Patrick Lencioni Quotes

morale at the company was undeniably higher, and turnover had dropped markedly. But Jeff was adamant that it shouldn't go away completely: “If no one is leaving or being asked to leave, then we're probably not truly living these values.

The essence of a cohesive leadership team is trust, which is marked by an absence of politics, unnecessary anxiety, and wasted energy. Every executive wants to achieve this, but few are able to do so because they fail to understand the roots of these problems, the most damaging of which is politics.

That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes. While each of these tools and exercises can have a significant short-term impact on a team's ability to build trust,

When leaders fail to tell employees that they're doing a great job, they might as well be taking money out of their pockets and throwing it into a fire.

Instructions: Use the scale below to indicate how each statement applies to your actions on the team. Respond as honestly as possible, as this will allow you to most accurately identify any areas of development that you may have. Scale: 3 = Usually 2 = Sometimes 1 = Rarely Humble My teammates would say: ______ 1. I compliment or praise them without hesitation. ______ 2. I easily admit to my mistakes. ______ 3. I am willing to take on lower-level work for the good of the team. ______ 4. I gladly share credit for team accomplishments. ______ 5. I readily acknowledge my weaknesses. ______ 6. I offer and accept apologies graciously. ______ Total Humility Score Hungry My teammates would say: ______ 7. I do more than what is required in my own job. ______ 8. I have passion for the "mission" of the team. ______ 9. I feel a sense of personal responsibility for the overall success of the team. ______ 10. I am willing to contribute to and think about work outside of office hours. ______ 11. I am willing to take on tedious or challenging tasks whenever necessary. ______ 12. I look for opportunities to contribute outside of my area of responsibility. ______ Total Hunger Score Smart My teammates would say: ______ 13. I generally understand what others are feeling during meetings and conversations. ______ 14. I show empathy to others on the team. ______ 15. I demonstrate an interest in the lives of my teammates. ______ 16. I am an attentive listener. ______ 17. I am aware of how my words and actions impact others on the team. ______ 18. I adjust my behavior and style to fit the nature of a conversation or relationship. ______ Total Smart Score Scoring: Remember, the purpose of this tool is to help you explore and assess how you embody the three virtues of an ideal team player. The standards for "ideal" are high. An ideal team player will have few of these statements answered with anything lower than a '3' (usually) response. A score of 18 or 17 is an indication that the virtue is

Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.

Trust is not the same as assuming everyone is on the same page as you & that they don't need to be pushed. Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they're doing it because they care about the team.

Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don't think it's easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids

When team members trust one another, when they know that everyone on the team is capable of admitting when they don't have the right answer, and when they're willing to acknowledge when someone else's idea is better than theirs, the fear of conflict and the discomfort it entails is greatly diminished. When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer. It is not only okay but desirable.

organizations learn by making decisions, even bad ones.

Effective off-sites provide executives an opportunity to regularly step away from the daily, weekly, even monthly issues that occupy their attention, so they can review the business in a more holistic, long-term manner. Topics for reflection and discussion at a productive Quarterly Off-Site Review might include the following: Comprehensive Strategy Review: Executives should reassess their strategic direction, not every day as so many do, but three or four times a year. Industries change and new competitive threats emerge that call for different approaches. Reviewing strategies annually or semiannually is usually not often enough to stay current. Team Review: Executives should regularly assess themselves and their behaviors as a team, identifying trends or tendencies that may not be serving the organization. This often requires a change of scenery so that executives can interact with one another on a more personal level and remind themselves of their collective commitments to the team. Personnel Review: Three or four times a year, executives should talk, across departments, about the key employees within the organization. Every member of an executive team should know whom their peers view as their stars, as well as their poor performers. This allows executives to provide perspectives that might actually alter those perceptions based on different experiences and points of view. More important, it allows them to jointly manage and retain top performers, and work with poor performers similarly. Competitive and Industry Review: Information about competitors and industry trends bleeds into an organization little by little over time. It is useful for executives to step back and look at what is happening around them in a more comprehensive way so they can spot trends that individual nuggets of information might not make clear. Even the best executives can lose sight of the forest for the trees when inundated with daily responsibilities.

a leader's first priority is to create an environment where others can do these things and that cannot happen if they are not having effective meetings.

Peer pressure and the distaste for letting down a colleague will motivate a team player more than any fear of authoritative punishment or rebuke.

there is no such thing as too much communication.

If we don't trust one another, then we aren't going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we'll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony.