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The Ideal Team Player

Are You Hiring What You Need

by IPowerIdeas September 20, 2023

I had a recent interview and it made me think of the ideal characteristics we want in our employees and colleagues.

These characteristics are key to success and provide a culture of positive collaboration, increased morale, and high performance.

I highly recommend buying the book Ideal Team Player and learning about the three incredible characteristics discussed in the book. They have proven time and time again to be valuable during the hiring and assessment of team members.

Here are some great insights and artifacts to get you started from this site: The Ideal Team Player

Enjoy!

Buy The Book

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Management

What Exactly Are We Looking For?

by IPowerIdeas June 25, 2019

I really enjoy reading and relating to the stories and advice provided by Patrick Lencioni (and The Table Group). That is illustrated in his article which resonated with me and reinforces his ideology of an ideal employee, one that is Humble, Hungry, and Smart (from his book “The Ideal Team Player”).

I included some highlights from the article as “I Power Seeds” and my personal experience is that these ideals apply to employees no matter the industry or business model. I have utilized them as cornerstones of my interview process and hire the best employees – get the right people in the right spots and you will consistently experience high-performing employees and incredible results.

The article is written and based around the NFL and how teams evaluate and pick the best players for their teams – ones driven for success and to win.

To help, I added “(employee)” after the word “player” to help visualize these thoughts as they apply to a business environment.

Enjoy!

Of course, beyond the physical evaluations that teams do to assess potential talent, GMs and coaches also conduct interviews and administer psychological tests. But the first big question that they need to answer is, “what exactly are we looking for?” I suggest asking three questions that will indicate whether the young men they’re evaluating possess the three required virtues of an ideal team player. These are questions that, if they had been applied to past draftees, could have helped teams avoid a great deal of pain, criticism, and unnecessary expenditures, and identify players who were much better than their measurables would have suggested.

First, is he HUMBLE? Humility is a tricky word, because most people misunderstand its meaning. It is not a lack of confidence.

A humble player (employee) will be one who knows what his strengths are, and is willing to acknowledge them even if he doesn’t feel the need to do so often. He’ll also know his weaknesses, and his needs for improvement, and spend more time focused on those. Players (employees) who lack confidence, who are overly deferential and afraid to acknowledge their skills, are not humble.

“C.S. Lewis explained this well when he said, “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking about yourself less.”

Having said all this, what teams need to avoid most of all are players (employees) who are self-promoters, always seeking attention and affirmation. They will almost always regret taking an ego-driven player (employee), regardless of his level of talent. Take, Joe Montana over Joe Namath. Okay, I’m old. How about Larry Fitzgerald over Dez Bryant, or Nick Foles over Johnny Manziel?

Second, is he HUNGRY? This is as simple as it is critical. The fact is, some players (employees) get drafted and decide they’ve arrived. All their hard work has finally paid off. Other players (employees), the hungry ones, feel more pressure than ever to prove themselves. They want to get better, and their motivation is about playing the game rather than living the life.

I’ve found that hunger is the hardest of the three virtues to teach. It seems that it is instilled in most people when they are quite young, often as a result of parenting, or influences from teachers or coaches. The telling sign of a hungry player (employee) is that he is never quite satisfied, and doesn’t have to be reminded to do more.

Think about Jerry Rice and Tom Brady. Anyone who tells you that they are naturals is mistaken. No different than the world’s best musicians, doctors or teachers, they simply get more out of what they have because they outwork everyone else. Period.

Is he SMART? I’m not referring to intellectual capacity here, and I’m certainly not suggesting that teams rely on the Wonderlic test, which is something like an SAT for pro football players (employees). In the context of a team, being smart is having common sense in the way you deal with people.

A smart player (employee) knows how his words and actions affect his teammates. Whether he is in the huddle, the locker room, or in front of a reporter, he understands the ramifications of his behavior and is intentional about how he influences the people around him.

Players (employees) who aren’t smart, even if their intentions are good, often create problems that their coaches and team executives have to clean up. They create off-the-field distractions, sometimes on the sidelines, that diminish their on-field contributions.

So how does a well-intentioned coach or executive go about discerning which players (employees) are humble, hungry and smart? Of course, interviews are important. Unfortunately, agents make this a little harder than it once was by hiring consultants to prep their athletes to behave diplomatically. Still, looking for the right answers to targeted questions is telling.

For instance, ask a player (employee) about his accomplishments and look for answers that include the word “we” more than “I.” Ask him what his coaches and teammates would say about his work ethic, and he’ll be more likely to give you an honest answer, afraid that you might actually ask those coaches and teammates for their opinion. Ask him about the toughest teammates (or cross-functional departments within a company they worked for) he had to deal with and how he managed that situation. When you ask for specifics, you’ll know the difference between generic, rehearsed answers and genuine, detailed ones.

Beyond the interview itself, watch the players (employees) when they aren’t being watched. How do they behave while they’re waiting to run, jump or lift? How do they interact with others? Heck, watch them when they check into the hotel and see how they treat the person at the front desk of the hotel, or anyone else they come into contact with (such as how they greet the receptionist/greeter, answer others’ questions, etc).

Additional Resources

The Table Group
An ideal team player embodies three virtues: humility, hunger and people smarts. The power this combination yields drastically accelerates and improves the process of building high-performing teams.

The site contains FREE resources and tools – check it out!

Buy the book – The Ideal Team Player on Amazon

Book Overview on: I Power Ideas

Here are a couple good videos I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d0wta9pXT0Humble

Hungry, Smart – An Ideal Team Player

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Leadership Stories

Letting People Go

by IPowerIdeas April 3, 2018

This post ties into a recent post of mine regarding of The Ideal Team Player and what the fable shares with employee engagement as well as employee motivation.

I want to share a personal story along similar lines to the story below.

I care deeply about my staff and their well-being, not just at work but also outside of work as their personal lives have a significant impact on their work and their attitude while at work (which can be infectious). I want them to be happy at work and happy outside work (as much as possible). I believe my staff would see me as being sympathetic and empathetic.

I had a manager that I liked. The CEO suggested I fire him for a specific issue the manager created. It was not heinous nor one that involved other people but an issue that cost the company money. This manager had a young family and needed the job so I warned him and let it go. The CEO trusted me and my judgement and did not overrule my decision (something I have always appreciated about Rich Willis). What I did not do was put aside my caring feelings and look at the bigger picture which was he was not a good fit for the culture and he hired employees to be part of his team that were like him and before I knew it, the culture in his area became worse than I had thought. When I left the company, I saw it more clearly and I should have made the tough call and let him go as soon as I was told of the issue. My entire department/team would have been much better off and progressed in a more positive path if I had trusted my initial instincts (and Rich’s suggestion).

To highlight this point, I heard this quote recently, “When there is doubt, there is no doubt.“

Please comment and offer your thoughts and similar stories. These examples are an excellent way for us to personally relate and learn from.

This is a great story that I really liked as it tied into a thought I was having about how leaders need to “cut bait” sooner than later when they have doubt. Enjoy.

The Founder of Panera Bread: ‘I Wish I’d Fired More People’

Entrepreneur Media

I was the CEO of a public company for more than 26 years — that’s longer than Cal Ripken, Jr., played baseball. And I wasn’t the only one who stuck around Panera for a long time. Many of my colleagues did, too. In one case, a senior executive grew up with me there for more than 20 years. His job eventually outgrew him, and he totally checked out. He knew it, too, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell me. He just kept showing up to work. I pushed him and waited for him to step up. For years. But I didn’t fire him.

Looking back, I understand why: I was too obsessed with being a caring leader. What I should have done was let him go sooner, and many others like him.

CEOs like me come from a model called servant leadership. The idea is that we’re there trying to serve our teams and focus on their well–being. I thought of my team as a family, and the folks who worked with us as we built the organization were phenomenal. There’s a lot to be said for servant leadership, but there’s also a downside that took me years to recognize. As the complexities and challenges of our business got bigger and bigger, some team members weren’t able to keep up. But instead of confronting them, I’d find ways to cover for them. I was willing to do their work. Time and time again, that hurt the organization.

Why did it take me so long to let these people go? Experience comes from banging your head against a wall, and if I’m being honest, I didn’t come fully into my own as a leader until the past 10 years of my career. Now I see my mistake. I didn’t understand that a leader can’t put up with employees’ baloney. If someone isn’t producing, a leader has a right and an obligation to fire them.

Eventually I learned that servant leadership isn’t about being nice at all costs. It’s about being helpful at all costs. A leader should be as brutally honest as possible — and you can do this in a kind and loving way. Let the chips fall where they may, and remember: Honesty is helpful. When you tell someone why they’re doing a bad job, you’re transferring the responsibility. Maybe they improve. Maybe they leave. Whatever the outcome, they own it.

And let’s be clear. You’ll lose people this way — and that’s fine. You can’t teach a pig to sing. Some leaders think, Oh, I’m going to train the employee to become this; we’re going to develop them into that . It just doesn’t happen. People are who they are. A leader’s responsibility is not to make a person succeed. A leader’s responsibility is to create a direction for the organization and share with their team the opportunity of what they all can be. A leader provides the space to perform. After that, each employee owns their career and chooses their path.

So, about that longtime executive whose job had outgrown him: After two years of bad performance, I finally confronted him. We mutually agreed he should leave the company. As I matured as a leader, I had many more experiences like that — the honest conversation that leads to a departure. Employees have actually come back to thank me. People who have been fired or were asked to leave have later told me that they learned more about themselves and their capabilities during that process than at any other time in their career. And that makes me feel good. It means I succeeded in being a servant leader.

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Books Featured

The Ideal Team Player

by IPowerIdeas April 2, 2018

This is another fantastic book by Patrick Lencioni. If you have not guessed it yet, I truly enjoy his books and after reading each book I realize I have learned a lot as well as been inspired to continue my research and journey to be a better manager and leader.

In this book, The Ideal Team Player, he focusses on the individual. Whereas his book, 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, focusses on teamwork. Here is a link to my post on The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.

To summarize:

5 behavioral manifestations of Teamwork:
• Trust
• Conflict (healthy)
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Results

If you want increase your knowledge and your set of tools, you need to read this book.

Think of a single sports player who thinks s/he is better than the rest of the team and this player thinks they are what makes the team win and how that thinking and attitude affects the rest of the team. Would you want to be part of that team? How hard would it be to manage that player? Or how harder would it be to lead the team? And the list of questions goes on.

Here is an older, but a good example of a well-known and popular player, Scottie Pippen, that highlights this issue:

The backdrop to the story:
• It is the 1994 Championship game between Kicks and the Bulls.
• Both teams had a team with a lot of big-named players.
• Score was 102-102.
• There was only 1.8 seconds left!
• Coach pulls team aside to the bench and calls a play designed for someone else than the “most popular player” – in this case that would be Scottie Pippen
• Everyone on the team, but one person, was excited and all in for the newly designed and chosen play.
• One player uttered negative words under his breath so only his teammates could hear
• They encouraged him to get on board with the new play, he refused
• The rest of the players were united as a TEAM
• They had faith in their coach and his decision as the coach (trusting he knew more than the players at that moment)
• This decision could have lost the championship game for them – a single play.

What do you think happened?!

5 Dysfunctions of a Team focuses on how a group of people must interact in order to become a cohesive team. This book focusses on an individual team member and the virtues that make him or her more likely to overcome the dysfunctions that derails teams.

The Ideal Team Player is all about the makeup of individual team members while The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team are about the dynamics of teams getting things done.

When team members improve their abilities to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart, they’ll be able to make more progress in overcoming the 5 dysfunctions on a regular basis.

Book Summary:

Bob is in construction management and has to figure out how to keep a company running when the owner/CEO goes out on medical leave and they have two significant projects coming up and they need to hire a lot more people and they want to hire the best employees (at all levels) to ensure the outcomes or results of both projects are successful.

The three executives in the fable ultimately come up with three traits they feel their team members need in order to be successful within their company and company culture: “Humble”, “Hungry”, and “Smart”.

These three traits they felt were critical and were to build off the “team work” concept they had learned about a year prior but let the commitment to those changes and practices lapse over time and they needed to go back and build on the foundation of teamwork they had learned and now focus more on the traits of the individuals that were going to make up their team.

Here are just some of the highlights – what I call “I Power Seeds” – to get you interested and thinking.

When you keep toxic managers or leaders around, non-toxic and great employees leave. Many times we as managers keep toxic employees on our team as it can be hard to remove them, but we also lose great employees because they do not want to be part of a team or work for someone who is toxic.

The executives in the book’s fable use a term “_ack_sses” and they realize that not only do they lose good employees, but these toxic managers hire more of the same kind which continues to proliferate the traits and practices they did not want within their company (nor should you). This exacerbates the poor behaviors which makes it continually harder for changes to be made as the number of toxic employees will increase.

I give you one example of my own. When I put together a hiring panel, I always make sure those members of the panel are thinking and looking for the same things I am in the candidates, which is that they are Hungry, Humble and Smart. I also ensure and ask if these panel members can envision themselves working with this person every day. This practice has significantly changed who we hire and how my team has been changing/improving over time.

The most unhappy people are the ones who don’t fit the culture, the ones who don’t belong – they are miserable as they know they don’t belong.

Bob put on a white board those employees with bad behaviors and wrote down adjectives about each one to find common denominators between them.

I would add to this exercise and look at the employees over time and ask questions such as, “Were they always like that? Did the continued and negative culture change their attitude?” I think looking at it over time provides a 3D look and recognizing this could potentially keep good team members. They will only stay if the culture was changed to a positive and cohesive one, which included – Trust, (healthy) Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, Results.

The management team came up with the denominators:
• Ego (Humble) – being unpretentious
• Hard work (Hungry)
• People (Smart) – how to act, what to say, what not to say

They used a Venn Diagram and put the names of their current staff closest to the traits they felt they had or did not have (Humble, Hungry, Smart). Here is an example of a Venn Diagram, where the very center is the “ideal team player”.

What Humble, Hungry, and Smart brings is results – which is the top of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team pyramid (inattention to results).

Great team players are Humble, Hungry, and Smart.

The executive team help an interview with each person about humble, hungry, and smart and asked them to self-assess themselves. I think this was a great idea – gave each person a little insight into themselves. How many times do we not see something until we look at it from another direction or a different perspective and you end up having an “ah-ha” moment? Great stuff!

Humble, Hungry, Smart – it is not theoretical or touchy-feely.

Patrick Lencioni calls Humble, Hungry, Smart as “3 Virtues” and humility being the most important. Humility also meaning deflated sense of self-worth – when you don’t speak up even though you have great ideas.

Take quote from P157, first paragraph:
“In the context of teamwork, humility is largely what it seems to be. Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They 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. It is no great surprise, them, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”

Be careful not to pigeonhole people, but better understand what constitutes an ideal team player so we can recognize and develop them on our teams.

I share a personal story that when I was interviewing for a VP position at a large company I had gone through the barrage of interview panels and one-on-ones with key stakeholders like the CEO and CFO. But they also recognized the Humble, Hungry, Smart model and wanted to ensure I had these virtues. So one of the key members of the IT department “casually” asked me if I wanted to meet for lunch. Of course I accepted and we had a really good conversation, but was clear he was trying to get me to let my guard down and show my true self and did I truly possess the virtues of Humble, Hungry, Smart and would I fit into their company culture. Which I did, and out of 600 applicants, 300 having IT experience, I got the job.

Here are some interview questions I took from the book. There are many others really good ones.

One note he brought to light, which I have done, is within the interview questions, ask the same question in a different manner later on. This will help you validate what they have said for important or key areas that are important to you and your department or company culture. Such as:
• How would your colleagues describe your worth ethic?
• How would your manager describe your relationship with your colleagues?

What are your most important accomplishments of your career?

What was the biggest embarrassment or biggest failure and how did you handle it?

What is your greatest weakness or what would you change about yourself or better yet what would your friends say you need to work on?

Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you?

What is the hardest project you worked on?

What do you like to do outside of work?

How would you describe your personality?

What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you work with them?

Would your former colleagues describe you as empathetic? Give an example where you demonstrated empathy to a teammate (how others feel)

Interviewers need to ask themselves, “could I work with this person every day?”

Let your reference checks reveal to you if the person would thrive in your culture.

Key is: the process is aimed at improved vs. punishment.

Have a 360 feedback program.

Many people do not seem to realize how their words and actions impact others.

Book recommended within “The Ideal Team Player” – “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

Resources
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player

Book Summary from Amazon
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 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.

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