Online MBA in Leadership and Organizational Health

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PATRICK LENCIONI: Organizational health is making an organization culturally effective, and eliminating politics, confusion, dysfunction, and making morale and productivity a very real thing, not in an esoteric way, but a very real attribute in an organization. And the way to do that is to practice four simple, but difficult disciplines. The first of which is you have to make the leaders of the organization-- whether we're talking about the executive team of a multibillion dollar company, or the leadership team of a department within that company, or the people that run a small entrepreneurial venture, or a school, a church, a hospital, whatever, the leaders of that organization have to be behaviorally cohesive. They have to work together in a behavioral way that's effective.

The next thing they have to do, though, is they have to become intellectually aligned. They have to be on the same page around the answers to a few very simple, but critical questions. So they have to be behaviorally aligned, intellectually aligned, and once they do those first two things, then they have to go out and communicate the heck out of that alignment. They have to tell people the answers to those questions, and remind people constantly.

And then finally, they have to build just enough structure, just enough human systems into the organization, to reinforce that clarity in how they hire, how they fire, how they manage, how they reward, all those kinds of things. So if you can do those four things — build a cohesive team, create clarity, communicate clarity, and reinforce it, you can build a healthy organization that's going to allow you to tap into the knowledge that you have.

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In this course, students will learn the foundations of organizational health, as defined through open and honest communication, an informed decision-making process, and the execution and accountability of business decisions in an organization. Students will examine the dynamics of healthy and dysfunctional teams, explore individual work behavioral styles, and learn how these impact team performance and communication. They will evaluate communication strategies, conflict resolution models, and strategies for building a cohesive and healthy team.

In this course, students will learn how to build cohesive teams by exploring the best practices and strategies of healthy organizations. These practices and strategies include six critical areas that define and sustain a healthy organization: (1) the organization's purpose, (2) values that guide the organization's purpose, (3) the business definition, (4) measurement of success, (5) a single overarching goal, and (6) ownership of goals. Students will evaluate an organization's performance against the six critical areas, creating a "playbook" that ensures organizational health.

In this course, students will learn how to develop a strategic communication plan, foster interdependence, and build human capital. Students will examine strategies for healthy organizational communication, assess criteria for effective meetings, and evaluate the components of a human performance support system. Included in this course is a capstone experience where students will apply all four of the Lencioni leadership frameworks by synthesizing and integrating the concepts and principles in a real-world project.