Abstract
Patrick Lencioni attempts to bring organizational managers and group leaders up to date with the most important qualities to look for and cultivate during employees’ hiring and training processes. As a management consultant, the author proposes three main virtues employees need to possess for effective teamwork and an institution’s overall performance. Indeed, the success of an organization depends on how well different employees can work together to improve performance. Managers and team leaders often face the challenge of forming and sustaining an effective work team capable of increasing an organization’s performance. The major challenge is identifying and hiring personnel with proper personal and interpersonal qualities. The author encourages team leaders to focus on individuals’ competency and professional qualifications and consider their personalities. The three main virtues proposed by the author are humility, hunger, and people smart, which are comprehensively described in the book. Highly recommended, this book is ideal for team leaders focused on improving the performance of their groups and for employees looking forward to being competent and marketable in their careers.
Keywords: Humility, Ideal Team Player Model, and Social Desirability.
The Ideal Team Player
The above title of Lincioni’s book corresponds to the kind of employee the author describes. An ideal team player possesses the virtues of humility, hunger, and people smart, which the author recognizes as core values to successful teamwork in any organization (Nyarko & Petcovic, 2023; Ye et al., 2020). Concordant to other study findings, the author reiterates the significance of teamwork for the success of organizations and interpersonal skills for effective team building.
In the author’s context, the virtue of humility refers to a person’s ability to think of himself less. Individuals who think of themselves as less are capable of listening to the opinion of others and regard them as important. They are less concerned about their status and prioritize the team over themselves, making them ideal team members (Lencioni, 2016). Humble people are also more inclined to communicate their feelings and need to their partners, resulting in a more balanced and healthy relationship. Hunger denotes self-motivation and diligence. Members with hunger always look for more responsibility, often working under minimal or no supervision. On the other hand, people smart relates to a person’s interpersonal appropriateness and awareness. People, smart individuals know the impact of their words and actions before performing them and can maintain good relations necessary in a team. The author introduces the Ideal Team Player Model to guide managers and team leaders on the criteria for recruiting employees and team members. On many occasions, managers overlook the role of an individual’s personality in organizational performance. They often base their decisions on competency, and technical skills applicants possess, which hinders the subsequent process of teamwork (Lencioni, 2016). The author, therefore, challenges team leaders and managers to adopt the ideal team player model in forming work groups and the hiring processes for the optimal performance of their organizations.
Similar to the stance of other authors, the book provides important insights and recommendations for developing an effective work team. It emphasizes the need to focus on the employees’ “qualities” and “assets” and their contribution to work teams. Ideal team members possess only some of the three virtues mentioned earlier in the essay for the cohesiveness and sustainability of work teams. However, the author warns about excessive or little possession of the identified virtues as they are detrimental to the organizational work teams and overall performance. In addition to addressing managers and organizational team leaders, the book is also ideal for anyone seeking to flourish in the dynamic world of work as it fosters the quality of understanding self and others in the context of work.
Relevance of the Book to Personal Life Experience
Reading through the author’s Ideal Team Player model enhanced my understanding of the failed group projects my colleagues and I have suffered in campus education. Campus group activities are an integral element of the collegiate experience. They allow kids to develop and practice social and interpersonal skills and form relationships with their peers. Group activities can also foster teamwork, problem-solving creativity, and critical thinking. Through group activities, students can acquire confidence and learn to trust themselves and their classmates. Furthermore, group activities teach pupils how to collaborate and build leadership qualities. Sports, outdoor activities, community service, and group projects are all examples of group activities. These events give a forum for students to hone their interpersonal skills, establish a feeling of belonging, and construct a strong peer network. (Bovill, 2020). Lecturers often give assignments that contribute to learners’ final grades as group work, which may sometimes prove challenging due to issues with group coordination and meeting the specified deadline. In this instance, the lecturer randomly assigned members to groups before reading the assignment. As an academic and writing enthusiast, my coursemates are fond of choosing me as their team leader, a privilege I enjoy. The group I was in was no exception, and immediately after class, we converged at the library’s basement for discussion. They chose me as their group leader, and I was eager for the new experience.
As Lencioni (2016) reported, ideal group members possess the virtues of humility, hunger, and people smart. This was different from the new assignment group I was part of. It was difficult to agree on the best way of doing the task, with members of different opinions insisting on their preferred method. I remember losing control of the group one instant when two of my colleagues got into a heated argument, precipitating a disagreement. They both wanted their opinion to prevail, with none willing to listen to the other. Some members, especially the females, remained silent throughout the discussion, agreeing to every group decision. Other members were too preoccupied with finishing the discussion citing other commitments. Other members were busy discussing the outcome of the previous night’s football match with little regard for the ongoing discussion. By the end of the meeting, we would either submit a substandard task or be caught by the deadline. When compiling the report, I received portions of the task from different members, written in different contexts and grammar, with some lacking references. I quickly compiled the task and submitted it just before the deadline. Indeed, we performed sub-standardly, which became my worst score that semester.
I regretted being part of the group and blamed myself for not properly handling the group. However, the author’s work explained the outcome of the task. First, by randomly distributing members into groups, the lecturer should have considered each person’s ability and virtues. With insights from the book, I realized that most members lacked the three core virtues of an ideal team member, resulting in some members resenting, engaging in destructive arguments, and some being interpersonally inappropriate. A combination of these factors eventually contributed to the group’s poor performance.
Critical Reflection of the Book
The author’s book offers a vital solution to a common performance problem that managers and team leaders of organizational departments face. Human beings are social with unique personalities, yet a peaceful co-existence is necessary to facilitate team building in organizations. It is critical to develop open communication, establish a good and inclusive workplace, and acknowledge the significance of each team member. This allows teams to be successful and achieve amazing things. However, the author’s solution to successful team building faces the challenge of pragmatism in different contexts of an organization. Bergen and Labonté (2020) report that humans can behave desirably, especially when under supervision by their managers or team leaders, in social desirability for potential reward.
The phenomenon of social desirability makes it difficult for supervisors to discern an employee’s actual behavior, which often leads to misperception of who an employee is (Bergen & Labonté, 2020). For instance, an applicant may behave according to the interviewer’s expectations during the hiring process to land the job. Moreover, the most prevalent manifestation of social desirability is when a person exaggerates their successes, talents, and abilities while downplaying their flaws. This might make it difficult for managers to receive an accurate view of their employees’ performance since they may be unable to tell what is exaggerated and what is factual. The desire to get the job encourages the applicant to behave according to expectations, only to withdraw the behavior after employment. Such employees, when identified later, become liabilities to the organization as they are difficult to motivate and punish, reducing performance. Further studies are needed to provide insights on how social desirability can be eliminated or its effects minimized during the hiring and work team formation processes.
In addition, managers and team leaders should critically evaluate employees before putting in one team. Other factors that may determine a team’s performance include the professional qualifications and ranks of different team members (Nyarko & Petcovic, 2023). A huge difference in ranks among team members may promote resentment due to perceived inferiority by members of a lower rank. The hospital setting is a good example, as work teams consist of members with different qualifications. Nurses often contribute less to modifications in patient care, not because of a lack of the core virtues of a team member but due to perceived inferiority. Therefore, the author should have highlighted the impact of such a factor on team performance as it is easily addressed compared to personality factors.
Changes in Action Influenced by the Book
Greatly inspired by the book and the sub-optimal performance in the group assignment, I will champion the move to form better groups that will be used for the whole semester and all the assignments. Group activity is a common teaching method with benefits such as fostering student independence and interpersonal relations (Bovill, 2020). If students adequately tap its benefits, group activities contribute to increased performance compared to solitary ones in academia. The scenario described earlier in the essay depicted a group whose members lacked the virtues of an ideal team member, which eventually culminated in a lack of harmony and, thus, poor performance. Furthermore, lecturers also need to be knowledgeable of their students to facilitate proper distribution into groups for optimal performance. It means that, everyone should be given the opportunity to contribute to the team and their opinions should be valued. Therefore, with help from the class representative, I will suggest the head of the department in the coming week so that students are well-grouped using a strength-based perspective.
As the author reported, an ideal team member’s virtues are important in improving performance and survival. As I read the book, I silently evaluated myself to determine the virtues that make me an ideal team member. Despite having all of them, I did not exhibit a necessity for them. However, with insights gained from the reading, I will uphold the virtues described in all aspects of life, as they are important, especially in team building and as a team leader. In other words, the book made me more self-aware as I discovered the good team member I am. Furthermore, I will recommend the book to my friends to foster attitudinal change and make them ideal team members.
References
Bergen, N., & Labonté, R. (2020). “Everything Is Perfect, and We Have No Problems”: Detecting and Limiting Social Desirability Bias in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Health Research, 30(5), 783–792. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732319889354
Bovill, C. (2020). Co-creation in learning and teaching: The case for a whole-class approach in higher education. Higher Education, 79(6), 1023–1037. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00453-w
Lencioni, P. (2016). The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues. Jossey-Bass.
Nyarko, S. C., & Petcovic, H. L. (2023). Essential teamwork skills: Perspectives of environmental geoscience employers. Journal of Geoscience Education, 71(1), 20–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2022.2044665
Ye, B. H., Tung, V. W. S., Li, J. J., & Zhu, H. (2020). Leader humility, team humility and employee creative performance: The moderating roles of task dependence and competitive climate. Tourism Management, 81, 104170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104170
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