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Today, I’m talking to leaders, business owners, managers, directors…. people that are in leading people positions. A Big Question anyone in these prepositions might ask themselves (I have heard it from clients):
HOW DO I IDENTIFY THE IDEAL TEAM PLAYER?
They might say it a bit differently, like “how do I get food people? My team, everybody is slackers… nobody wants to do the work.” They have gone through the process of hiring and training and feel like they keep hiring people who are not team players. There is this amazing book, The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. In his book he focuses on the Three qualities of the ideal team player.
If you want to build a team, a rock star level team, the dream team, a team that you love working with that gets results consistently, those team players are going to need to have these three qualities. Are you ready:
And I’ll go ahead and tell you, I’ve worked with multi-billion dollar global companies, I’ve led trainings and small businesses, and so while these are some of the points I am dropping below are from this book: they are solid. And of course, I will give you some of my own material!
They are going to make your team better, stronger, and your life easier. Now some of you might be scratching your heads, that doesn’t sound right. BUT… you know what it is like to work with someone who is arrogant, prideful, and all about themselves. You know there is a huge difference.
A humble employee is someone who is more concerned with the success of the team than with getting credit for his or her contributions. YOU KNOW THIS IS TRUE! And you want somebody who is going to say, “Hey, here’s my giftings, here’s my abilities, how do they best serve the team, the business?” It is not about them and their success alone. It is about ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING BETTER!
People who lack humility in a significant way, they are the ones who demand a disproportionate amount of attention and they become dangerous to your team.
You want somebody competent, right? And that’s the tension and the balance, right? You want someone who is confident in their gifts, their abilities, the value that they bring to the team, but they are willing to contribute to something bigger than themselves.
They are not going to step on people to get what they want. They’re going to have the humility to serve and be a part of something bigger than themselves.
They are hungry to be the better version of themselves. They are hungry to grow. They are hungry to make a contribution. They’re hungry to make a difference in the world. If you have a hungry person on your team, you don’t have to tell them what to do five times. You don’t have to ask them to fill the gap. They actually volunteer to fill the gap. They’ll volunteer to take on extra responsibilities. They’ll volunteer to do something that’s not in their job description because they are hungry to grow and to become the best version of themselves to bring the most contribution that they possibly can.
You know what the opposite of this looks like; the person that you got to repeat your instructions five times, they’ll come to an impasse and they’ll come right back to you and keep saying, well, now what? Another great book you might want to check out. If you have people like that, then I highly recommend Linchpin by Seth Godin.. If you get a team built full of linchpin thinkers, thinkers are also hungry, they are going to be self-motivated, they are going to be diligent. THose are the kind of people you want on your team because they will make your life easier and help you to accomplish your vision.
And I am not just talking about intelligence here, necessarily. We don’t need degrees, fancy letters after their name, they didn’t go to Harvard. The kind of smarts that you need most in your ideal team player is “People Smart.” They are smart in how they lead people, how they deal with people, how they resolve conflict, and these are the people who are going to cause you the least headaches. The thing is, your ideal team player need this to work with other people in a healthy way.
It is not going to turn out well, because they might have the first two qualities and lack this one… they will leave a trail of bodies on their way to finishing a task unintentionally and figuratively. Because they are hungry, they are going to go after it. They’re humble so they won’t want to step on everyone else… but they will lack the ability to work with others in a healthy way. They are going to bring dysfunction to the team.
You want people that are humble, hungry, and smart. You want them to have food judgement and be able to communicate with other people. It is not enough to have one or even two out of the three. They need all these qualities. Because if you have anyone with any
So you want people that are humble, that are hungry, that are smart, that they have good judgment and how they communicate with other people. All right. Um, and again, it’s not enough to have one or even two out of the three. They need to be hungry, humble, and people smart. Because if you have any one of those, it was lacking. It will create significant dysfunction, significant issues in your organization. For instance, if they’re humble and hungry, but not smart, they may accomplish a great deal with leaving a trail of interpersonal destruction. I just gave you that one again, I’m kind of pulling from these notes.
I’m trying to give you what I would usually take 45 minutes in a leadership training session. If they are smart and humble, but lack hunger: they will frustrate team members. Cause they’re only going to do what is expected… the minimum (And I can imagine you are thinking about some team members right now). And if they are hungry and smart but lack humility: they can have a devastating impact on the team because they are really only in it for themselves. And they know how to not their head, look good in a meeting… but they have their own agenda at the expense of everyone else.
YOUR TEAM MEMBERS NEED ALL OF THESE QUALITIES!
So Let’s Flip This? How do YOU Become a Team Player? Four ways that you can become the ideal team player or as a leader: create an environment where these four things are celebrated! In a culture you get what you celebrate!
Don’t just hope to grow, plan to grow. You don’t just grow because you say you want to, you grow because of what you do! So read the books, listen to the podcast, put yourself in the environment, and be intentional about becoming that ideal team player as a leader. As a leader, celebrate the people that are being intentional; asking for a day off to attend a seminar/conference to become a better contributor to the team.
I believe Tony Robbins said “Self-awareness is one fo the greatest determining factors of success.” If you lack self-awareness, you won’t be able to see your blind spots (we have all got them), but we can all increase our visibility of ourselves to really see yourself as you are. Increasing self-awareness, how do you do that? You do the deep work, surround yourself with high level people, high level thinkers who are going to speak into your life and hold you accountable. These are going to be the people who help you see what you cannot see.
You have just got to be, you can’t just grow some of the time; you have to grow all the time. You can’t just be people smart when you feel like it; you have to be people smart when you don’t feel like it. I suggest this book: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It helps you develop that people smarts in a consistent way. And you have to be consistent in doing the work. It cannot be occasional and sporadic.
That might be a little wooey for some of you, but listen, what you see, you’re going to create what you visualize in your life. I was just listening yesterday to the book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza and in the first or second chapter it was blowing my mind about the metaphysical realities of the way God created the universe. That man, the power we have in our mind to see, to visualize it. When you see it and believe when you see yourself becoming that ideal team player you’re going to bring a greater contribution to your organization and to the world. So see it and believe it, see yourself leading and high-level level. See yourself showing up consistently with energy, with contribution, see it and believe it. And then you can create it.
If you want to be a great leader:
Be Humble
Be Hungry
Be Smart
And Celebrate the things that create that culture.
I hope that served you well today! Tell me which of these points do you need to grab hold of today? Maybe it’s an I need to sharpen myself on one of those. Maybe I need to work on humility. Maybe I haven’t been hungry enough. Maybe I need to increase my IQ so I can lead better. Tell me what you’re pulled away from this until next time. This is where you should go out there and give your greatness to the world because somebody needs what’s on the inside of you! I love you people!
