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

We were assigned this book for preparation for our quarterly manager's roundtable and I'm pretty confident that Lencioni is my favorite business book author. His use of fictional scenarios and tying them easily to the principles he's trying to teach is endearing and puts it well above other business books I've been assigned.

The "fable" parts humanize theory, I'm engaged in how the story progresses and when the second part of the book references specific characters, the ideas really click in mind. I will be using "hungry, humble, smart" for my own team evaluation and am very keen to read other Lencioni books in this genre.

A good book, but not one of my favorites. It is essentially 2 books in one - the first half is a fable to teach about the principles in the book, and the 2nd sort of delves into each of these aspects of the ideal team player. The first half was a little cheesy as many of the books that use fables typically are. The 2nd half has some really good stuff in it - it just felt like some of it wasn't fleshed out quite as much. (Spending much more time on how to help a team player become more humble and hungry, and not nearly as much on smart, for one example).

I also think that while the parts of the ideal team player are a great foundation for everyone on your team, I think there are other aspects of an individual that might not fit into the 3 show more categories, but might not allow them to be a good pick to the team. There are team members who are hungry, humble, and smart, but yet don't quite have the skill set to pull off certain technical roles (especially when you think that smart isn't intelligence per se, but more emotional intelligence or human interaction.) I think it's very possible to be hungry humble and smart and yet still not be able to "make the team" so to speak. (As the example goes, if you're 5'8 and can't jump, you can be as humgry, humble, and smart as anyone else, but still not be picked for an NBA team.) But I do like the general idea. It just doesn't seem like it is as all-encompassing as the book seems to portray. show less

Great For Leading People

Managing people is an enormous task. Lencioni, once again provides great insight into developing a great team. His observations over 20 years are expressed in this material. He gives us results from his wealth of experience. It will be thought provoking and challenging. It will help you think differently about teamwork. If you want to grow, there is much to learn.

In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether show more you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling. show less

This style might not be to everyone's taste, but I find it helps me grasp the concepts. 5 dysfunctions of a team is one of my favourites, so decided to pick this up.

Humble, hungry and smart is a simple, clear, concept explained well in the book, and the examples of how it can help in different situations was useful.

I wasn't as keen on the emphasis on hungry equating to how many extra hours an employee does, but the overall concept can still be applied as makes sense to each different organisation.

It was a really quick read. The first section is a story about a person coming into a company full of HR challenges and upcoming staffing needs. The lead team has to figure out a way to hire and keep a large volume of folks. They explore what they want out of potential teammates. The second section dives into the virtues of an ideal team player. It also discusses the application of the virtues for yourself or team members. I feel like the story at the beginning was pretty hokey and unnecessary to drive home the ideals in section 2. Overall not a bad read. I read this one for work.

The model itself is great and fairly comprehensive in its simplicity--ideal team player is at the intersection of humble, hungry, smart. Beginning fable is a little contrived but illustrative and a quick read, the development parts are surface level and worth a skim.