Founder of The Table Group, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Scaling
Leadership
A pyramid resting on trust, and he means vulnerability, not predictability. Without it conflict becomes politics.
At the base of the triangle or pyramid, however you want to describe it, is trust. And that is if people don't trust each other, the other four dysfunctions are not going to be overcome.
The Four Meeting Types
Organizations need four distinct types of meetings with different purposes, durations, and formats. Mixing meeting types creates confusion and inefficiency. Each meeting…
Death by Meeting (2004)
The Ideal Team Player Model
Ideal team players possess three virtues: Humble (lack excessive ego, share credit, emphasize team over self), Hungry (self-motivated, always looking for more to do and…
The Four Disciplines of Organizational Health
A healthy organization is whole, consistent, and complete - with unified management, operations, and culture. Health is achieved through four disciplines: building a…
Co-founders
The 6 Types of Working Genius
Every person has two Working Geniuses (areas of natural gift and energy), two Working Competencies (things they can do but don't love), and two Working Frustrations…
All three virtues must be present for someone to be an ideal team player
Someone with only two of the three virtues (humble, hungry, smart) will cause specific problems that undermine team effectiveness
Every successful project needs all six types of Working Genius to succeed
Teams that lack coverage across Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity will have gaps in their work process
Focus
Abandoning predetermined agendas improves tactical meeting effectiveness
Weekly tactical meetings should create real-time agendas based on the lightning round updates rather than predefined topics
Never cover more than two strategic topics in a monthly strategic meeting
Strategic discussions require depth; trying to cover more topics sacrifices the quality of thinking
The most important meeting of the month is the monthly strategic
This is where leaders grapple with issues that fundamentally influence the direction of the business
Mindset
The type of work matters more than the volume of work for preventing burnout
People burn out not from working too much but from doing work that drains them rather than energizes them
When in doubt about what's draining someone, check if they're working in their frustration zone
Persistent frustration or burnout often comes from spending too much time on work that doesn't align with your Working Genius
People thrive when they work in their areas of genius
The type of work matters more than the volume. When people spend time on work that gives them energy (their Working Genius), they are more productive, more engaged, and…
Patrick Lencioni
treats team health as the precondition for everything above it. Build vulnerability-based trust first and debate becomes the pursuit of the best answer; skip it and the same debate becomes politics, where people manoeuvre to win rather than to be right.
ran Intel's RISC debate to a correct conclusion and accepted the wreckage. Half the people who had worked on the processor left, and by his own account those relationships never healed. He calls the debate itself one of the most important ways of handling the question.
