The Ideal Team Player – Patrick Lencioni

According to Lencioni, an Ideal Team player is someone who

• Is Humble, Hungry and Smart (people)
• Is someone who can easily build Trust
• Has healthy conflict
  • “Argues about the right way to get things done without worrying that they’re going to offend someone”
• is Capable of being honest & vulnerable
  • “Getting people to admit when they make a mistake on a project”
• Holds each other in the team accountable
• is Results oriented (team’s results) , history of getting difficult things done.
  • “Sticking to commitments”

Identifying the traits

Traits	People WITH this trait	People WITHOUT this trait
Humility	Express gratitude, point out contributions of others without lacking self confidence. Slow to seek attention for self Self aware – Know their talents & contributions	Insecure – makes, some project overconfidence and others discount self worth. Arrogant, Condescending, Dismissive, Self-centered Tends to Boast & soak up attention Lack self confidence and end up discounting their own talents & contributions Lack of self awareness
Hunger	They go beyond what is required – never needs to be pushed Self motivated and diligent Always thinking about the next step & opportunity Passionate about the work they are doing Loathe the idea of being perceived as slackers
Smarts	Unpretentious Being aware of people around you and dealing with them in a positive & functional way Listen to what others are saying and stay engaged in conversations intently. Emotional intelligence Understand the impact of their words and actions	Focus only on them & their ambitions

In all practical situations, you’ll find people exhibiting just one or two of these traits, but can be coached to being an ideal team player. Here’s a classification that Lencioni describes of people who don’t exhibit all 3 traits.

• Managers need to be smart about how to use these with their employees
• Accurately identifying people in these categories is not easy and shouldn’t be done flippantly
• Wrongly labelling them, even in private can be damaging
• Don’t assign these labels to people just because they are relatively stronger in one / two of these areas
• These should be used only when they are significantly lacking the qualities

Practical Applications

#1 – Hiring a team Player

TODOs

Interview Questionns

Don’t be generic Look for specific behaviors & signals Debrief as a team (less likely) Figure out a way to do this without introducing bias Gives insights of what to specifically focus on Consider Group Interviews (less likely) Shadow interviews – needs more discipline and many candidates may not be ok with this. Make interviews non-traditional (less likely) Meet over lunch / coffee / take them out etc Ask questions more than once Check for consistent responses Ask what others would say Produces more reliable answer – some psychology involved around not wanting to misrepresent someone else’s views Ask candidates to do some real work (less likely) Trying to put them in live situations – may not be possible in every situation, but if it can be done it can provide lot of indicators. Don’t ignore hunches When in doubt, probe more. Scare people with sincerity Be completely open about your culture and what specifically you are looking for.

Humble Important accomplishments of your life Look for mentions of “We” than “I” – Probe for individual contribs, team size etc to understand the situation. Most embarrassing moment in your career or biggest failure Look for specific moments / real references to their culpability Does the candidate celebrate the embarrassment or is mortified Is comfortable being imperfect How did you handle that embarrassment or failure Look for how they accepted responsibility What they learned from it How did they use the learnings What is your greatest weakness Look for real answers – inform candidates that you are looking for real things or things their friends would want them to change / work on. More than looking for the weakness its their ability to acknowledge them that makes them stand out. How do you handle apologies (giving / accepting) Look for specifics – They are not afraid to say sorry or accept genuine apologies from others. Tell me about someone who’s better than you in an area that really matters to you Look for his ability to appreciate others having more skill or talent This is really difficult for ego driven people but easy for humble Hungry What’s the hardest you’ve ever worked on something Look for specifics and real instances Where there any sacrifices made? Do they complain about something or is grateful for the experience. What do you do other than work Look for time consuming hobbies / too many things that can distract them from work Doesn’t mean that you are looking for someone with no interests, but if they are so outward focused they aren’t going to be putting the team’s needs in front of their own. Did you work hard when you were a teenager? Look for same signals that demonstrate work ethic. What kind of hours do you work Signals around predictable schedule & balance could indicate lack of hunger. Smart How would you describe your personality? Do they describe exactly what you are observing? Is self aware and find it interesting to talk about themselves Red flag would be someone who is stumped by this question. What do you do in your personal life that others find annoying Everyone annoys someone -are they acknowledging this and how are they moderating this is very important What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you deal with them You are looking for self awareness and self control and how they deal with them in a constructive way. Give an example of how you’ve demonstrated empathy to a teammate Do they understand other’s feeling Would you want to work with someone like this is also an important indicator of candidate’s smartness.

#2 – Assessing the current Team members

Survey – Insert link to survey

#3 – Developing employees lacking some virtues / improvement to an existing team player

• The most important part of the development process and the part so often missing is the leader’s commitment to constantly “reminding” an employee if they are not doing what is needed (demonstrating humility / hunger /smarts ). Without this improvement will not occur.

• They don’t do it because its Uncomfortable, unpleasant and awkward.
• No one wants to remind fifth week in a row that there’s still no progress or they aren’t working hard enough.
• No matter how unpleasant, managers should continue to do it till either of 2 things happens
  • They change and acquire the virtue and will be indebted to the manager forever
  • They’ll decide to leave on their own, but by then everyone realizes its for their own good.
• Leader Modelling
  • This is very important for developing any trait in our employees
  • Managers need demonstrate that they value these virtues more than anything else
  • They need to be open if they struggle with any of this and admit they are working on it

• Developing Humility
  • Source of lack of humility is always related to some insecurity and in many cases they are rooted to childhood or way back in the job.
  • All of us are insecure in some way – we need to acknowledge that and a manager can start by demonstrating their own challenges to make it easy for the employees.
  • Identify the root cause
    • MBTI / Personal life journeys / DiSC profiles etc
  • Exposure Therapy (fake it till you make it)
    • Making progress by simply acting like they are humble  and intentionally forcing themselves to either compliment others, admit their weakness and take interest in colleagues to understand the benefits
• Developing Hunger
  • Hardest to change and is more nuanced than other 2 because it’s tempting for an employee to downplay lack of hunger to be able to stay on the team and it’ll only show up in the long run.
  • Passion for the Mission and the team
    • Find a way to connect the person to the importance of the work being done. There won’t be any change till this is done.
    • Peer pressure is good motivator – if they see a passionate employee their motivation can be infectious.
  • Clear Expectation setting
    • Set clear behavioural expectations for them and hold them accountable for those
    • Differentiate between performance targets / goals vs Behavioural expectations
    • Helping colleagues in meeting their goals, taking additional responsibilities, working more hours, participating in org goals / initiatives etc
  • Not-too Gentle reminders
    • Habits of lethargy are instilled over time, so it’s very important to call out instances where their behaviour needs change.
    • Don’t wait till the review
    • Give immediate, unambiguous feedback – Tough Love
  • Encouragement
    • Praise publicly when you notice them exhibiting hunger.
• Developing Smarts
  • Employees who lack people smarts actually have no desire to create interpersonal problems with others, they just don’t understand the nuances of interpersonal situations and they don’t understand the impact of their words or actions on others.
  • Basic Training
    • Quickly & lovingly provide feedback & nudge them towards right behaviour.

#4 – Embedding these behaviours into Culture

• Be Explicit & Bold – Make your intentions public on how you want the organization to demonstrate these behaviours
• Catch & Revere – When people demonstrate these behaviours, recognise and call out / celebrate
• Detect & Address – When you notice violations, don’t overlook them – take time to educate the violater on why this is important – Do this in private

Quotes & References

• Most training & development comes down to how much a person wants to change”

• “Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about their status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit emphasize team over self and define success collectively rather than individually”

• “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less – C.S Lewis“

• The most important part of the development process and the part so often missing is the leader’s commitment to constantly “reminding” an employee if they are not doing what is needed. Without this improvement will not occur.