A LynchPyn framework

Foundational Four®

Four questions that get a leadership team clear on why the company exists and how it's going to win.

Most leadership teams believe they're aligned until someone asks them to write it down. Then you find out how many different companies are sitting around the same table.

The Foundational Four is how I get a team, and the leader running it, onto the same page. Four questions, answered together, in the team's own words. The questions are adapted from Patrick Lencioni's The Advantage. They're simple on purpose. The work is in answering them honestly.

The four questions

  1. Why do we exist?

    The reason the company is here beyond making money. Someone, a customer, a community, the people who work there, would be worse off if you didn't exist. That's the answer you're looking for.

  2. How do we behave?

    The two or three values that already live in the company and don't change. They tell people how to act when no one is watching. They attract the right people and repel the ones who were never going to fit.

  3. What do we do?

    The simplest of the four. A plain description of what the company does. No idealism required.

  4. How will we succeed?

    What sets you apart, and the few strategic choices that put you in position to win. This is the heart of the strategy.

Where it lives in the work

In my practice the Foundational Four is where the business advisory work starts, with the leader and the leadership team. It's built in the first month, pulled from what they've already told me rather than handed over as a template to fill in.

Then it becomes the filter. The meeting agenda, the next hire, the decision that's been sitting for months. Each one gets checked against the four answers. Over time it shapes the culture, how the company is organized, and what the team is actually committed to.

A plan only aligns a team if people hear it more than once. So we keep it in front of them, in every meeting, until it stops being a document and becomes how they decide.

The Foundational Four is one part of the work. The rest is the person running the company.

How I work

Foundational Four® is a registered trademark.