The Ideal Team Player

The chapter begins with a brief description of Valley Builders. It is a rather large company with over 200 employees. As CEO, Bob Shanley had insisted on treating all of his employees well, so much so that hardly any, if any at all, felt as though they were not looked after financially. Bob also made sure that his family, whom he viewed as private shareholders in the company, were also taken care of financially. This includes Jeff’s own father, who retired from the company and used his earnings to fund his retirement.

One day, Jeff and Bob meet for lunch. Bob mentions that he is very happy that Jeff is preparing to take over the company but that the official transition needs to happen sooner than previously planned. Jeff is apprehensive about this and wants to stick to the more gradual pace. Bob announces that he has developed a heart condition that requires surgery and a drastic change in his lifestyle. He needs to leave the company and focus on his health. Bob expresses his heartfelt gratitude to Jeff, mentioning how fortunate he is that Jeff has put himself in the position.

Bob then reveals that the company has secured two major projects: a hospital and a hotel. Sensing that his uncle is hiding something, Jeff responds by asking if this is a good thing, to which his uncle emphatically answers yes. However, it turns out that the company has never taken on two projects of this magnitude at the same time. Jeff suggests that the company release one of the projects to create a more manageable workload for a new CEO (himself). Bob says that the company cannot back out of either one, in part because a financial advance has already been paid and has been used to partially fund the completion of the current project the company is working on. Jeff starts to wonder if Bob is not being entirely forthright about his recent diagnosis and suspects that Bob had known about it prior to accepting the new projects. Bob vehemently insists he had received the heart condition diagnosis only the day before and that he would not have willingly put Jeff into this situation of having to manage two massive projects at the same time as a rookie. Jeff initially feels bad for doubting his uncle but still senses that there is more to the story than he knows. Bob notifies Jeff that he will be starting immediately, that same day.

Lencioni introduces two other important figures: Clare Missick and Bob “Bobby” Brady, both of whom Jeff already knows from his time consulting with the company and coaching them on teamwork. Clare is essentially in charge of all administrative functions within the company, including human resources (HR). She had been hired out of necessity because Bob was told that not having an HR department was a risk not worth taking. Meanwhile, Bobby is in charge of all field operations at the company.

Jeff and his uncle Bob had arranged an immediate conference for Jeff to sit down with these two associates. When he arrives at the meeting, both Bobby and Clare seem put off and eventually become downright antagonistic. Bobby says that both he and Clare feel cheated that they were not hired for the CEO position instead of Jeff, and Bobby announces that they are both going to quit. It turns out that they are playing a prank on Jeff.

After all three share a laugh, the topic shifts to the seriousness of their imminent challenge. Jeff asks them if they were truly joking about feeling slighted and if either of them wants to be the CEO, to which both answer no. He then asks if they are both comfortable and ready for Jeff to take the helm, and they both concur that they are on board. They all agree to have dinner later that night, during which the three of them spend a few hours trying to get situated with the challenges in front of them. Jeff asks which needs are most crucial, and both Clare and Bobby immediately answer that hiring has to be the priority: The company needs up to 50-60 new hires. Jeff then asks for further details about the projects and wraps up the hours-long conversation. After the dinner, Jeff calls his cousin Ben, Bob’s son, on the way home and receives a vote of confidence. For the entire duration of this particular day, Jeff did not inform his wife of all that was happening. When he arrives home, he finally does. She tells him that it is a good thing, encourages him, and says that he needs the challenge. She also offers him a vote of confidence.

The next day, Jeff visits the current job site at Oak Ridge, a shopping center the company is building, and introduces himself to as many people as possible on site before returning to the office, where he meets with Bobby and Clare. After reading Bob’s parting words to his company, the three of them dive into establishing a plan forward with the two projects. Jeff learns that there is an especially high turnover rate within the company, which Bobby and Clare attribute to Bob’s high expectations. They discuss two foremen who left because they could not see eye to eye, which is part of the reason the current Oak Ridge project is problematic. Jeff then discusses how much of his earlier coaching within the company had actually remained relevant in how the company operated. He insists that because there was so much turnover, and because the two foremen who left the company were considered to be high-quality workers, teamwork was likely not prioritized to the degree it should have been. Jeff asserts that they must prioritize hiring the right people for the right positions to minimize the high turnover rate.

Jeff returns to Oak Ridge. On his way, he calls Ben and arranges a coffee meeting for later that day to talk about the company. He then visits with Nancy Morris, one of the project managers that Bob and Clare had identified as not being much of a team player. When Jeff meets her, she is aloof and not too interested in anything he has to say. Jeff discovers that as a project manager, she does not have all the updates from other managers in the field, including from another project manager, Craig. Jeff wants to say more to her but does not; instead, he starts off in search of Craig to get a better sense of whether this project will meet the deadline since he did not get anything definite from Nancy. When Jeff finds Craig, they discuss the deadline and the conflict that exists between Craig and Nancy. Although Craig admits that she is great at her job, he indicates that she has a bad attitude and that he once told her not to attend any meetings if she was not going to be a team player.

Jeff returns to the office, this time meeting with some people in the lunchroom. He asks a few general questions about the hiring process within the company and learns that while the company seemed to strive to find team players, the interviewing process did not ask the kinds of relevant questions needed to make this determination. Clare and Bobby show up in the lunchroom, and Jeff recounts what he learned from his impromptu discussions with the company employees.