instead of focusing on bottom-line results) - choosing popularity over accountability - choosing certainty over clarity (i.e. analysis paralysis - always delaying to make key decisions until all facts are gathered) - choosing harmony over healthy conflict (in meetings) - choosing invulnerability ("I am never wrong") over trust ("I too can make mistakes) in the face of subordinates Although these temptations are valid, they are pretty much common sense. Moreover, I think there are more than 5 temptations; you may add others, e.g. not wanting to delegate, selecting the wrong people, making intuitive decisions not based on any facts, not willing to learn from setbacks, back down in the face of setbacks (instead of facing it with courage) etc. Overall, I think this book is ok; easy to read and quite interesting. However, I believe it is too expensive for its content. If you want to find out about key insights from an 'actual', successful CEO, I suggest you read Michael Dell's "Direct From Dell". Here he described his temptations and how he had coped with them.
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Summary: A refreshingly useful business book for all readers
Review: This book should be read by anyone who leads people or would like to. The screenplay skills of the author are evident in the illustritive story of Andrew O' Brien's struggle as a young CEO. This book will make you re-think some things.
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Summary: Better than the "How to" books
Review: This book was sent directly to me from the Table Group. They had seen my other reviews and wanted my opinion on Lencioni's book. As CEO of a company I can say that this book was better than most. Any CEO position comes with different responsibilites and this book isn't trying to give the reader a check list of items they should meet in order to be successful. Instead, this book gives the reader five different holes CEO often fall into. This is something that other books fail to address, it's also probably the main area most CEOs fail at. The book was a little too easy and a little too short, but I enjoyed how the temptations were laid out and the fable story line worked for me. However, I would have liked to have seen more information on how to correct these temptations once a CEO knows that he/she has problems. A little too short and little too easy, but better than most of the books out there. This is a book any CEO or any want-to-be CEO should read.
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Summary: widely applicable
Review: This book was short, sweet, and to the point. Although it is focused on CEO as the prototype, this really points to anyone in a leadership and managrial role. The fable is illustrative, and the flow chart and short didactic at the end spells out the key message. It's worth pulling out and quickly reviewing once or twice a year to check back into your own personal growth and areas that still need improvement
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Summary: EXCELLENT!, a fun, fresh look at my own management style.
Review: This book was very cleverly written and kept my attention throughout. It became very clear that Pat Lencioni is not a typical self help, or personal development PHD. He approached the lessons in this book with fresh creativity that kept me glued to the end. I couldn't put the book down until I was sure that I had identified my own greatest tempation, which I will leave out of this review. I have read several organizational development and personal self help books and Pat Lencioni's book provided me with a fresh tool which lends a clean perspective on my own management style. The fable was a great lesson which each one of us can learn from weither we are CEO's managing large corporations, middle managers, or weither we are managing the most important team we will ever be on,... our families. Great book Pat Lencioni, thank you.
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