The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues (J-B Lencioni Series)

Questo libro è scritto molto bene, partendo da una storia vera propone spunti di riflessione nella gestione e nell’essere parte di un team

Lencioni struggles with matching “Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” This book was so good, that every other book is a disappointment. Not that the books are bad, rather, they just do not match that great text on teams. This book attempts to continue that conversation about developing a strong team, and how to be part of a strong team. The book is a good read, always engaging, and practical and helpful. When you read one of the author’s text, you are always left with some actionable thoughts and behaviors. He does not overwhelm you with information, but creates a framework so that you can understand easily. The major focus of the book is finding and being people who are hungry (passionate about the goal), smart (people who are good with people), and humble (willing to learn and open to feedback). What I like about this model is that it does work. When you look for people to work with, look for these qualities. Since it is a simple process, you are more likely to find success within it. Instead of some of the complex ways we look for talent, this process is so easy that you will get it right more often. It is a good leadership book, and perhaps one that leadership should study together.

I believe that the principles of being a Humble, Hungry, and Smart team player results in being the IDEAL TEAM PLAYER! In the context of Church Ministry I believe that this can be a great way to establish a culture for leaders within the ministry. As the book points out at the end of the book, the ultimate example of Humble, Hungry and Smart was Christ Jesus. Humbling himself upon the cross for the sake of the lost, compelled by love for the Father Christ gave EVERYTHING to restore all of creation from the curse of sin, Christ was HUNGRY! And SMART! OPnly God knows the hearts of man, and Christ ministers to a world that he created and knows intimately and well.

Effective organizations—whether they’re multinational corporations, professional sports franchises, or local churches—practice teamwork. When people work together on a common goal, they achieve more than they could do individually and experience a measure of personal satisfaction. When people work against one another, however, the result is organizational ineffectiveness and personal frustration.

In his 2002 bestseller, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni outlined five ways teamwork goes awry: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. While that book identified the interpersonal dynamics of effective teams, it did not identify the personal qualities of effective team members. Lencioni’s new book, The Ideal Team Member, picks up where Five Dysfunctions left off and outlines three essential “virtues”: An ideal team member is humble, hungry, and smart.

Humility comes first because it is “the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.” Humble team players are not “overtly arrogant,” of course, but they do not “lack self-confidence” either. Rather, quoting C. S. Lewis, Lencioni writes, “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Humility makes collective action possible. Without it, teams don’t work effectively, because each member is either out for themselves ( due to overt arrogance) or unable to propose solutions (because of lack of self-confidence).

“Hungry people are always looking for more,” writes Lencioni. They are “self-motivated and diligent.” For a team to work effectively, each team member must proactively contribute to the overall effort. No slackers are allowed.

Smart doesn’t pertain to “intellectual capacity,” though it’s similar to emotional intelligence. Lencioni defines it as “a person’s common sense about people…the ability to be interpersonally appropriate and aware.” Ideal team members are people-smart.

After defining these three virtues, Lencioni outlines why and how they must work together. “If even one is missing in a team member, teamwork becomes significantly more difficult and sometimes not possible.” A team member who is only humble and hungry, for example, becomes an “accidental mess-maker” because they are constantly—albeit unintentionally—stepping on others’ toes. One who is only humble and smart is a “lovable slacker,” liked by all, but only willing to exert minimum necessary effort. Someone who is only hungry and smart is a “skillful politician,” which Lencioni describes as being “cleverly ambitious and willing to work extremely hard, but only in as much as it will benefit them personally.”

Although Lencioni wrote The Ideal Team Member for the secular business world, my description of its contents should convince ministers that it has application to the work of local churches as well. (Indeed, Lencioni—a devout Catholic—notes that Jesus Christ is the “most compelling example of humility in the history of mankind.”) The humble-hungry-smart model gives senior pastors and ministers who lead volunteers valuable insights into who to hire, how to assess their performance, what can be done to develop them when they lack one or more of the virtues, and how to embed those virtues in a church’s organizational culture. Consequently, I highly recommend this book to ministers and ministry leaders.

One final note: As with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Ideal Team Player begins with what Lencioni calls “a leadership fable.” He tells the story of the CEO of a family-owned building company who discovers these three virtues in the course of taking over the reins of the company from his uncle. Only after telling the fable does Lencioni describe the humble-hungry-smart model in propositional terms. This narrative way of approaching the subject shows before it tells. This makes Lencioni’s points concrete and easy to understand. The show-then-tell approach is also, it seems to me, a great way to preach…though that is a subject for another time.