Top 100 Patrick Lencioni Quotes
#1. To make our meetings more effective, we need to have multiple types of meetings, and clearly distinguish between the various purposes, formats, and timing of those meetings.
Patrick Lencioni
#2. Ken always says that his job is to create the best team possible, not to shepherd the careers of individual athletes.
Patrick Lencioni
#3. As difficult as it is to build a team, it is not complicated. In fact, keeping it simple is critical, whether you run the executive staff at a multi-national company, a small department within a larger organization, or even if you are merely a member of a team that needs improvement.
Patrick Lencioni
#4. It was astounding how much more comfortable I felt just being honest. So I kept going.
Patrick Lencioni
#5. Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don't think it's easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids
Patrick Lencioni
#7. There is something so powerful about a person who in one moment can be confident enough to confront a client about a sensitive personal issue, and then in the next moment humble themselves and take a position of servitude. It's the paradoxical nature of it all that makes it work.
Patrick Lencioni
#8. Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.
Patrick Lencioni
#9. Teams have to eliminate ambiguity and interpretation when it comes to success
Patrick Lencioni
#11. they make it clear that their focus is on understanding, honoring, and supporting the business of the client. As
Patrick Lencioni
#12. It's about knowing that in certain moments you have to offer yourself up as a minor sacrifice to help them accomplish what they need to accomplish. Letting them abuse you, on the other hand, would be a terrible disservice. I know it seems like a fine line, but it's a real one, and it can be done.
Patrick Lencioni
#13. That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes.
Patrick Lencioni
#14. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.
Patrick Lencioni
#15. If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.
Patrick Lencioni
#16. consensus is usually not achievable. The likelihood of six intelligent people coming to a sincere and complete agreement on a complex and important topic is very low.
Patrick Lencioni
#17. Leaders must display their humanness. Those under their authority must be empowered & have the courage to engage in honest dialogue.
Patrick Lencioni
#18. Like a good marriage, trust on a team is never complete; it must be maintained over time.
Patrick Lencioni
#19. Building a cohesive leadership team is the first critical step that an organization must take if it is to have the best chance at success.
Patrick Lencioni
#20. Naked service providers are so concerned about helping a client that they are willing to ask questions and make suggestions even if those questions and suggestions could turn out to be laughably wrong. They
Patrick Lencioni
#21. I've become absolutely convinced that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre or unsuccessful ones has little, if anything, to do with what they know or how smart they are; it has everything to do with how healthy they are.
Patrick Lencioni
#26. At its core, naked service boils down to the ability of a service provider to be vulnerable - to embrace uncommon levels of humility, selflessness, and transparency for the good of a client.
Patrick Lencioni
#27. teamwork is not a virtue. It is a choice - and a strategic one.
Patrick Lencioni
#28. You admit it was a bad idea as soon as you realize it. You laugh at yourself. You take their ribbing. And most important, you don't stop making suggestions. Most of your ideas won't be horrible. Even
Patrick Lencioni
#29. Naked service providers don't enjoy being wrong; they just realize that it is an inevitability. And
Patrick Lencioni
#30. A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.
Patrick Lencioni
#31. Most of the CEO's who fail think they will find the solution to their problems in Finance, Marketing, Strategic Planning, etc., but they don't look for the solution to their problems inside themselves.
Patrick Lencioni
#32. All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict in order to grow. This
Patrick Lencioni
#34. It's all about standing there naked in front of the client. It's about building trust. And in the end, that means the client trusts them and takes care of them.
Patrick Lencioni
#35. Putting together an agenda before a staff meeting is like a marriage counselor deciding what issues she's going to cover with a couple prior to meeting with them.
Patrick Lencioni
#36. The key ingredient to building trust is not time. It is courage.
Patrick Lencioni
#37. Ironically, most leaders of meetings go out of their way to eliminate or minimize drama and avoid the healthy conflict that results from it. Which only drains the interest of employees.
Patrick Lencioni
#38. Great teams make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision. They leave meetings confident that no one on the team is quietly harboring doubts about whether to support the actions agreed on.
Patrick Lencioni
#40. Building a strong team is both possible and remarkably simple. But is painfully difficult.
Patrick Lencioni
#41. Team members have to be focused on the collective good of the team. Too often, they focus their attention on their department, their budget, their career aspirations, their egos.
Patrick Lencioni
#42. few groups of leaders actually work like a team, at least not the kind that is required to lead a healthy organization.
Patrick Lencioni
#43. Clare offered a half-hearted suggestion. "Well, there are coaches I know who do one-on-one counseling." Bobby shook his head. "No, that doesn't usually work. It takes months and only isolates people. It seems like most of them just use it to prepare for their next job.
Patrick Lencioni
#45. even though clients require us to be competent enough to meet their needs, it is ultimately our honesty, humility, and selflessness that will endear us to them and allow them to trust and depend on us.
Patrick Lencioni
#46. when leaders fail to tell employees that they're doing a great job, they might as well be taking money out of their pockets and throwing it into a fire,
Patrick Lencioni
#47. If the CEO's behavior is 95 per cent healthy while the rest of the organization is only 50 per cent sound, it is more effective to focus on that crucial and leveraged 5 per cent that makes up the reminder of the CEO's behavior.
Patrick Lencioni
#48. When a group of intelligent people come together to talk about issues that matter, it is both natural and productive for disagreement to occur. Resolving those issues is what makes a meeting productive, engaging, even fun.
Patrick Lencioni
#49. Open, frank communication is the lynchpin to teamwork. A fractured team is like a fractured bone; fixing it is always painful and sometimes you have to re-break it to heal it fully - and the re-break always hurts more because it is intentional.
Patrick Lencioni
#50. We are a passionate family that believes in standing up strongly for what is right, even when there is a cost. We live our lives around our Church and our faith, placing special emphasis on maximizing our involvement in our children's lives, and nurturing family-like relationships with our friends.
Patrick Lencioni
#52. A functional team must make the collective results of the group more important to each individual than individual members' goals.
Patrick Lencioni
#54. Trust is the foundation of real teamwork (there is nothing touchy-feely about this).
Patrick Lencioni
#55. leaders confuse the mere transfer of information to an audience with the audience's ability to understand, internalize, and embrace the message that is being communicated.
Patrick Lencioni
#57. Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
Patrick Lencioni
#58. I don't think anyone ever gets completely used to conflict. If it's not a little uncomfortable, then it's not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway
Patrick Lencioni
#60. last frontier of competitive advantage will be the transformation of unhealthy organizations into healthy ones,
Patrick Lencioni
#62. An organization has to institutionalize its culture without bureaucratizing it.
Patrick Lencioni
#64. And so a leader of a meeting must make it a priority to seek out and uncover any important issues about which team members do not agree. And when team members don't want to engage in those discussions, the leader must force them to do so. Even when it makes him or her temporarily unpopular.
Patrick Lencioni
#65. To achieve results. This is the only true measure of a team P.42
Patrick Lencioni
#66. trust is not the same as assuming everyone is on the same page as you, and that they don't need to be pushed.
Patrick Lencioni
#68. If you're not interested in getting better, it's time for you to stop leading.
Patrick Lencioni
#69. Members of trusting teams admit weaknesses and mistakes, take risks in offering feedback and assistance, and focus time and energy on important issues, not politics.
Patrick Lencioni
#70. Every endeavor of importance in life, whether it is creative, athletic, interpersonal, or academic, brings with it a measure of discomfort,
Patrick Lencioni
#71. Conflict is about issues and ideas, while accountability is about performance and behavior.
Patrick Lencioni
#72. The hard truth is, bad meetings almost always lead to bad decisions, which is the best recipe for mediocrity.
Patrick Lencioni
#73. Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.
Patrick Lencioni
#74. avoid, as much as possible, telling clients what they would do if they were to be hired; instead, they just start serving them as though they were already a client. And
Patrick Lencioni
#75. A core value is something you're willing to get punished for.
Patrick Lencioni
#76. On a team, trust is all about vulnerability, which is difficult for most people.
Patrick Lencioni
#77. In order to be the kind of leader who demonstrates genuine interest in employees and who can help people discover the relevance of their work, a person must have a level of personal confidence and emotional vulnerability.
Patrick Lencioni
#78. Clients don't expect perfection from the service providers they hire, but they do expect honesty and transparency. There
Patrick Lencioni
#79. No one on a cohesive team can say, Well, I did my job. Our failure isn't my fault.
Patrick Lencioni
#80. So many people there are so concerned about being socially conscious and environmentally aware, but they don't give a second thought to how they treat the guy washing their car or cutting their grass.
Patrick Lencioni
#81. Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in any business.
Patrick Lencioni
#82. I knew that these people were not idiots, so the only thing I could attribute their insane response to was a profound lack of courage and intellectual integrity.
Patrick Lencioni
#84. An organization has integrity - is healthy - when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense.
Patrick Lencioni
#85. A leader's first priority is to create an environment where others can do these things and that cannot happen if they are not having effective meetings.
Patrick Lencioni
#87. Trust is just one of five behaviors that cohesive teams must establish to build a healthy organization.
Patrick Lencioni
#88. I honestly believe that in this day and age of informational ubiquity and nanosecond change, teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped.
Patrick Lencioni
#89. There is just no escaping the fact that the single biggest factor determining whether an organization is going to get healthier - or not - is the genuine commitment and active involvement of the person in charge.
Patrick Lencioni
#90. I believe in the old saying that if you can't measure something, you can't improve it.
Patrick Lencioni
#91. Because people who aren't good at their jobs don't want to be measured, because then they have to be accountable for something. Great employees love that kind of accountability. They crave it. Poor ones run away from it.
Patrick Lencioni
#92. A fractured team is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you have to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And the rebreak hurts a lot more than the initial break, because you have to do it on purpose P.37
Patrick Lencioni
#93. Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
Patrick Lencioni
#94. People who don't like conflict have an amazing ability to avoid it, even when they know it's theoretically necessary
Patrick Lencioni
#95. Most people are generally reasonable and can rally around an idea that wasn't their own as long as they know they've had a chance to weigh in.
Patrick Lencioni
#96. The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, experience and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health.
Patrick Lencioni
#97. Most organizations exploit only a fraction of the knowledge, experience, and intellectual capital that is available to them.
Patrick Lencioni
#98. Success comes only for those groups that overcome the all-too-human behavioral tendencies that corrupt teams and breed dysfunctional politics within them.
Patrick Lencioni
#99. An organization's strategy is simply its plan for success. It's nothing more than the collection of intentional decisions a company makes to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate from competitors.
Patrick Lencioni
#100. The lack of conflict is precisely the cause of one of the biggest problems that meetings have: they are boring
Patrick Lencioni
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