Quotes from Patrick Lencioni

the only way to do this is to overcome our need for invulnerability

Weekly Tactical meeting should last between forty-five and ninety minutes, depending on its frequency, and should include a few critical elements, including the following:

Damn it. I had to respect Michael Casey. I had really hoped that I could keep loathing him.

While these are both important problems to be aware of, by far the most common and dangerous challenge in making Weekly Tacticals work is the temptation to get into discussions about long-term strategic issues. Why is this such an important problem to avoid? First , there isn't enough time during a Weekly Tactical to properly discuss major issues. Important, complex topics deserve enough time for brainstorming, analysis, even preparation.

The most important action that a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first. This requires that a leader risk losing face in front of the team, so that subordinates will take the same risk themselves. What is more, team leaders must create an environment that does not punish vulnerability.

Meeting #3:The Monthly Strategic This is the most interesting and in many ways the most important type of meeting any team has. It is also the most fun. It is where executives wrestle with, analyze, debate, and decide upon critical issues (but only a few) that will affect the business in fundamental ways. Monthly Strategic meetings allow executives to dive into a given topic or two without the distractions of deadlines and tactical concerns.

tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of results

Ad Hoc Strategic Meetings In some cases, a strategic or critical issue that gets raised in a Weekly Tactical meeting cannot wait for the next Monthly Strategic meeting on the schedule. Still, that doesn't mean it should be taken up during that Weekly Tactical.

Another challenge in making strategic meetings work is the failure to do research and preparation ahead of time. The quality of a strategic discussion, and the decision that results from it, are improved greatly by a little preliminary work. This eliminates the all-too-common reliance on anecdotal decision making. The key to ensuring that preparation occurs is to let team members know as far in advance as possible what issues will be discussed during the Monthly or Ad Hoc Strategic.

Wanting to be popular with your direct reports instead of holding them accountable.

if we weren't willing to tell a client the kind truth, why should they pay us?

No matter how good an individual on the team might be feeling about his or her situation, if the team loses, everyone loses.

At its core, organizational health is about integrity, but not in the ethical or moral way that integrity is defined so often today. 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.

teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional.

We've learned over the years that having a bad client is worse than having none.

the first circle, I had written the word ideation, and above the third was implementation. The middle circle is what we found most fascinating, or perhaps novel, and above it was the word activation. We labeled this the "Three Stages of Work." Each circle was filled with half a dozen other words to describe what it meant.

Adrenaline addiction The unwillingness or inability of busy people to slow down and review, reflect, assess, and discuss their business and their team. An adrenaline addiction is marked by anxiety among people who always have a need to keep moving, keep spinning, even in the midst of obvious confusion and declining productivity

Trust is the foundation of teamwork. • On a team, trust is all about vulnerability, which is difficult for most people. • Building trust takes time, but the process can be greatly accelerated. • Like a good marriage, trust on a team is never complete; it must be maintained over time.

when we fail to get clarity and alignment during meetings, we set in motion a colossal wave of human activity as executives and their direct reports scramble to figure out what everyone else is doing and why.

When people who don't trust one another engage in passionate debate, they are trying to win the argument. They aren't usually listening to the other person's ideas and then reconsidering their point of view; they're figuring out how to manipulate the conversation to get what they want.

If everything is important, nothing is

Peer pressure and the distaste for letting down a colleague will motivate a team player more than any fear of authoritative punishment or rebuke.

It has to do with doing work that drains me of my energy, and which, in turn, prevents me from doing the work that gives me energy.

Because when a team recovers from an incident of destructive conflict, it builds confidence that it can survive such an event, which in turn builds trust.