48 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick M. LencioniThe Ideal Team Player
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of Workplace Culture
One of the purposes of the book is to help companies articulate and implement a culture that promotes teamwork, centered on Lencioni’s premise that the three traits of humility, hunger, and smarts are what comprise good team players. Lencioni’s fable about Valley Builders demonstrates the benefits of a cohesive workplace culture and supports his premise that teamwork lies at the heart of such a culture. A values-based culture, Lencioni argues, is critically important to a company’s long-term stability and success.
Developing an effective workplace culture means not only defining values but also embedding them into daily operations and workplace relationships. This starts with hiring people who reflect the company’s values, which necessitates making those values clear during the hiring process. Lencioni points out that “[m]any people will try to get a job even if they don’t fit the company’s stated values, but very few will do so if they know that they’re going to be held accountable […] for behavior that violates the values” (180). The book depicts this through the character of Ted Marchbanks, who represents Lencioni’s “skillful politician” archetype. Ted’s lack of humility makes him a poor cultural fit, which he realizes during the interview stage, prompting him to remove himself for consideration.
Furthermore, companies that create a cohesive, values-based workplace culture will garner a positive reputation, which will make hiring easier by drawing the right kinds of people in the first place. Toward the end of “The Fable,” Valley Builders—which initially struggled with high turnover and relied on third-party recruiters—realizes this benefit within a year after Jeff takes over as CEO and insists on making the three virtues the bedrock of the company’s culture. No longer relying on headhunters or agencies, the company instead draws applicants who are referred by satisfied employees. Hiring the right kind of people, therefore, becomes easier over time.
The most important aspect of developing a worthwhile culture is that all employees buy into it. When the culture becomes established, those who are not on board tend to drift away and leave. Eventually, with the proper hiring practices that seek people with the three attributes as a precondition, a company can theoretically consist of only people who buy into its culture.
The benefit of a values-based company culture is that the culture can create a self-managing system. Employees and managers, if they are aware of expectations, will be less likely to stray from values or cut corners. If their values are aligned with the company’s, they will also find more meaning in the work they do for the company and feel more engaged. This self-driving dynamic perpetuates so that the company culture takes on a life of its own and can even become a great marketing tool: “Eventually, their customers, vendors, partners, and employees will become their best marketing tools for finding the kind of people who fit the organization and for warding off people who don’t” (209). When a company develops a solid reputation as a great place to work, ease of hiring is not the only benefit: Workplace culture can influence how a company’s vendors perceive it as well, especially when the culture informs how that company conducts business in addition to employee relations. If a company is guided by a clear, inherent value system that rewards ethical behavior, other companies are likely to seek out opportunities to do business with it.
The Impact of Teamwork on Overall Performance
Developing a company culture that values teamwork is of the utmost importance, according to Lencioni. He insists that “[t]he ability to work effectively with others, to add value within the dynamics of a group endeavor, is more critical in today’s fluid world than it has ever been” (ix). The tighter and more cohesive the team dynamic is, the more positive the impact will be on the company’s overall performance. Employees who see themselves as part of a team are more likely to feel accountable to one another and are therefore more engaged in their work, which consequently leads to greater productivity. The company’s reputation grows and becomes a place that draws the right kind of people to it: those who are both talented and willing to operate on a team.
When problems on a team persist because some employees are unable to effectively operate within a team dynamic, all manners of dysfunction can result. In Lencioni’s view, being a good team player depends on a person’s ability to be humble, hungry, and people smart. While discussing these three virtues, Lencioni says that “when a team member lacks one or more of these three virtues, the process of building a cohesive team is much more difficult than it should be, and in some cases, impossible” (x). As an example, in “The Fable,” Valley Builders has an exceptionally high employee turnover rate, even by construction industry standards. Consistently high turnover hampers the team’s ability to form cohesiveness and complete jobs on time, which only exacerbates the problem by creating a negative feedback loop. The dysfunctional working relationship between managers Craig and Nancy is identified as similarly problematic from a performance standpoint.
Furthermore, Lencioni emphasizes the need for companies to fully commit to a teamwork-oriented culture to avoid performance issues and reap the benefits of strong team dynamics. He implies that many companies talk a big game, but when it comes to living up to their own codes, they come up short:
[I]f the leaders of an organization are not willing to put in the considerable time and effort that it takes to make teamwork more than just a throwaway phrase or break room poster, then there is actually something virtuous about being up front about that (208).
Insisting that teamwork is an integral part of a company demands more than just posturing: If a company is not truly committed to the idea of teamwork, then it is better to be upfront about it.
The Characteristics That Contribute to a Successful Team Dynamic
Lencioni maintains that there are three essential qualities that team players all possess to some degree: humility, hunger, and people smarts. He says that employees in the company will
be more likely to be vulnerable and build trust, engage in productive but uncomfortable conflict with team members, commit to group decisions even if they initially disagree, hold their peers accountable when they see performance gaps that can be addressed, and put the results of the team ahead of their own needs. Only humble, hungry, and smart people can do those things without a great deal of coaching (165-66).
To successfully implement a team-first culture, a company needs to prioritize these three qualities in both potential and current employees. It needs to ensure that its leaders model the traits so that those who are further down the corporate ladder will be more likely to fall in line with the values of the company.
In addition to modeling these traits via leadership, Lencioni focuses on ways to identify these traits in both potential and existing employees. In “The Fable,” the executive team conducts a re-interviewing process in which managers discuss the new cultural values with existing employees to identify shortcomings and opportunities to develop these traits. Jeff identifies that Nancy, for example, needs to develop her people skills. To identify these traits in potential employees, according to Lencioni, companies need to develop hiring practices that are highly informed by these three qualities to ensure that any person hired is able to develop toward being a good team player, even if it takes some coaching. The book discusses formal approaches, such as strong, pointed interview questions, to screen candidates. Other ways of evaluating candidates are less formal: Clare deduces through observation that Ted, for instance, lacks humility.
When Lencioni discusses the three qualities highlighted in the book, he acknowledges that not everyone is perfect. In a sense, he recognizes that he is presenting the idealized version of these characteristics, especially in the “The Fable” section of the book. In the “The Model” section, he says, “Even a person who is humble, hungry, and smart occasionally has a bad day, or a bad week, or even a bad time in their life” (165). The qualities are not static features of a person; therefore, even those who possess them all to a high degree must strive toward the ideal, which fosters a growth mindset, just as it does for those who come up short in one or more areas. The idea is that all employees of a company are actively working toward a common goal that is accepted and agreed upon as a condition of employment at the company.
