The Ideal Team Player

Have you ever been a part of a team where there was one teammate you wondered if what they said to you was the same thing they said to others?

Or that one person who has their heart in the right place and they work so hard, but they seem to miss the connection with others, and you can see that they are annoying people around them.

Or that colleague that is so outgoing, contributes and makes great suggestions in meetings however you spend a lot of time chasing them for their contributions and work to be completed.

 Some people are better at teamwork than others. These are the kind of people who add immediate value in a team environment and require much less coaching and management to contribute in a meaningful way. So, the obvious question is.

What do these people look like?

The Ideal Team Player

In “The Ideal Team Player,” Lencioni turns to the individual, and identifying three virtues that are important when hiring any person in any role in any organization to be successful. Or, on the flip side, how to avoid hiring a “jackass.”

Lencioni admits that while the three virtues themselves are easy to understand, they are much harder to practice and to commit to developing in our organizations and ourselves:

HUMBLE

Ideal team players are humble. They 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 hungry. They 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 are people smart. They 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. 

The Ideal Team Player is the combination of all three areas; they are humble, hungry, and smart. 

Learning what your team values and how people need to engage with each other to make it better are important pieces to making a team successful!