Book Buzz: Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni
Do you even know who in your company are your “ideal team players”? Do you have a company that is stalled in progress and you can’t figure out what’s wrong? Or, do you wonder why your team loves some employees and complains about others? As the owner of a recruiting firm, I can tell you that with almost 100% certainty, that most employers don’t really know what to look for when they try to find employees. They may look for a “skill” but oftentimes have no idea how to assess any “soft skills” that are pivotal to determining a good hire.
The Ideal Team Player book by Patrick Lencioni is an excellent read to give you the skills and vocabulary necessary to hire for these “soft skills”. Spending just a couple of hours reading this easy book is well worth the time and cannot help but have you look at your hires and current staff in a more productive way.
Lencioni starts this book with a fictional story of a company that finds itself in a hard situation due to the sickness of the CEO. It takes this company through a new CEO and the beginning of a discovery period where the managers start to learn why some employees are effective and others are not. They discover three virtues to look for in BOTH current employees and new hires.
The three virtues that all great employees must have are:
Humble - This is the most important of the three. Humble team players lack excessive ego and concerns about status - they are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow and seek attention for their own. They define success collectively rather than individually.
Hungry - Hungry team members are always looking for more - more to do, learn. They want to take on more responsibility. They almost never have to be pushed by a manager because they are self-motivated.
Smart - This is not the traditional definition of smart. This is not intellectual capacity. This SMART refers to the person’s common sense about people. Smart people tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to deal with others in the most effective way. They listen to what others are saying and stay engaged in conversations intently. They have good intuition about group dynamics and the impact of their words and actions.
He suggests evaluating all employees and potential hires based on these three criteria in addition to their skills qualifications. He does this in two ways:
For CURRENT EMPLOYEES - he recommends giving an employees a self-assessment which asks them for what their teammates would say about them. A couple of sample questions for humble, hungry and smart.
My teammates would say I gladly acknowledge my weakneses. (HUMBLE)
My teammates would say I look for opportunities to contribute outside of my area of responsibility. (HUNGRY)
My teammates would say I am aware of how my words and actions impact others on my team. (SMART)
For NEW HIRES- he gives great, innovative interview questions to determine if they have these three virtues. Here are some examples:
How did you handle your greatest career failure or setback (HUMBLE)
What is i the hardest you’ve ever worked on something in your life. (HUNGRY)
What are your behavioral strengths and weaknesses? (SMART)
Also, Lencioni provides great guidance and suggestions for employers who find that some of their current employees lack one of more virtues. He helps teach how to develop them in their deficient area and if development fails, what to do next.