The kind of people that all teams need are people who are humble, hungry, and smart: humble being little ego, focusing more on their teammates than on themselves. Hungry, meaning they have a strong work ethic, are determined to get things done, and contribute any way they can. Smart, meaning not intellectually smart but inner personally smart.
Patrick Lencioni
Teamwork requires some sacrifice up front; people who work as a team have to put the collective needs of the group ahead of their individual interests.
Patrick Lencioni
When leaders throughout an organization take an active, genuine interest in the people they manage, when they invest real time to understand employees at a fundamental level, they create a climate for greater morale, loyalty, and, yes, growth.
Patrick Lencioni
Engaged, enthusiastic, and loyal employees are pivotal drivers of growth and health in any organization.
Patrick Lencioni
Clients don’t expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by acknowledging when a mistake has been made and humbly apologizing for it.
Patrick Lencioni
Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.
Patrick Lencioni
When team members trust each other and know that everyone is capable of admitting when they’re wrong, then conflict becomes nothing more than the pursuit of truth or the best possible answer.
Patrick Lencioni
If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.
Patrick Lencioni
The best kind of accountability on a team is peer-to-peer. Peer pressure is more efficient and effective than going to the leader, anonymously complaining, and having them stop what they are doing to intervene.
Patrick Lencioni
Trying to design the perfect plan is the perfect recipe for disappointment.
Patrick Lencioni
Meetings are the linchpin of everything. If someone says you have an hour to investigate a company, I wouldn’t look at the balance sheet. I’d watch their executive team in a meeting for an hour. If they are clear and focused and have the board on the edge of their seats, I’d say this is a good company worth investing in.
Patrick Lencioni
Failing to engage in conflict is a terrible decision, one that puts our temporary comfort and the avoidance of discomfort ahead of the ultimate goal of our organization.
Patrick Lencioni
When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.
Patrick Lencioni
Life is full of surprises: new opportunities come up; that’s part of the fun – the adventure of life. The thing is, chaos doesn’t allow us to enjoy the adventure.
Patrick Lencioni
Whether we’re talking about leadership, teamwork, or client service, there is no more powerful attribute than the ability to be genuinely honest about one’s weaknesses, mistakes, and needs for help.
Patrick Lencioni
The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.
Patrick Lencioni
Teamwork is a strategic decision.
Patrick Lencioni
You have to build trust among team members so that people feel free to admit what they don’t know, make mistakes, ask for help if they need it, apologize when necessary, and not hold back their opinions.
Patrick Lencioni
Team members need to learn to leverage one another, and that doesn’t happen over a golf game or on a phone. It happens by getting together and taking the time to know each other.
Patrick Lencioni
Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility.
Patrick Lencioni
Team synergy has an extraordinary impact on business results.
Patrick Lencioni
You need to make sure you hire people who are capable of being strong team players. Team members should fit the company’s culture, be committed to the team, and be capable of being genuinely vulnerable and selfless.
Patrick Lencioni
For organizations seriously committed to making teamwork a cultural reality, I’m convinced that ‘the right people’ are the ones who have three virtues in common – humility, hunger, and people smarts.
Patrick Lencioni
When employees feel anonymous in the eyes of their managers, they simply cannot love their work, no matter how much money they make or how wonderful their jobs seem to be.
Patrick Lencioni
What clients are really interested in is honesty, plus a baseline of competence.
Patrick Lencioni
The truth is that intelligence, knowledge, and domain expertise are vastly overrated as the driving forces behind competitive advantage and sustainable success.
Patrick Lencioni
When team members openly and passionately share their opinions about a decision, they don’t wonder whether anyone is holding back. Then, when the leader has to step in and make a decision because there is no easy consensus, team members will accept that decision because they know that their ideas were heard and considered.
Patrick Lencioni
Employees that feel known and they feel like they know why their job matters and they have a sense of measuring it stay later, do extra work, and are committed to the organization above the requirements that they have.
Patrick Lencioni
I have many times marveled at how I could feel so good about myself while eating peanuts in a middle seat on Southwest Airlines and yet feel so condescended to in first class on United.
Patrick Lencioni
What’s amazing is that so many leaders who value teamwork will tolerate people who aren’t humble. They reluctantly hire self-centred people and then justify it because those people have desired skills.
Patrick Lencioni
I have yet to meet members of a leadership team who I thought lacked the intelligence or the domain expertise required to be successful. I’ve met many, however, who failed to foster organizational health. Their companies were riddled with politics, various forms of dysfunction, and general confusion about their direction and mission.
Patrick Lencioni
Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.
Patrick Lencioni
Without trust, the most essential element of innovation – conflict – becomes impossible.
Patrick Lencioni
You can go to work and actually make someone else’s job less miserable. Use your job to help others.
Patrick Lencioni
There is almost nothing more painful for a leader than seeing good people leave a growing organization, whether it’s a priest watching a Sunday school teacher walk out the door or a CEO saying goodbye to a co-founder.
Patrick Lencioni
Where there is humility, there is more success, and lasting success.
Patrick Lencioni
Too often, companies focus on systems and structures that facilitate cultural change at the mid-management level, overlooking problems closer to the top.
Patrick Lencioni
Every employee needs to know that there’s somebody out there that they serve. And when we don’t let people know that for one reason or another, we’re depriving them of a fulfilling job.
Patrick Lencioni
Members of great teams confront each other when they see something that isn’t serving the team.
Patrick Lencioni
Smart people tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to deal with others in the most effective way. They ask good questions, listen to what others are saying, and stay engaged in conversations intently.
Patrick Lencioni
We learn by taking action and seeing whether it works or not.
Patrick Lencioni
Smaller groups of people can establish trusting relationships.
Patrick Lencioni
Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values – and sticking to them – requires real guts.
Patrick Lencioni
Your focus should be on creating an environment where growth can occur and then letting nature take its course.
Patrick Lencioni
Make sure that the people at the top are working together and there aren’t divisions of labor. Don’t have people working in silos; have them working across the team.
Patrick Lencioni
The fact is, employees cannot make breakthroughs if they can’t openly and honestly disagree with their peers and their leader. Indeed, great leaders don’t just permit conflict; they actively try to elicit it from reluctant employees as well.
Patrick Lencioni
Employees who can’t trust their leader to be vulnerable are not going to be vulnerable and build trust with one another.
Patrick Lencioni
Having to re-recruit, rehire, and retrain, and wait for a new employee to get up to speed is devastating in terms of cost.
Patrick Lencioni
On great teams – the kind where people trust each other, engage in open conflict, and then commit to decisions – team members have the courage and confidence to confront one another when they see something that isn’t serving the team.
Patrick Lencioni
At its core, all authentic growth depends on more customers wanting more of what your company offers. Any other drivers – pricing gimmicks, heroic marketing efforts, forced acquisitions – are ultimately destructive.
Patrick Lencioni
Great teams argue. Not in a mean-spirited or personal way, but they disagree when important decisions are made.
Patrick Lencioni
I’ve seen it again and again in my consulting: Most teams are too large to be innovative, despite their leaders’ best intentions.
Patrick Lencioni