Patrick Lencioni Quotes

For organizations seriously committed to making teamwork a cultural reality, I'm convinced that 'the right people' are the ones who have three virtues in common - humility, hunger, and people smarts.

- Patrick Lencioni

Life is full of surprises: new opportunities come up; that's part of the fun - the adventure of life. The thing is, chaos doesn't allow us to enjoy the adventure.

- Patrick Lencioni

The kind of people that all teams need are people who are humble, hungry, and smart: humble being little ego, focusing more on their teammates than on themselves. Hungry, meaning they have a strong work ethic, are determined to get things done, and contribute any way they can. Smart, meaning not intellectually smart but inner personally smart.

- Patrick Lencioni

Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.

- Patrick Lencioni

The best kind of accountability on a team is peer-to-peer. Peer pressure is more efficient and effective than going to the leader, anonymously complaining, and having them stop what they are doing to intervene.

- Patrick Lencioni

Having to re-recruit, rehire, and retrain, and wait for a new employee to get up to speed is devastating in terms of cost.

- Patrick Lencioni

Smart people tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to deal with others in the most effective way. They ask good questions, listen to what others are saying, and stay engaged in conversations intently.

- Patrick Lencioni

At its core, all authentic growth depends on more customers wanting more of what your company offers. Any other drivers - pricing gimmicks, heroic marketing efforts, forced acquisitions - are ultimately destructive.

- Patrick Lencioni

God bless those employees at United who somehow continue to be gracious and patient and generous with customers even while bearing the brunt of a broken company themselves.

- Patrick Lencioni

The best leaders over the long term are those who have a sound home life.

- Patrick Lencioni

Clients don't expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There is no better way to demonstrate this than by acknowledging when a mistake has been made and humbly apologizing for it.

- Patrick Lencioni

Engaged, enthusiastic, and loyal employees are pivotal drivers of growth and health in any organization.

- Patrick Lencioni

When leaders throughout an organization take an active, genuine interest in the people they manage, when they invest real time to understand employees at a fundamental level, they create a climate for greater morale, loyalty, and, yes, growth.

- Patrick Lencioni

The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions.

- Patrick Lencioni

Failing to engage in conflict is a terrible decision, one that puts our temporary comfort and the avoidance of discomfort ahead of the ultimate goal of our organization.

- Patrick Lencioni

I've spent many a long flight talking to flight attendants, trying to understand what kind of employment experience underlies such a consistent lack of concern for customers.

- Patrick Lencioni

You have to build trust among team members so that people feel free to admit what they don't know, make mistakes, ask for help if they need it, apologize when necessary, and not hold back their opinions.

- Patrick Lencioni

Team members need to be able to admit their weaknesses and mistakes, to acknowledge the strengths of others, and to apologize when they do something wrong.

- Patrick Lencioni

I know that any group of people can become a team if they do the right things, but I came to realize over time that if you acquire or develop the right kind of people, that process of building a team is going to be much more effective and easier.

- Patrick Lencioni

At the heart of every great movie is conflict. It's the same with a meeting. There should be conflict and tension.

- Patrick Lencioni

What's amazing is that so many leaders who value teamwork will tolerate people who aren't humble. They reluctantly hire self-centred people and then justify it because those people have desired skills.

- Patrick Lencioni

When truth takes a backseat to ego and politics, trust is lost.

- Patrick Lencioni

Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility.

- Patrick Lencioni

Teamwork requires some sacrifice up front; people who work as a team have to put the collective needs of the group ahead of their individual interests.

- Patrick Lencioni

The fact is, employees cannot make breakthroughs if they can't openly and honestly disagree with their peers and their leader. Indeed, great leaders don't just permit conflict; they actively try to elicit it from reluctant employees as well.

- Patrick Lencioni

I coach soccer, and my wife and I are very involved in our kids' lives. Our family is busy with doctor appointments, soccer practice, school, work, travel, vacation... life.

- Patrick Lencioni

The truth is that intelligence, knowledge, and domain expertise are vastly overrated as the driving forces behind competitive advantage and sustainable success.

- Patrick Lencioni

I have yet to meet members of a leadership team who I thought lacked the intelligence or the domain expertise required to be successful. I've met many, however, who failed to foster organizational health. Their companies were riddled with politics, various forms of dysfunction, and general confusion about their direction and mission.

- Patrick Lencioni

Enron - although an extreme case - is hardly the only company with a hollow set of values.

- Patrick Lencioni

The sad fact is that it would be fair to say that United is a generic, bureaucratic, tired company. A sort of DMV in the sky. No real culture. No real strategy. No real expectations for employees or customers. All of which is a shame.

- Patrick Lencioni

Although most executives pay lip service to the idea of hiring for cultural fit, few have the courage or discipline to make it the primary criteria for bringing someone into the company.

- Patrick Lencioni

A lot of times, people find themselves in a meeting where the primary purpose is to receive information, and that's a poor use of people's time. Those meetings can be easily dispensed with and can be an email instead that people read in their own time.

- Patrick Lencioni

I have many times marveled at how I could feel so good about myself while eating peanuts in a middle seat on Southwest Airlines and yet feel so condescended to in first class on United.

- Patrick Lencioni

When employees feel anonymous in the eyes of their managers, they simply cannot love their work, no matter how much money they make or how wonderful their jobs seem to be.

- Patrick Lencioni

You need to make sure you hire people who are capable of being strong team players. Team members should fit the company's culture, be committed to the team, and be capable of being genuinely vulnerable and selfless.

- Patrick Lencioni

Smaller groups of people can establish trusting relationships.

- Patrick Lencioni

Meetings are the linchpin of everything. If someone says you have an hour to investigate a company, I wouldn't look at the balance sheet. I'd watch their executive team in a meeting for an hour. If they are clear and focused and have the board on the edge of their seats, I'd say this is a good company worth investing in.

- Patrick Lencioni

Some companies simply aren't meant to be bigger than they are. They provide products and services that satisfy their customers in a way that pays the bills, produces reasonable profits, and allows them to keep their people employed and fulfilled. And there's nothing whatsoever wrong with that.

- Patrick Lencioni

I've seen it again and again in my consulting: Most teams are too large to be innovative, despite their leaders' best intentions.

- Patrick Lencioni

Whether we're talking about leadership, teamwork, or client service, there is no more powerful attribute than the ability to be genuinely honest about one's weaknesses, mistakes, and needs for help.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you have doubt about a person's humility or smarts, don't ignore it. More often than not, there is something causing that doubt.

- Patrick Lencioni

Even though I wrote 'The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family,' my life is as chaotic as most people's.

- Patrick Lencioni

Employees that feel known and they feel like they know why their job matters and they have a sense of measuring it stay later, do extra work, and are committed to the organization above the requirements that they have.

- Patrick Lencioni

On great teams - the kind where people trust each other, engage in open conflict, and then commit to decisions - team members have the courage and confidence to confront one another when they see something that isn't serving the team.

- Patrick Lencioni

You can go to work and actually make someone else's job less miserable. Use your job to help others.

- Patrick Lencioni

Too many executives I've met over the years have the mentality of a bodybuilder; they've come to accept the idea that growth is synonymous with success.

- Patrick Lencioni

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. And they loathe the idea that they might be perceived as slackers.

- Patrick Lencioni

Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values - and sticking to them - requires real guts.

- Patrick Lencioni

Make sure that the people at the top are working together and there aren't divisions of labor. Don't have people working in silos; have them working across the team.

- Patrick Lencioni

Team members need to learn to leverage one another, and that doesn't happen over a golf game or on a phone. It happens by getting together and taking the time to know each other.

- Patrick Lencioni

Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.

- Patrick Lencioni

I work with CEOs and their executive teams... and very few of these people are really indifferent about their employees or their customers.

- Patrick Lencioni

Without trust, the most essential element of innovation - conflict - becomes impossible.

- Patrick Lencioni

When team members trust each other and know that everyone is capable of admitting when they're wrong, then conflict becomes nothing more than the pursuit of truth or the best possible answer.

- Patrick Lencioni

Conflict is always the right thing to do when it matters.

- Patrick Lencioni

Conflict is the pursuit of truth.

- Patrick Lencioni

Meetings are usually terrible, but they shouldn't be.

- Patrick Lencioni

Great teams argue. Not in a mean-spirited or personal way, but they disagree when important decisions are made.

- Patrick Lencioni

What clients are really interested in is honesty, plus a baseline of competence.

- Patrick Lencioni

I never accepted the premise that meetings themselves were bad.

- Patrick Lencioni

When team members openly and passionately share their opinions about a decision, they don't wonder whether anyone is holding back. Then, when the leader has to step in and make a decision because there is no easy consensus, team members will accept that decision because they know that their ideas were heard and considered.

- Patrick Lencioni

Members of great teams confront each other when they see something that isn't serving the team.

- Patrick Lencioni

Team members have to hold each other accountable. If there's a meeting, all members have to commit to be present and to help one another; they can't just check out when they feel they're not getting any benefits.

- Patrick Lencioni

Employees who can't trust their leader to be vulnerable are not going to be vulnerable and build trust with one another.

- Patrick Lencioni

We learn by taking action and seeing whether it works or not.

- Patrick Lencioni

There is almost nothing more painful for a leader than seeing good people leave a growing organization, whether it's a priest watching a Sunday school teacher walk out the door or a CEO saying goodbye to a co-founder.

- Patrick Lencioni

Too often, companies focus on systems and structures that facilitate cultural change at the mid-management level, overlooking problems closer to the top.

- Patrick Lencioni

The problem is too often they are boring, and boring in a meeting happens for the same reason as in a book or movie - when there is not enough compelling tension. Meetings should be intense.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you don't know what your family stands for and what your life situation is, you're in trouble.

- Patrick Lencioni

People who have a sense of peace that their priorities are in the right place also have a sense of humility and a realistic view on life.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you want to lead, you better love people. Even if you don't like them, you have to love them enough to tell them the truth.

- Patrick Lencioni

Every employee needs to know that there's somebody out there that they serve. And when we don't let people know that for one reason or another, we're depriving them of a fulfilling job.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you really want to step up your team's creative thinking, take a hard look at how many people you're putting in a room together. More than three to five is probably too many.

- Patrick Lencioni

Anybody, and any company, can have a big run of success once, but if you're going to repeat that over time, you need to be aware that you need to keep learning.

- Patrick Lencioni

If you're not willing to accept the pain real values incur, don't bother going to the trouble of formulating a values statement. You'll be better off without one.

- Patrick Lencioni

Are your people uncomfortable during meetings and tired at the end? If not, they're probably not mixing it up enough and getting to the bottom of important issues.

- Patrick Lencioni

Irrelevance is the feeling that an employee gets when they don't see how their job really makes a difference in someone else's life in some large or small way.

- Patrick Lencioni

Your focus should be on creating an environment where growth can occur and then letting nature take its course.

- Patrick Lencioni

Sometimes you're going to have someone on your team who's just not comfortable with being open. You have to ask yourself, 'Is this person going to allow us to be a real team?' Maybe they're not right for your team. You have to be willing to lose someone sometimes.

- Patrick Lencioni

Team synergy has an extraordinary impact on business results.

- Patrick Lencioni

Hungry people are always looking for more. More things to do. More to learn. More responsibility to take on.

- Patrick Lencioni

Teamwork is a strategic decision.

- Patrick Lencioni

Trying to design the perfect plan is the perfect recipe for disappointment.

- Patrick Lencioni

Where there is humility, there is more success, and lasting success.

- Patrick Lencioni

I'm kind of a reluctant guru.

- Patrick Lencioni

Home is most important in the long run.

- Patrick Lencioni