The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues

by Patrick Lencioni

In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle's company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you're a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

Genres: Business, Leadership, Nonfiction, Management, Self Help, Personal Development, Psychology

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2016

About the author

Patrick Lencioni is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker, consultant and founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to helping organizations become healthy. Lencioni’s ideas around leadership, teamwork and employee engagement have impacted organizations around the globe. His books have sold nearly three million copies worldwide.

When Lencioni is not writing, he consults to CEOs and their executive teams, helping them to become more cohesive within the context of their business strategy. The widespread appeal of Lencioni’s leadership models have yielded a diverse base of clients, including a mix of Fortune 500 companies, professional sports organizations, the military, non-profits, universities and churches. In addition, Lencioni speaks to thousands of leaders each year at world class organizations and national conferences. He was recently cited in the Wall Street Journal as one of the most sought-after business speakers in the nation.

Prior to founding his firm, he worked as a corporate executive for Sybase, Oracle and Bain & Company. He also served on the National Board of Directors for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America.

Reviews

[Rod Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to say much about the "fable" format - a lot of these reviews seem not to be familiar with this particular style of book, and a reacting negatively to that. Yes, 75% of this book is a work of fiction with characters and dialogue that serve as a way for the author to convey his ideas in the format of a story, and yes as with The Phoenix Project and other similar Business Novels, the quality of this fiction is fairly hit or miss and it's mostly lots of straw men that a perfect examples of the principles the book wants to get across. If this format sounds like it would bother you, you won't like this book.

Now, as to the actual content - I think it's quite good. It's a deeper dive into the concepts of "The No Asshole Rule" which is basically to suggest that making "cultural fit" an important part of your hiring process is a good idea. Not just to implicitly avoid hiring assholes (this book is fond - very fond - of the word "jackass") but to make the fact that you're doing so very deliberate and well-known within your organization, as well as telling clients and partners so they should know to give you feedback if they wind up working with an asshole in your organization, and to tell prospective candidates as well so that they know that if they are an asshole, they'd be miserable in your organization and drop out. This is all really solid advice, and I think it's a good idea.

One needs to be careful about hiring for "cultural fit" in general, it's an easy mechanism to hurt diversity and inclusion, often it becomes a shorthand for "hire people like me" which leads to uniformity in workforce. That's why I think it was great for the book to, more than similar books, spell out exactly what makes someone a "jackass" and how to look for them while hiring as well as look for them in your organization to either help them improve or remove them. So much comes down to spelling out expectations for your candidates and employees; simply making it clear that you actually expect people to interact with each other in a respectful and compassionate way rather than just hoping people do (and making it clear that, if you don't, you're gone) goes a long way.

To get specific, Patrick Lencioni enumerates 3 primary positive traits to look for in candidates. He suggest they be:

1. Humble
2. Hungry
3. Smart

"Humble" can refer to more than thinking little of yourself - it means not thinking of yourself that much at all. Undervaluing your own contributions isn't humility, it's low self-confidence. The book spells this out a bit, and I think it's great advice, nothing to disagree with about looking for your employees to be Humble.

"Smart" refers to being socially smart, and I think the book's use of simply "Smart" to have a one-word trait is lamentable. "Socially Smart" is much clearer, and more inline with what the book is going for - this is the primary "Jackass" quality that keeps being referenced. Basically just, be polite to people, disagree in a respectful way, don't be hard to work with. As someone in the software industry, I see far, far, far, far, far too many organizations that are tolerant of behavior that's not socially smart simply because the perpetrators are other kinds of smart. Delicate Geniuses who are too important to fire, and are then empowered to act like raging assholes in both subtle and overt ways with no repercussion. I find this to be one of my industry's greatest failings, and I want everyone to read this book simply to give them a chance to understand how important it is you weed out people who aren't socially smart as early as possible, and help your current employees lacking in this area become more socially smart (or fire them if they can't hack it).

"Hungry" is my biggest sticking point with this book. As the author talked about looking for Hunger, I became worried this could be easily reduced to looking for people to work after hours or on weekends. Sadly, my concerns came to pass as working outside of 9-5 hours did indeed become a good way to figure out and evaluate who is and isn't hungry. In fact the author even argues that a candidate who asks a lot of questions about working hours in the interview is likely not a Hungry person, and may be avoided. I find this to be a completely terrible idea - I think work/life balance is extremely important to prevent burnout, and it's not hard to value passion in one's work while still balancing hobbies, family, and personal life. The fact that I say this, as far as I can tell, would exclude me from Lencioni's hiring processes. I do ask about work/life balance in interviews, I find many companies in my industry have a terrible attitude toward balance and I like to sniff them out when I interview somewhere. Lencioni even makes a point that someone who is passionate about their hobbies is likely to be less passionate about their work, and may not be an ideal team player. I just find all of this reasoning to be very dangerous, and while I appreciate the sentiment of wanting to find people who are passionate/hungry, the specific advice given in the book to find those people I think is pretty bad.

Overall I liked the book enough to overlook its shortcomings. Even as I disagree with the author's suggestions for sussing out a full 1/3rd of the ideal team player traits, and even as I cringe at the out-of-place preaching for Jesus (yes it's in there), I still find the rest of the contents of the book super valuable and would recommend reading it.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for work (we have a work book club!) and I feel like I learned a lot. It definitely helped me see areas I can be better and how best to hire people which is awesome!

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the typical Lencioni book in that he tells a story about a mythical company and some problem that it is trying to solve. You work through the problem in the first half of the book. He then gives applies the story to his subject. The application part of the book:

The Three Virtues of the Ideal Team Player
- Humble: humility is the single greatest and most indispensible attribute of being a team player
- Hungry: hungry people almost never have to be pushed by a manager to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent
- Smart: smart simply refers to a person's common sense about people

Application #1: Hiring
The Interview Process
Don't be generic
Debrief each interview as a team
Consider group interviews
Make interviews nontraditional
Ask questions more than once
Ask what others would say
Ask candidates to do some real work
Don't ignore hunches
Scare people with sincerity
Interview Questions
Humble
Tell me about the most important accomplishment of your career
What was the most embarrassing moment in your career? or the biggest failure?
How did you handle that embarrassment or failure?
What is your greatest weakness?
How do you handle apologies, either giving or accepting them?
Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you.
Hungry
What is the hardest you've ever worked on something in your life?
What do you like to do when you're not working?
Did you work hard when you were a teenager?
What kinds of hours do you generally work?
Smart
How would you describe your personality?
What do you do that others in your personal life might find annoying?
What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you deal with them?
Would your former colleagues describe you as an empathetic person?
Can you give me an example of how you've demonstrated empathy to a teammate?
Application #2: Assessing Current Employees
Humble
Does he genuinely compliment or praise teammates without hesitation?
Does she easily admit when she makes a mistake?
Is he willing to take on lower-level work for the good of the team?
Does she gladly share credit for team accomplishments?
Does he readily acknowledge his weakness?
Does she offer and receive apologies graciously?
Hungry
Does he do more than what is required in his own job?
Does she have passing for the "mission" of the team?
Does he feel a sense of personal responsibility for the overall success of the team?
Is she willing to contribute to and think about work outside of office hours?
Is he willing and eager to take on tedious and challenging task whenever necessary?
Does she look for opportunities to contribute outside of her area of responsibility?
Smart
Does he seem to know what teammates are feeling during meetings and interactions?
Does she show empathy to others on the team?
Does he demonstrate interest in the lives of teammates?
Is she an attentive listener?
Is he aware of how his words and actions impact others on the team?
Is she good at adjusting her behavior and style to fit the nature of a conversation or relationship?
Application #3: Developing Employees who are Lacking in one or more of the Virtues
Application #4: Embedding the model into an organization's culture

[Christina Hughes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entire book paraphrased: "Jackass jackass team player jackass! Team player! But jackass! Haha jackass humble team player. Ah, team player team work humble hungry smart team player. Jackass haha!"

[Rob Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like this for the reason so many other seemed to love it. The beginning of the book began with "The Fable," which was a long description of a fictional company coming to understand what makes an ideal team player. This acted much like a case study, except it was told in a narrative format and it is fiction. This was nearly 70% of the book. It was far, far too long. The point of this "fable" could have been conveyed much faster. The remainder of the book, which was the important part, gave examples and details on how organizations can interview for the ideal team player and how to coach current employees to be ideal team players. There was not much exceptionally new or innovative information in this section. This would have made a great article. It lacked the depth to fill a whole book.

[Kristeen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This should have been just an article or maybe a slide deck. I really love Lencioni's The Advantage, but get so bored and distracted by his fable structure used in his other books. The concept of hiring for hunger, humility and emotional smarts is an interesting one, but doesn't warrant an entire book.

[Kam Wa Tang · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was not a fan of this. The "Hungry, Humble, Smart." triad is interesting, but I was not a fan of other aspects of the book. The parts I did not appreciate are:

1) Per other reviewers, the fable provided limited insight for me. Without the fable, the content basically could have been an article. Other readers enjoyed the fable; I would have preferred an actual case study.
2) Less than a third of the book was dedicated to application. There were some good suggestions there, but a lot of it felt like filler.
3) The Hungry concept needs to be defined better. As far as the author is concerned, an employee's lack of hunger is due to an intrinsic problem with the employee. This is not always the case, as motivation can be impacted by organization structure, culture, or other factors.
4) The fable, at least for me, was a little too machismo and reflects a certain world view. This is my personal opinion; others may interpret things differently. I had no problem with mentions of religion, but other things were not so cool.

[Dana Probert · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot that I liked about this book but some of it concerned me. I think that it is too easy to assign more value to “people I’d like to hang out with” vs. people that really could fit into team culture if you gave them a shot. I also was not totally onboard with his extended definition of hunger where he highlights the willingness to work outside of work hours. I am all for making work your passion, and I also have no problem with burning the midnight oil when the team needs to get something important done. I do, however, believe that expectations of constant overtime are bad for all humans, but especially marginalizes parents, folks with health challenges and elder caregivers. You can be hungry, humble and smart and a terrifically effective employee without selling your soul to the job. Just seems like... the “no jackasses” idea could inadvertently eliminate a lot of people who aren’t actually” jackasses” but rather just not clones of the existing team members.

[Oceana GottaReadEmAll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was super engaged from the beginning! The fable really did it for me. This hiring philosophy based around teamwork and being a team player is what my new workplace uses to foster a healthy team mentality and it really works.

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m new(ish) to bizlit.

But lately I have been on a binge (so to speak).

It feels like I’m reading management and leadership books as if my life depended on it.

And in a sense, my life and a bunch of other peoples lives are (kind of) hanging in the balance.

I’m a psychotherapist (and) I recently became the clinical director of a 50(+) employee company.

We serve clients who are overcoming severe addiction and co-occurring mental health diagnoses.

All of these souls have loved ones and many have dependents.

So the stakes are high.

Sure.

Winston Churchill and FDR saved the free world.

Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project gave birth to the destroyer of worlds.

Closer to home.

My grandfather fought in WWII, occupied former Nazi Germany after WWII, was a player in the Nuremberg trails, and later became the head of selective service for the state of Michigan during the Viet Nam war (a shitty job if ever there was one).

My puny responsibilities clearly pale in comparison to any of these people.

That being said.

It’s still (for me) an awesome responsibility.

I take it all very seriously.

And I feel every little bit of it.

Good and bad.

The transition from therapist to management has been natural in some respects.

Working with clients is not so different from managing therapists (read into that what you will).

However, the transition from worker (doer) to manager (recruiter, gate keeper, team builder, system designer, delegator and yes, the guy who disciplines and fires people) is an animal of a different color.

I’m currently in the process of hiring a lot of people and building a team.

And after making some really bad (bad, bad, bad) rookie mistakes that lead to several legitimate HR nightmares. I’m am now WIDE AWAKE to the consequences of bad hiring practices and dysfunctional teams.

This book has been particularly helpful in lifting the fog of war.

The simple heuristic used to identify the ideal team player, in interviews and employee evaluations is:

HUNGRY
- hard working
- driven by intrinsic motivations
- energized by the mission

HUMBLE
- not purely or primarily self interested
- focused on serving the clients and the team
- willing to share the credit

SMART
- people smart
- curious
- bright

I have been introducing this heuristic to my management team and it’s working.

We’re making better decisions.

This book is written in a nonfiction teaching ‘fable’ form.

It’s a story about a management team at a construction firm that has to hire 60-100 people in a hurry or go out of business.

The new CEO remains radically committed to only hiring A+ team players, who are hungry, humble and smart (all three or no deal) even though there is a staffing crisis and they are a smaller player in a highly competitive labor market.

It’s a terrific amplification of an ordinary staffing and team building situation.

And it’s a LOT like my current situation.

Before reading the books in this series.

I did not think I would like the nonfiction narrative teaching form.

And in a sense I was both wrong and right.

Because I LOVE IT.

I’m completely inspired by the hybrid of fiction and nonfiction.

It’s strangely effective.

I literally can’t get enough of it.

I’m jumping on to the next one right now!!!!

Five stars ⭐️

[Mahin Mirshams · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب بازیکن تیمی ایده‌آل، از دو بخش تشکیل شده. بخش اول که بخش داستانی ماجراست، روند تغییر یک شرکت بزرگ رو به تصویر درمیاره و در حین روایت، تو رو با شخصیت‌ها و موقعیت‌هایی آشنا می‌کنه که قراره توی نیمه‌ی دوم کتاب بهشون ریفرنس بده. توی بخش دوم هم، فرضیه‌هایی که توی داستان مطرح میکنه رو یه جورایی اثبات میکنه و براشون راه حل میده.
من از طرز نگاهش به مسئله خوشم اومد. هرچند به نظرم بخش داستانی میتونست کوتاه‌تر باشه و بخش بررسی هر کدوم از صفت‌هایی که ادعا میکرد عاملان کار تیمی هستند( فروتنی، ولع،هوشمندی)، پر و پیمون‌تر باشه. چیزی که توجه منو جلب کرد این بود که این کتاب عطش منو زیاد کرد. هر صفحه‌ای که ورق میزدم دنبال راه حل بودم‌. دنبال این بودم که: خب فهمیدم! این مشکل رو منم دارم! چیکار کنم بهتر بشم؟ هرچند کم‌کم داشتم ناامید می‌شدم از رسیدن به جواب ولی توی ۲۰ ص آخر کتاب میشه گفت یه پاسخی گرفتم‌. پرواضحه که مسائلی از این دست، تا زمانی که اجرایی و عملی نشه، قابل نقد نیست، ولی حداقل اینو میشه گفت که کتاب باعث شد به فکر عملی کردن فرضیه‌هاش باشم و در حین خوندن همون ۱۵ ۲۰ ص‌ی آخر، راه‌حل‌های زیادی به دهنم خطور کرد.
در آخر هم یکی از جملات جذاب کتاب رو ضمیمه میکنم و خوندنش رو، اگر وارد بازار کار شدید، بشدت توصیه می‌کنم.
" به نظر من کار تیمی فضیلت نیست، بلکه انتخاب است. این تصمیمی راهبردی و عامدانه‌است، به این معنی که با همه‌ی آدم‌ها سازگار نیست!"

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for work. It consisted of a laughably cheesy and idealistic "fable" followed by a practical application of why you should strive to work with people who are humble, hungry, and smart. The application section was only about a third of the book and didn't go into very much depth of what those qualities actually mean. Also, the author used the word "jackass" 46 times (yes, I counted), so do with that what you will.

[♡ Dakota ♡ (Sarcasm is my middle name) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for school. Two Stars.

[Dustin Tramel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Too many leaders hire mostly for competency and technical skills." p.155. I love Lencioni's FABLE writing style. It personally helps me connect to the content and process it for my current situation. I have learned something from each of his books and I recommend this one as well. This book has some great insight into developing a healthy culture in your group or organization. I found it extremely helpful for me as a leader who desires to build a team that collaborates and shares a common vision. I walked away with some new ideas of how to help people of different personalities connect to the bigger vision of our team. I appreciate his emphasis on fit over competency. Too often we put people into positions based on skill but then find out they don't fit with our team's culture. "Most training and development comes down to how much a person wants to change." p.134. "The most unhappy people in a company are the ones who don't fit the culture and are allowed to stay." p.61. I wish the book had more help and advice for people who have someone on their team currently who doesn't fit the culture. The book addressed this but I was hoping for more. What does a group do with people already on the team who don't fit?

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was fully on board with humble, hungry and smart until Lencioni did two things in the latter part of the book (where he "explains the fable"):

1. He states explicitly that in order to be "hungry" and therefore considered an "ideal team player," a person must be "willing to contribute to and think about work outside of office hours," and instructs managers to tell "non-hungry" employees that they are expected to "work more hours." That is not only ridiculously selfish and incredibly unhealthy, but it's a complete rip off (are you paying those employees for those extra hours? If they are salaried, NOPE.)

2. He ends the entire book by proselytizing on the "divine origins" of his favorite virtue, humility, and how "the most compelling example...in the history of mankind can be found in Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity...it is my hope that readers of this book will take something else away with them and apply it in their lives: an appreciation for the true give that it is to be humble and the DIVINE ORIGINS of that virtue." So incredibly unnecessary to the overall ideas presented in the book and alienating to the millions of people who do not share this belief, and since it was literally the final sentence, left a really UNHUMBLE and bad taste in my mouth.

[Oleksandr Golovatyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Після прочитання книги я ще раз впевнився в тому, що командний гравець повинен бути скромним, енергійним та розумним. На перший погляд все очевидно. Але найчастіше, коли йде набір людей в команду, про одну або декілька цих рис завжди забувають, замінюючи їх професійними вимогами. Звичайно людина повинна бути професіоналом своєї справи, але без цих трьох чеснот, вона не зможе в повній мірі допомогти команді досягти справді високих результатів.

Також використаю декілька речень з самої книжки, що найбільше мені сподобались:
"Скромність - єдиний найважливіший і найбільш незамінний атрибут командного гравця.
Енергічні люди майже ніколи не потребують підштовхування з боку керівника, щоб працювати старанніше, бо вони і так самовмотивованні та сумлінні.
Бути кмітливим просто означає спілкуватися з іншими, куруючись здоровим глуздом. Кмітилвим людям просто притамання розсудливість та інтуїція щодо тонкощів групових стосутнків та впливу їхніх слів та дій"

Дуже гарна книжка, рекомендую всім керівникам та підлеглии, що прагнуть побудувати дійсно ефективні та успішні команди.

[Sylwia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why You Might Bump This Up On Your TBR: I learned a lot from this model and it challenged me. From reading this, I can hone in on things I can do better and differently and things I can show more of at work. I think everyone who works for a team, as well as any supervisor who leads a team, should read this book. It's also helpful in teaching supervisors how to interview. It also encourages supervisors not to label their workers into self-fulfilling prophecies and not to be too hard on people that are imperfect, which I think is healthier than the alternative.

Why You Might Bump This Down On Your TBR: I think this book supports the way employers take advantage of their employees. Also, the first few chapters have this very long skit of a fictional workplace. I read one chapter of that but then I skipped the rest and got straight to the nonfiction portion, which I recommend doing if you don't need examples when you learn. I also thought it was unhelpful not to know what the examples were about ahead of time.

[Ko Matsuo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of people recommended this book to me. I wasn't all that impressed.

Most of the book is a fable about a company that has trouble with teamwork and the leadership team that develops the teamwork framework that Lencioni offers. The problem isn't that there is a fable. The problem is that the fable is much too long.

I liked the framework. Basically it calls for a balance between Humility, Hunger, and Smarts. Humility is thinking of yourself less. Hunger is looking for more: more things to do, more to learn, more responsibility to take on. Smart is emotional intelligence, i.e, the ability to be inter-personally appropriate and aware. Together they help ensure that no jerks make it into companies.

In summary, the fable was too long for my tastes, but the framework was useful.

[Pat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hm. This book could be summed up in one sentence: Hire people who are humble, hungry, and people smart. Do not hire jackasses. This is a short book and 80% of it is a made up fable to support this statement. There's no real analysis of what it means to be humble, hungry, and smart, or why these "virtues" are superior over others (and what those others may be) when it comes to being a great team player, or why being a "great" team player is what a company needs (as opposed to certain competence-based virtues), or how different companies may have different cultures, or any research or evidence whatsoever. This is a modern business book that you probably don't need to read.

[Glenn M Clapp · Rating 1 out of 5]

Substantially burdened by misogyny without much redeeming value. The characters are deeply unlikeable and self-important and the core message is soaked in Judeo-Christian BS.

[Tõnu Vahtra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book sits around Five Dysfunctions of a Team, it's about improving the odds of overcoming the five dysfunctions by building a team with the needed virtues (or identifying and closing the gaps where possible). When Lencioni books focus on specific are then I would attribute two key tasks to this book: identifying people with stronger teamwork capabilities in employee selection phase and also identifying those people in existing teams that are reducing or even working against the synergies in teams. The fable part was almost too short in this book and not particularly exciting and I was already afraid that it is followed by a few pages of explaining the theory and then it would be over. Fortunately the chapters of explaining the theory and its application was long enough and covered all the needed angles. I must say though that I'm starting to get a bit tired from Lencioni's signature "touchy-feely" statement (who says those words anyway?).

The ideal people for teamwork are those that have three virtues in common - humility, hunger and people smarts:

HUMILITY
 Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status.
 They 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.
 There are two types of people who lack humility:
a. The overtly arrogant people who make everything about them, the classical ego driven type which diminishes team work
b. The others are those who lack self-confidence who discount their own talents and contributions, so others mistakenly see them as humble.

HUNGRY
 Hungry people are always looking for more – more things to do, more to learn, more responsibility to take on.
 They never have to be pushed by a manager to work harder as they are self-motivated and diligent.
 They are constantly thinking about the next step and the next opportunity.
 Hunger, here refers to one of a healthy kind – a manageable and sustainable commitment in doing a job well and going above and beyond when it is truly required.

SMART (I would call it emotional intelligence)
 Smarts refers to a person’s common sense about people.
 Smart people tend to know what is happening in a group situation and how to deal with others in a most effective way.
 They ask good questions, listen to what others are saying and stay engaged in conversations intently.
 Smart people have good judgement and intuition around the subtleties of group dynamics and the impact of their words or action.

What makes humble, hungry and smart powerful and unique is not the individual attributes themselves, but the required combination of all three. If anyone is missing in a team member, team work becomes significantly more difficult and sometimes not possible.

Connecting above model to Five Dysfunctions of a team:
 When team members are adequately strong in each of these areas, when they possess significant humility, hunger and people smarts, they enable team work by making it relatively easy for members to overcome the five dysfunctions of a team.
 They are more likely to be vulnerable and build trust, engage in productive abut uncomfortable conflict, commit to group decisions even if they initially disagree, hold their peers accountable when they see performance gaps and put the results of the team ahead of their own needs
 Those who lack all three qualities have little chance of being valuable team members. It would take great effort over long period of time for them to develop the capacity for all three, let alone two or even one.

IDEAL TEAM PLAYER
They have little ego when it comes to needing attention or credit for their contributions, and they are comfortable sharing their accolades.
Ideal team players work with a sense of energy, passion and personal responsibility, taking on whatever they possibly can for the good of the team.
They do and say the right things to help team mates feel appreciated, understood and included even when difficult situations arise that require tough love.

Improving interview process:
*Not being too generic
*Debrief each interview as a team
*Consider group interviews
*Make interviews non-traditional
*Ask questions more than once
*Ask what others would say
*Ask candidates to do some real work
*Don’t ignore hunches
*Scare people with sincerity

“Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less” - C S Lewis

[Reza Jokar · Rating 4 out of 5]

زبان اصلی کتاب رو خوندم که خیلی روون نوشته شده بود و خوندنش راحت بود. کتاب دو بخش داره، حدود 70 درصد اول درباره یک مدیر جدید هست و چالش هایی که در استخدام و متابع انسانی باهاشون مواجه میشه، در 30 درصد باقیمانده هم نویسنده مدل ایده آلی که برای یک فرد میشه متصور شد رو کامل
توضیح میده و مشخصه هاش رو بیان میکنه. در ادامه هم خیلی کامل تاثیر نبود هر کدوم از مشخصه ها در فرد رو توضیح میده و براشون راه حل ارایه میکنه
کتاب بیشتر جنبه "منابع انسانی" داره ولی خوندنش برای من که فیلد متفاوتی رو دنبال میکنم خالی از لطف نبود و پیشنهادش میکنم

اردیبهشت 1399

[Benyamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

اگر قصد ساخت "تیم" دارید، اگر می خوا‌هید متوجه بشید که "تیم" یعنی چی و "کار تیمی" چطور ایجاد میشه و یک "هم‌تیمی خوب" چه ویژگی‌هایی باید داشته باشه، این کتاب رو بهتون پیشنهاد می‌کنم هر چه زودتر بخونید.

کتاب ۲ بخش داره.
بخش اول: داستانی هست درباره‌ی مدیر ارشد جدید شرکتی که قصد داره ۲ تا پروژه سنگین رو اجرا بکنه و فکر میکنه‌ که داشتن تیم‌خوب توی این مسیر سخت از هر چیزی مهم‌تر هست برای مدیریت کردن شرکتش.

بخش دوم: خیلی فنی درباره‌ی پیاده‌سازی مدلی که توی بخش اول با هم‌فکری ۲ تا از مدیرای دیگه‌ی شرکت بهش رسیدن میپردازه و با جزئیاتی لذت بخش موضوع رو میشکافه.

مدل چیه حالا؟
اینکه هر فردی برای اینکه تبدیل به یک "هم‌تیمی ایده‌عال" بشه باید ۳ تا "فضیلت" رو داشته باشه.
۱) فروتن باشه
۲) پرولع باشه
۳) هوشمند باشه

حالا اگر فردی هر کدوم ازین موارد رو نداشته باشه قطعا توی کار و زندگی تبدیل به یک انسانی میشه که آدم دوست ندارن باهاش در تعامل باشه. چرا؟ چون حال نمیده. چون احساس بد پیدا میکنن. چون باهاشون نمیشه بلند مدت ادامه داد.
به قول نویسنده و ۳ مدیر ارشد شرکت یه جورایی میشه "بی‌شعور" صدا زد این جور آدمارو.

پ‌ن ۱: این جز اون دست کتاب‌هایی هست که نیاز هست با "توجه" و "پیوستگی فشرده" خونده بشه.
پ‌ن ۲: این نکته رو هم بگم که قطعا من و همه‌ی‌ما توی زندگیمون یه جورای در یک بازه‌های زمانیی بیشعور بودیم (شاید هنوز هم پابرچاست) و با کلی بیشعور سروکار داشتیم (و در آینده قطعا بازم پیش میاد). دلیل واقعی که چرا اینقدر ازین کتاب لذت بردم این هست که کتاب به خوبی بینش و آگاهی داده و کلی تجربه‌ی خوب به اشتراک گذاشته.
پ‌ن ۳: این هم آدرس سایت‌شون که کلی ابزار رایگان و محتوی‌خوب هست. بررسی کردنش خالی از لطف نیست. https://www.tablegroup.com/books/idea...

امیدوارم کتاب رو بخونید و بکار بگیرید و لذت ببرید.

[Shahrzad Pakgohar · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب توسط رضا رایان راد با عنوان «بازیکن تیمی ایدئال» ترجمه شده و انتشارات آریانا قلم منتشر کرده . ترجمه بسیار خوب و روان هست و یکی از بهترین کتابهای مدیریتی بود که تا به حال خوندم، هم از لحاظ اهمیت موضوع کار تیمی و هم از لحاظ شیوه بیان و مدلسازی انجام شده.
کتاب به نسبت کوتاه است و به سبک داستانی نوشته شده. پاتریک لنچیونی به خوبی مخاطب رو در یک سفر کشف ویژگی‌های بازیکن تیمی ایدئال همراه میکند. در این کتاب خبری از توصیه های بدون استدلال و یا استدلالهای انتزاعی نیست. با خوندن کتاب به تدریج برای مخاطب هم اثبات میشود یک بازیکن تیمی ایدئال باید ویژگی‌هایی که لنچیونی عنوان میکند رو داشته باشد:
فروتن، هوشمند، پرولع

[Jacob · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first 150 pages of this book are a parable anyone in their right mind would skip, but the last quarter of the book offers a really good overview of what a business leader should look for when crafting a high-quality team. Lencioni suggests three qualities: humility, hunger, and interpersonal intelligence are the marks of an "ideal team player." The job of business leaders is to cultivate teams of people who value teamwork, and only someone who is an ideal team player is capable of contributing well to the team.

[علیرضا محبی · Rating 4 out of 5]

به اعتقاد نویسنده:
هر چقدر هم که رهبر خوبی باشی تا خودت و افراد تیمت در این سه ویژگی سرآمد نباشید تیم خوبی ندارید:
ولع و فروتنی و هوشمندی.
که البته در این کتاب هر کدام تعریف خودشان را دارند.
بخش نخست (و عمده‌ی) کتاب، یک قصه را تعریف می‌کند. خیلی روان و ساده.
بخش پایانی هم به صورت نکاتی کاربردی، همین مدل سه‌گانه را شرح داده که چگونه باید در فرآیندهای استخدام و بهبود سازمان و فرهنگ‌سازی و... استفاده شود.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be my favorite Lencioni "fable" yet. The way to build a successful team is to build on the three virtues embraced by all members of the team - be humble, hungry and smart. Is it that simple? Yes. Is it easy to do? No. That's why you should read this book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I audiobooked this one while driving for a busy month for the nonprofit I direct. Solid book. Somewhat repetitive (with his other books) but only to emphasize a point. Everyone should get this book for a new team member joining their staff, church, nonprofit, or business.

[ehsan karimkhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی روان و شیرین
برای کسانی که کار تیمی را یک استراتژی موثر و حیاتی در دنیای کسب و کار میفهمند
نگرشی انسانی و عمیق به اینکه چرا ما به صورت تیمی کار میکنیم یا نمی کنیم
ممنون از ترجمه روان رضا رایان راد
و انتشارات آریانا قلم

[Sarah Lessig · Rating 5 out of 5]

lol read this book for work

if anyone is on the hunt for a book about teamwork, you’ve found it! 🙈😋