Quotes from Patrick Lencioni

If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.

The sad fact is that it would be fair to say that United is a generic, bureaucratic, tired company. A sort of DMV in the sky. No real culture. No real strategy. No real expectations for employees or customers. All of which is a shame.

If you want to lead, you better love people. Even if you don't like them, you have to love them enough to tell them the truth.

Team members need to learn to leverage one another, and that doesn't happen over a golf game or on a phone. It happens by getting together and taking the time to know each other.

Enron - although an extreme case - is hardly the only company with a hollow set of values.

If you really want to step up your team's creative thinking, take a hard look at how many people you're putting in a room together. More than three to five is probably too many.

When employees feel anonymous in the eyes of their managers, they simply cannot love their work, no matter how much money they make or how wonderful their jobs seem to be.

Where there is humility, there is more success, and lasting success.

Hungry people are always looking for more. More things to do. More to learn. More responsibility to take on.

Meetings are the linchpin of everything. If someone says you have an hour to investigate a company, I wouldn't look at the balance sheet. I'd watch their executive team in a meeting for an hour. If they are clear and focused and have the board on the edge of their seats, I'd say this is a good company worth investing in.

Too often, companies focus on systems and structures that facilitate cultural change at the mid-management level, overlooking problems closer to the top.

Anybody, and any company, can have a big run of success once, but if you're going to repeat that over time, you need to be aware that you need to keep learning.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.

The fact is, employees cannot make breakthroughs if they can't openly and honestly disagree with their peers and their leader. Indeed, great leaders don't just permit conflict; they actively try to elicit it from reluctant employees as well.

I'm kind of a reluctant guru.

If you have doubt about a person's humility or smarts, don't ignore it. More often than not, there is something causing that doubt.

Trust is the foundation of real teamwork (there is nothing touchy-feely about this).

Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

Like a good marriage, trust on a team is never complete; it must be maintained over time.

The key ingredient to building trust is not time. It is courage.

On a team, trust is all about vulnerability, which is difficult for most people.

When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer.

Employees that feel known and they feel like they know why their job matters and they have a sense of measuring it stay later, do extra work, and are committed to the organization above the requirements that they have.

Without trust, the most essential element of innovation - conflict - becomes impossible.