Omar Usman – 3 Things I Learned from The Ideal Team Player Patrick Lencioni
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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to my YouTube channel
where I'm sharing 3 things I learned from
books that I'm reading. I know it's been
a long break since my last video, but
I'm hoping to start the series back up
again regularly.
In this video, I'm sharing 3 things I
learned from the book The Ideal Team Player
by Patrick Lencioni,
and I chose this book because
there's a lot of material out there about
leadership,
a lot of things about how to lead
people, build teams,
and we're used to consuming that literature.
But there aren't a lot of books talking
about how to be a good follower or
how to actually be just a team player
when you're not leading a team.
In this book, the author lays out what
he considers the 3 most important virtues
that someone needs to have to be the
ideal team player.
And it's important to note that he specified
the word virtues and not characteristics,
and this is because virtues are seen as
assets or qualities,
things that can be worked on and obtained,
whereas a characteristic might be seen as something
static, either you've got it or you don't.
The 3 virtues of the ideal team player
are to be humble,
to be hungry,
and to be smart.
And it's important to note,
all 3 of these must be there to
have the ideal team player. As we'll talk
about at the end of the video,
having only 1 or only 2 of these
characteristics
actually can be very destructive to a team.
So let's go into these three qualities in
detail.
The first is to be humble, to have
humility,
and we understand this in an obvious sense.
It means not to be driven by ego.
It means to have more concern for others
than you do for yourself.
When someone is humble,
they're able to be vulnerable and engage in
honest conflict and hold team members accountable.
They point out the contributions that others have
made,
and they seek to share credit and to
give credit rather than to take it. The
thing to watch out for in being humble
is not to go on to the side
where you start to lack self confidence
or you start to doubt your own abilities.
When a person lacks self confidence,
they start to
maybe not advocate for their own ideas or
not call out problems when they see them.
You still have to have confidence in your
abilities,
but you just have to do it in
such a way where you're not only out
for your own self interest.
Usually, when people are
egotistical,
it's very obvious that they're very self driven.
When someone lacks self confidence, they seem they
tend to withdraw, not advocate for themselves at
all. Both of these extremes are driven out
of insecurity.
To have proper humility, to have proper level
of humbleness,
you need to have confidence in your ability,
know how to advocate for your ideas,
but do it in a way where you're
not drawing attention to yourself. The second quality
is to be hungry,
and hunger is that innate drive to always
do more, to always do better. This is
the person that a manager doesn't have to
tell them, we need you to go and
do x y z. They're already ready to
go do it on their own. The hungry
person is the one that's always looking for
more work, always looking for ways to help
other people, always looking for things to learn.
They're not waiting to be told what to
do. The smart person,
the 3rd virtue,
is
common sense people skills.
They have good interpersonal skills. They know
the politics of a group or the or
the dynamics of a group, And that smartness,
and one thing that Linconi says that this
is not emotional intelligence. This is actually a
step before emotional intelligence.
It's that common sense understanding of how people
work, what people are looking for, and how
to navigate the dynamics of that team. And
that's it. Those are the three virtues of
the ideal team player.
All three of these
must be present in an individual for them
to be the ideal team player.
If a person
only has
humility,
they're only humble, and they lack hunger, and
they lack people smarts,
that person is called upon.
They're simply there. Everyone likes being around them,
but in the end, no one knows what
they really have to offer. And so they're
overlooked. They're not included in any activities.
They might stick around for a while, but
that's about it. When a person has only
hunger
and they lack
humbleness and they lack people smarts,
that person is what we call a bulldozer.
They get in there, they get what they
themselves need done,
and they get everyone else out of the
way.
We've all worked with people like that, and
we know how unpleasant it can be.
A person that only has people smarts, but
they lack the humility and the hunger,
that person is someone that's entertaining, they're likable,
people kinda like being around them, but in
the long run, no one really knows what
value they have to provide and add to
the team, and so they get left behind.
Some people might have 2 out of the
3 characteristics,
and that also can be disruptive to a
team.
If someone has
humbleness
and hunger, then that person is called the
accidental mess maker.
They come in. They do the work that
needs to be done. They have the appropriate
focus on other people.
But because they don't understand group dynamics,
they might leave a mess behind. They might
ruin other relationships within the team without even
realizing it. If a person is smart
and humble,
but they lack hunger,
that person is the lovable slacker.
If you tell them what you need them
to do, they'll do it, and people like
being around them.
But in the long run, it's frustrating for
the team because they don't take any initiative.
They're always waiting to be told. They'll get
it done,
but then that's about it. And then the
last combination
is being hungry and smart,
but lacking in humbleness.
And this is one that we often see
in a workplace dynamic.
This is the person that is the skillful
politician.
They know how to manipulate others. They know
how to get their way, and they know
how to get credit for their work.
And because they know how to do that,
they will often rise up. They'll often get
recognition,
much to the chagrin of other team members.
And the destruction that they cause sometimes will
go unnoticed
because they're producing good results.
And so by the time leadership realizes what's
going on, sometimes it might be too late.
This is why all three virtues,
humbleness,
hunger,
and people smarts,
must be present in someone for them to
be the ideal team player.
That's it. Hope you enjoyed the book. I've
got a link to the book in the
show notes.
And if you enjoyed the video again, please
make sure you subscribe and share it with
a friend. And hopefully, we look forward to
producing more videos. Thanks.