The Ideal Team Player Summary

In the Book, The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni explains the essential qualities that are needed in creating the ideal team player. The book is broken into two sections, the first is the Fable, in which Lencioni introduces the reader to a scenario that surrounds the reorganization of an existing company. The scenario is a common problem that most firms are experiencing in today’s marketplace. Bob Shanley the previous CEO of Valley Builders hires his nephew Jeff Shanley to take the reigns of the organization. Bob announces that the firm has two large projects simultaneously and Jeff will need to hire additional staff to meet the new demands of the workload. After, Jeff met with his executive team, Clare and Bobby, he quickly realizes that they are not positioned to meet the challenges in executing the two new projects with their current staff. As a leader, he advocates that his executive staff hire team players, assess which employees are team players, and employees that are not an organizational fit and deemed as a non-team player, if not compliant, should be move out of the

Ted Marchbanks was highly skilled recruit that VB was pursuing aggressively, however after copious consideration, the decision was made that Ted had two out of the three qualities, as he lacked humility and would not be an ideal fit. Craig, a former project manager was promoted into the executive suite. Nancy, a problem employee that wasn’t a people person, exhibited virtues of humble and hungry at the exclusion of smart. However, after Nancy re-interviewed she expressed that she needed help in achieving the smart virtue, as she progressed and immersed herself in the new organizational culture. Nevertheless, Jeff, felt that organically employees that didn’t fit the new culture of the organization would leave on their