Here’s the situation. Jude Cousins is a talented, energetic, and ambitious young marketing executive at Hatch Technology who, with his wife Teresa’s support and encouragement, decides to leave his secure job after Hatch is purchased by Bell Financial Systems. He establishes an independent consulting practice and almost immediately obtains three clients: The Madison Hotel (San Francisco’s oldest, largest, and most prestigious independent hotel), JMJ Fitness Machines (a manufacturer of high-end consumer and institutional exercise equipment), and Children’s Hospital of Sacramento. Jude also agrees to help Father Ralph Colombano, pastor of Corpus Christi Church (in Walnut Hill, CA) on a pro bono basis. One of the many challenges when writing a business narrative is to create fictional characters and relationships that are plausible. Although Lencioni calls his book a “leadership fable” (and it is), he anchors Jude in familiar, real-world situations when explaining how to destroy “the barriers that turn colleagues into competitors.” He never allows his characters to sound like they are lecturing or preaching. Wisely, Lencioni includes only as much dialogue as is absolutely necessary. Silos, Politics and Turf Wars succeeds as a “realistic but fictional story” precisely because Lencioni achieves and then sustains an appropriate balance between what is fact (e.g. constant infighting among those in its workforce can tear an organization apart) and what is believable. After its “honeymoon,” Cousins Consulting proceeds through a period that resembles a ride on a “roller coaster” until Jude experiences several “moments of truth.” Lencioni has some quite serious objectives in mind. As he explains, “To tear down silos, leaders must go beyond behaviors and address the contextual issues at the heart of departmental separation and politics. The purpose of this book is to present a simple, powerful tool for addressing those issues and reducing the pain that silos cause. And that pain should not be underestimated.” Indeed not.
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