Quotes from Patrick Lencioni

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Really great people rarely leave a healthy organization.

Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in any business.

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.

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

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

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.

The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, experience and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health.

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.

A job is bound to be miserable if it doesn't involve measurement.

The only real payoff for leadership is eternal.

I never accepted the premise that meetings themselves were bad.

Team synergy has an extraordinary impact on business results.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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