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

Essential Virtues: A Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni
John Wiley & Sons (US). (c) 2016. Copying Prohibited.

Reprinted for Angelo Guevara, Lockheed Martin Corporation

angelo.a.guevara@lmco.com
Reprinted with permission as a subscription benefit of Skillport,
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The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues: A Leadership Fable

Connecting the Ideal Team Player Model with the Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Some who have read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team might be wondering how that book and model fit with this one. Some of those same
readers may have even been involved in consulting or training activities around the five dysfunctions model, and they might be curious as to
whether the ideal team player model can help them improve upon the work they’ve done.
I am glad to say that the two models compliment one another. Here’s how.

First, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team book, online team assessment, and other products all focus on how a group of people must interact in
order to become a cohesive team. This book, however, focuses on an individual team member and the virtues that make him or her more likely
to overcome the dysfunctions that derail teams.
For instance, a person who grows in humility is going to be much better at demonstrating vulnerability than a person who is arrogant, insecure,
and egotistical. Similarly, a person who improves in people smarts will have an easier time engaging in productive conflict, knowing how to
read and understand teammates, and adjusting words and behaviors appropriately.
In other words, the ideal team player is all about the makeup of individual team members, while the five dysfunctions are about the dynamics of
teams getting things done.
Second, any team that has invested time and energy in the five dysfunctions methodology can use the humble, hungry, smart model as a tune-
up. We’ve found that some teams hit a wall in their progress overcoming the dysfunctions. In many cases, the team can break through that wall
by having team members go deeper into their individual development around the virtues that might be holding them back.
It’s like a race car engine that has plenty of gasoline and oil, but a little bit of additive can make it run more effectively and efficiently, lubricating
moving parts better or making fuel more combustible. (Okay, that’s the limit of my automotive knowledge, but you probably get the point.) When
team members improve their abilities to be humble, hungry, or smart, they’ll be able to make more progress in overcoming the five
dysfunctions on a regular basis.
Finally, the ideal team player model and tools presented in this book provide yet another opportunity for team members to be vulnerable with
one another. By sitting down and acknowledging their strengths and weaknesses—remember, the leader should always go first—a team can
develop greater levels of trust among members, which make conflict, commitment, accountability, and results that much more likely.

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Reprinted for QO4WH/134413, Lockheed Martin Corporation John Wiley & Sons (US), Patrick Lencioni (c) 2016, Copying Prohibited