In “ The Ideal Team Player, ” Lencioni (2016) begins with a fable about Jeff Stanley, a leader who is struggling to restore a culture of teamwork in his uncle’s company. Stanley has to crack the code of the virtues of the ideal team player and then build and sustain a culture of hiring and retaining individuals who portray those virtues. As Jeff acclimates to the company’s culture, he realizes that the ideal team player possesses three key virtues, humility, hunger and people smarts. Since the company has won two major contracts, Jeff has to hire individuals with all three traits since lacking any of the traits will have negative implications for team dynamics. Lencioni (2016) contends that individuals who are smart but not hungry or humble are charmers. Those who are humble but not hungry or smart tend to be pawns, while those who are hungry but lack other traits engage in bulldozing behaviours.
According to Lencioni (2016), humility is the most important trait. The ideal team player lacks excessive concerns forego or status. They are quick to attribute team success to others, and share credit with others, and emphasize team success over individual recognition. For Lencioni (2016), humility is an indispensable trait of the ideal team member. The ideal team player is hungry –that is, they strive for more and are not satisfied with what they have. They are constantly looking for new opportunities to exploit. However, Lencioni (2016) argues that as a trait, hunger should be sustainable and manageable. Such hunger should involve a commitment to the job to the extent that one is willing to go an extra step to execute an assignment. The last trait is people smarts. For Lencioni (2016), people smart is not basic brilliance but rather emotional intelligence and interpersonal competence.
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Lencioni (2016) argues that it is possible to implement his model of the ideal team player in modern organizational settings by adjusting hiring, evaluating existing employees, and developing those traits. He contends that it is possible to hire people possessing those traits by implementing an interview protocol that is able to identify all three traits. For example, asking about the highest accomplishment or most embarrassing moment in an interviewee’s career could shed light on their humbleness. Lencioni (2016) argues that practitioners should continually evaluate their employees to identify the virtues that they lack and work towards developing.
Concrete Response
While reading the book, I remember my experience when working with a team of parishioners to develop a plan for a charitable event. The chairman of the team, Mr. X, informed us that we would meet at the end of each Sunday to discuss how we would develop the plan. From the beginning, the team was dysfunctional. One of the team members was a prominent parishioner who thought that X was not qualified to lead the team and believed that the priest had shown favouritism when selecting X. As she quipped during the first meeting: “I do not think the priest is serious. This is a waste. X is incompetent; I do not think we are going anywhere!”
During each meeting, X and his rival would arrive with competing plans and ideas. The parishioner had more experience with charity drives and was able to rally a majority of members of the team. In one of the meetings, the parishioner stood up and argued that X should be removed from the leadership position as he lacks the necessary skills. X was quick to retort: “you are the most arrogant person I have ever seen. I do not care where you are experienced or not. Why not form your own group!” X threw papers at the parishioner and walked out, and did not join the team for consequent meetings until the priest dissolved the group. At the end of the end, we had two competing proposals, a fractured group, and hate and disdain between members who were supporting competing camps. While the parishioner was smart and hungry, she was not humble, thus leading to bulldozing behaviour.
Reflection
The Ideal Team Player is an interesting text for individuals who want to uncover what makes the ideal team player and how to constitute or cultivate those traits in their teams. The use of narratives and fables makes the book a worthy read for any practitioner. The use of real-life examples within a narration allows an individual to identify with what the author is conferring. As one goes through the text, there able to appreciate how the author’s narration reflects what we experience every day, which makes it easy to understand. It allows us to appreciate the socially bounded nature of teamwork in the contemporary workplace,
Yet, the author’s reliance on narration makes it hard to identify the salient points of his book. While the book uses simple language, the narratives obfuscate the main points. One would have to read and re-read the book, keeping a journal of the main points to try to understand the whole text. Unfortunately, I would not recommend the book to an individual who is interested in drawing quick inferences from a text. The author’s inclusion of only three variables could be argued as limited in its conceptualization of group and team relations. I believe that other factors could determine team dynamics, such as a common ethos or values. However, it is likely that the three virtues would allow for ideal interactions, as they also encompass accommodation of different value systems. Overall, it is a good read for any individual who wants to improve their team skills.
Action
The book has allowed me to appreciate some of the behaviours and traits that lead to dysfunctional teams. Often we are called to be team leaders, but in the majority of situations, we are team members. Individual conduct contributes to dysfunctional team behaviours. Thus, becoming a good team leader or member begins with working towards becoming the ideal team member. The first action is to conduct a self-assessment to determine the extent to which I reflect those virtues. Information from the self-assessment will allow me to appreciate my strengths and weaknesses in relation to the three virtues. It is only when I have the information about my capabilities that I will be able to begin developing the virtues. If I find that my main weaknesses are a lack of humility, then I will begin to seek feedback from my colleagues on they feel about my conduct to learn more on how I can adjust my behaviour. On the other hand, if my main weakness is a lack of emotional intelligence, I will seek a mentor or watch videos on how I can improve my emotional intelligence. I intend to take the self-assessment at the end of the coming week and be taking a monthly assessment to evaluate my progress.
My second action to becoming the ideal team player will begin with keeping a reflective journal of my behaviour and team interactions to identify those behaviours that impede the functioning of teams that I am a member of. These behaviours and traits could be poor communication skills, failure to appreciate the contribution of others, failing to contribute, or engaging in competition with team members rather than working with other team members. The reflective journal will allow me to continually reflect on which behaviours are harmful and the steps I can take to develop the three virtues of the ideal team player. The journal will also allow me to continually evaluate team skills. I will be reviewing the journal at the end of every month during my free time and track my progress. There are several steps I will take to ensure that I am able to complete the second action. First, I will choose a journal or diary that I will input entries during every team encounter, whether positive or negative. Second, during my monthly reflections, I will try to identify those behaviours or experiences that either contributed to negative or positive experiences. Third, I will collect feedback from my peers about their experiences before using the findings in my next plan for improving the three virtues.
Reference
Lencioni, P. (2016). The ideal team playe: How to recognise and cultiate the three essential virtues. San Francisco, United States: Jossey-Bass Inc.
