PDF Summary:The Ideal Team Player, by Patrick M. Lencioni

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While they sound simple, developing and living the virtues is more complicated. Many people have one or more of the qualities, but fewer possess all three. A team member who lacks just one quality can hold back or derail a team.

However, with coaching and a relentless organizational commitment to teamwork, most people can learn to be ideal team players. Employees who develop these virtues increase their value to current and future employers. Leaders who hire employees who already demonstrate humility, hunger, and people skills (referred to in the book as smarts) get better results and eliminate politics, turnover, and morale issues.

Through the fictional story of a man who takes over his uncle’s troubled construction company, The Ideal Team Player explains how these three simple qualities combined can transform any organization.

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Feeling the pressure, Jeff talked one evening with his wife Maurine, who expressed confidence that Jeff could handle the challenges. Still, Jeff worried that the job could affect his relationship with his family if he screwed it up. Maurine advised him to just tackle one issue at a time.

Jeff learned more from Clare and Bobby about their staffing issues. The company had been experiencing significant turnover (33%) on its projects, so Bobby advised that they hire 80 people to get 60, since 20 would likely quit.

They’d be able to fill the lower-level jobs without a problem, Clare said, but finding a manager for the hospital project and three foremen would be more difficult—they’d lost two foremen a few months ago, so they were already behind. The foremen had quit because one of the two managers for the Oak Ridge project, Nancy Morris, was difficult to get along with and allowed problems to fester.

As the founder of Valley Builders, Bob had always stressed teamwork (he’d hired Jeff in the past to do teamwork training with his executives), but the concept hadn’t been pushed beyond the management team. So the company was being hamstrung by morale and turnover problems.

In fact,...

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That afternoon, Jeff talked with his cousin Ben, a school teacher and basketball coach (and Bob’s son) to get his thoughts on essential characteristics of team players. Ben said the key qualities were that they worked hard and weren’t prima donnas—they focused on helping the team succeed.

Next, Jeff and his two top managers went through a list of people the company had let go or had problems with in the past few years, looking for common denominators among non-team players. They came up with a fairly predictable list of negative traits: negative, lazy, self-centered, insensitive, and irresponsible.

Jeff, Clare, and Bobby soon got to test their own ability to identify team players: They decided to add a fourth top executive to their team, to help get the two big building projects done on time. Bobby had a highly qualified candidate in mind: Ted Marchbanks, a former division chief for a big construction company, who had retired recently.

They had a get-acquainted lunch with Ted and he came across as smooth and knowledgeable. Bobby wanted to hire him immediately, but Jeff and Clare didn’t have a sense yet of whether he’d be a team player.

Again, they tried to figure out what...

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When Jeff asked Kim for her impressions of Ted, she noted that Ted had waited in the lobby for 15 minutes that morning without noticing her. His only comments to her throughout the day were to ask her where the restroom was and if she could charge his phone. Jeff felt that treating administrative staff dismissively suggested that Ted lacked humility.

When he interviewed Ted over lunch, Jeff looked for indications that Ted was humble. He asked Ted how his former coworkers would describe him. Ted said he was well-liked by coworkers, but he got slightly annoyed when Jeff asked if that included administrative staff. He said he’d never had any problems with people.

Jeff explained to build a culture of teamwork, Valley Builders only hired people who were humble, hungry, and smart about dealing with others. Anyone who didn’t share these values would be uncomfortable working at the company. Finally, Jeff asked Ted for names of people he could talk to at Ted’s old company about whether he’d be a good fit for Valley Builders. Ted hesitated; he said he’d send a few names in the afternoon. But by the end of day, he hadn't done so.

Meanwhile, Clare called the HR director at his previous...

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A Few Months Later

The employees were overwhelmingly positive about Craig’s promotion, and he did well in the new position. Meanwhile, two references—an administrative employee at Ted’s old company and also one of his former clients—called and told Jeff that Valley Builders had dodged a bullet by not hiring him: Ted always put his own interests first.

Clare created a new hiring program; all hiring managers were trained in how to hire team players. They hired some strong senior managers and this made hiring the right people at other levels easier. One of the biggest pluses was rehiring the foreman Pedro, who had left in disgust. Nancy had contacted Pedro and admitted she’d let him down by being difficult to work with and not confronting personnel issues, but said she was working to do better in the future.

Jeff met with each of the company’s 17 foremen and project leaders, as he had with Nancy, to talk about the need for teamwork and the qualities everyone needed to demonstrate. Only one person ended up leaving.

A Year Later

Craig became an effective leader, working closely with Bobby on oversight of the hospital and hotel projects, both of which Valley Builders...

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Nonetheless, some types of hunger can be negative. Some highly motivated people are driven by self-interest rather than a desire to support the team’s mission. Their interests may conflict with the team’s. Or, work can become all-consuming and become a person’s identity and life.

A lack of hunger or drive on someone’s part is usually obvious because they produce less, which creates frustrations among other team members who have to pick up the slack. So leaders have to spend time pushing and monitoring them.

3) Smart

Being smart in a team context doesn’t refer to intelligence but to having common sense when it comes to dealing with people. Those with people skills understand where others are coming from. They ask questions and listen attentively. They are aware of group dynamics and of the impact of their words and actions on others, and they act appropriately.

Some smart people can be dangerous when they use interpersonal skills to manipulate or mislead others for their own purposes. So it’s important for hiring managers to look beyond what candidates say and take note of how they behave around others.

The Three Virtues Together

The three virtues...

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• Humble and hungry, not smart (Inadvertent troublemaker) Those who are humble and hungry but lack interpersonal skills are hard workers who want to help the team. They don’t try to hog credit or attention, but they are clueless about how their words and actions come across. Colleagues appreciate their effort but get tired of cleaning up the problems they create. They have a good chance of changing because their intentions aren’t bad and they can handle feedback. In the fable, Nancy fit this description.
• Humble and smart, not hungry (“Slacker”): These people are genial, get along well with others, and don’t crave the spotlight. But they do only enough to get by—they don’t voluntarily take on more work or extra assignments. Because they’re so likable, many leaders don’t push them, but without significant oversight, they hold back the team.
• Hungry and smart, not humble (“Politician”): These people are ambitious and may at first appear to be humble, but they work for their own interests. They use and discourage other people. By the time leaders identify them as a problem, they’ve done their damage. They’re often promoted by companies that value...

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Be Nontraditional

To get a better sense of a candidate, have someone take her out of the office to see how she acts in an unstructured environment—for instance, take her along on an errand. Remember to look for indications that she is humble, hungry, and smart.

In contrast, most interviews follow the same predictable, often awkward format as they did 40 years ago. They focus on answers to stock questions that don’t tell you whether the person is a good fit for the company.

Repeat Questions

The first time you ask a question, you often get a generic answer. If you ask again in a different way, you may get more details or a different answer. If you ask a third time, but you’re more pointed, you may get the most honest response.

Ask What Others Would Say

Ask candidates what others would say about them—for instance, instead of asking someone if he considers himself a hard worker, ask how colleagues would describe his work ethic or his level of humility. Candidates tend to give more honest answers to questions framed this way, perhaps because they think you might ask their colleagues the same question and compare answers.

Pay Attention to...

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• Does he show empathy toward team members and interest in their lives?
• Does he listen attentively?
• Is he aware of how his words and actions affect others?
• Does he adjust his behavior and style to the circumstances?

For an ideal team player, the answer to every question would be yes. Answering questions like these can add clarity even when a manager or team leader already knows an employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

Employee Self-Assessment

Asking employees to evaluate themselves may be an even more effective way to assess whether they’re team players or have the potential to become team players. Most employees will do self-assessments if the purpose is to improve, and shortcomings won’t be held against them. It’s also a chance for them to take ownership of their development.

Use the questions in the manager assessment above, but rephrase them to ask how coworkers would rate the employee—for instance, “Would a coworker say... I’m quick to praise teammates for accomplishments?” or “Would a coworker say … I readily admit it when I make mistakes?” and so on.

A simple, alternative self-evaluation method is to ask employees to rank how strong they are in...

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Having teammates encourage the employee by highlighting the positive behaviors can help reinforce them as well—for instance, a coworker might say, “I appreciated your compliment the other day …”

Developing Hunger

It’s easier to talk to an employee about developing hunger than about humility, but hunger is harder to develop because it involves attitude. Lack of motivation is obvious and measurable—people who lack hunger typically do less or produce less. But pointing out the need to do more isn’t enough.

People who are unmotivated often choose to be this way because it’s to their benefit—not being the one who offers to do more means less pressure and responsibility and more time to do what they prefer doing. Some people prefer a predictable routine at work, so they can focus their energy on outside interests.

People who don't want to change need to find jobs where hunger isn’t important; managers can only help those who want to be more successful in a teamwork culture. Here are some additional steps managers can take:

Create Passion for the Mission

To be hungry, people need to understand the importance of the work they’re doing. **Managers can help build...

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The Ideal Team Player is about the qualities of individual team members, while The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is about team dynamics.

The five biggest problems that teams need to overcome to work effectively are:

• Mistrust: Teams can’t build trust when the members fear being vulnerable with each other.
• Fear of conflict: A team’s desire for harmony prevents productive conflict.
• Lack of commitment: The fear of being wrong prevents good decisions.
• Avoidance: Wanting to avoid discomfort prevents team members from holding each other accountable.
• Ignoring results: A desire for credit shifts the focus away from team results.

These problems are less likely and easier to overcome when team members are humble, hungry, and smart about dealing with people. For example, a person with strong people skills will be better at engaging in healthy conflict.

Having members do self-assessments and work on personal development can improve team functioning. Also, talking as a group about everyone’s personal development goals can increase trust among team members.

Humility Stands Out

**Humility, hunger, and people skills are as important in...