Patrick Lincioni has become well known in local government organization for his story-based books like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  His most recent book, The Advantage:  Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, departs from this story format and makes a strong argument that even more critical than an organization's 'smarts' (e.g., sound business model, cutting edge technology, and lean processes and systems), is an organization's 'health', defined as being composed of the following "four disciplines:"

1. Build a Cohesive Leadership Team. If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance that it will become healthy.
2. Create Clarity. Leaders create clarity for themselves and others when they are aligned, as a team, in such a way that there is no room for confusion, disorder, or infighting to set in.
3. Over-communicate Clarity. Be sure everyone in the organization knows the answers to questions like, why does the organization exist? How do we behave? What do we do? And what is important right now?
4. Reinforce Clarity. Be sure that every human system–every process that involves people–is designed to reinforce the answers to the organization’s most important questions.

We at the Center for High-Performance Organizations (a part of the ICMA Center for Managment Strategies) have been making this argument for years in our leading-practice seminar, Building High-Performance Organizations, and Lencioni's recent book adds an additional layer of insight and suggestions for senior managers to strengthen this side of their organizations.   You can hear a podcast interview with Lincioni talking about The Advantage at:  http://managementconsultingnews.com/2012/04/post-podcast-patrick-lencioni/.  The interview is conducted by Michael W. McLaughlin, Editor of Consulting Management News (http://managementconsultingnews.com), which is a rich source of organizational improvement articles and interviews.