Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable.

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable. By Patrick Lencioni. Jossey-Bass, 211 pages. $29.95.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This latest book from author Lencioni, founder and president of the Table Group, a consulting firm specializing in leadership development, follows on a formula he has developed in earlier works like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He mixes the page-turning devices of mystery fiction--very short chapters and a fast-moving narrative--with a subtext of business concepts and practices.

In this case, he creates a character, Jude Cousins, a young marketing manager who starts his own consulting firm. In the course of building that business, Cousins interacts with a series of clients--an exercise equipment manager, a hospital, a hotel and a software company--only to find that each is hampered by functional silos. Through the narrative, Cousins manages to develop a simple, yet powerful method for breaking through silos and rallying company employees around a common theme.

Lencioni does have a knack for creating personable characters that readers can empathize with to lead them through the story. And chapters race by. At the end of the book, Lencioni steps back and offers his own thoughts in a chapter called "The Theory."

The success of this "business fiction" technique rides on the reader's ability to move through the book and assimilate the various episodes as emblematic of different issues and hurdles they themselves could face. That may rest with the individual reader. But, Lencioni has done his part. Like a good novel or a screenplay, Silos is well-constructed, entertaining and easy to digest.