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Finding the ideal team player

Patrick Lencioni is at it again dispensing more brilliant advice.

His writing over the last several years has been on team health and dynamics – how to cultivate a successful culture and organization.

The best companies, according to Lencioni, are built with great teams, people who work well together.

The trick has always been to find the right people for those teams.

Now he’s teaching us how to find those truly great team players in his book “The Ideal Team Player: How To Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues.”

Lencioni says ideal team players are:

Humble. Ideal team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. Humble people 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.

Hungry. Ideal team players are always looking for more. More things to do. More to learn. More responsibility to take on. Hungry people almost never have to be pushed by a manager to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent. They are constantly thinking about the next step and the next opportunity.

Smart. Ideal team players have 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 have good judgment and intuition around the subtleties of group dynamics and the impact of their words and actions.

Lencioni points out that even if one of the above attributes is missing, teamwork becomes significantly more difficult, if not impossible.

But how do you find these impact players? It’s mostly about knowing what to look for, and probing in non-traditional ways.

Lencioni has created an “Interview Guide To Help Identify Candidates That Are Humble, Hungry and Smart” that you can download here. There are numerous other free assessment tools as his website as well.

Great teams are the real competitive advantage in business today, and the best team players are the essential ingredients.

Thankfully, Lencioni is making it easier for all of us to identify them, hire them, develop them, and keep them.

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