552: The Foundational Principle that Separates Good Leaders from Bad Ones with Pat Lencioni

Pete Mockaitis
Pat, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Patrick Lencioni
It’s great to be with you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’ve been so excited to chat with you here, and I’ve read several of your books over many years, so I think we’re going to have a good one. I’d love to start by hearing, so you spent a lot of years working with leaders and teams. If there’s a particularly surprising, counterintuitive, fascinating discovery you’ve made across your career in terms of what makes teams successful or unsuccessful, what is that thing?

Patrick Lencioni
Wow, there’s a lot there.

Pete Mockaitis
Just breaking the ice.

Patrick Lencioni
I think the thing I would say is it’s messier than people realize, and the very best teams, the very best organizations, the very best marriages, the very best things in the world are far messier than people like to think they are, and that you have to kind of accept that and be good with that, and that’s what makes it interesting. It’s never neat and tidy and perfect. So, I would say that might be one of the meta things I’ve learned.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, and I think that kind of goes right into what I was going to ask about next. So, within that, what do you think is the core fundamental root of leaders when they fail to achieve organizational health? What’s behind that?

Patrick Lencioni
Well, there’s a lot of different things, but, as an individual, I would say a lack of humility and vulnerability is probably the single greatest thing. It really takes a leader to be vulnerable enough to admit what they’re not good at and what they don’t know, and humble enough to realize they’re not more important than the people they lead, and that it’s good to be vulnerable and transparent. And so many leaders, if they’re either insecure or self-protective, they really limit their ability to be successful and the organization’s as well. So, I would say it’s humility and vulnerability is at the core.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, yeah, that really tees up and something I’ve been so curious about. The humility, the vulnerability, when you open the book The Advantage, with a really great story in which, I can just visualize the scene, you’re sitting with the CEO and watching the different programs that their workers have initiated across the year.

Patrick Lencioni
This is about Southwest Airlines.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. All right. So, it’s Southwest Airlines, there we go.

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you’re hearing some really cool story after really cool story, there’s clearly a lot of good organizational health and vibes going on there, and you asked the CEO, “Hey, so how come your competitors aren’t doing this?” And he says, “Honestly, I think they believe it’s beneath them.” And those words just really stuck with me. And so, what are some examples of things that people don’t do that they think maybe are beneath them that, really, we should start doing?

Patrick Lencioni
That’s a great question. In fact, my last book, my most recent book, which is just out now, is called The Motive. And what it talks about is if you’re not a humble leader, if you’re not doing it for service and for responsibility, but for yourself, you’re probably not going to do many of these things. And the things that leaders who are motivated by the wrong things, they don’t like to repeat themselves. That sounds crazy but the leader at Southwest Airlines, I’ve seen him over the course of almost 20 years in various settings, and he has no problem standing up and reiterating the same messages to his people again and again and again, because he realizes it’s not about looking cool and it’s not about entertaining him. It’s about helping his people stay on topic and reinforcing what matters.

And so, here is probably one of the most successful CEOs in the last 50 years, a guy who, by the way, if he walked into your office right now, you wouldn’t knew who he was, and you might not even know his name if I asked you right now, and yet he’s ran the most successful company in America over the last, you know, he’s been doing this for 25 years. It’s not about him, he constantly repeats himself. He is the CRO of Southwest Airlines, which I call the Chief Reminding Officer, and he’s good with that. So, that’s one of the things that people don’t do, and that’s not beneath him. It’s not beneath him to get up and constantly tell the stories and reinforce the messages in different ways.

One of the other things that’s not beneath him is to actually manage his people. It sounds crazy but a lot of CEOs are like, “You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I shouldn’t have to manage people anymore. So, I’m going to hire people, I’m going to trust them to do their jobs, and I’m going to just go focus on the stuff I want to do.” That’s not what a great leader does. A great leader realizes, “Whether I’m running a billion-dollar company and I’m a senior executive, or whether I’m running a startup and I have 12 people sitting around me, I have to manage my people. It might sound tedious but I have to do it.”

Another thing that great leaders have to do is run great meetings. So many leaders say, “I hate meetings,” and as a result, they just kind of mail it in, or they avoid them, or try to go to as few as possible. But a great leader has to make meetings great.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so that’s a good list there. And I want to talk about the management bit for a moment. So, we had Bruce Tulgan on the show, back in episode 302, who discussed what he called the crisis of undermanagement.

Patrick Lencioni
I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
And I thought that was very resonant. We kind of covered some similar themes here. And you’ve got a quote, I think it’s from The Motive, when you say, “Hey, it’s not babysitting. It’s management and it’s your job.” Can you sort of dig into this, this misconception between babysitting, micromanagement, management sort of? Where is the line? What should be done? And what’s not being done enough?

Patrick Lencioni
Well, I want to connect with that guy. I’ve never heard of that. Did he say that, because I feel the same way of crisis of undermanagement? You know, we live in a world where I think people don’t like be held accountable. I think that’s a social phenomenon as well. And so, what they do is they throw out the idea of, “You’re micromanaging me.” And managers, that’s like, I don’t know, that’s like one of those unanswerable things that people go on.

Pete Mockaitis
“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Patrick Lencioni
And managers back off. And the problem is, no, we’re undermanaging people. And if micromanaging means, “I know what my people are working on, I know how they’re doing, I’m available to give them coaching. I’m checking in with them to see how they’re doing,” then let’s all micromanage more. And I think that we’ve come to that place where too many people get away with trying to justify not being held accountable by accusing people of being a micromanager. No good leader is afraid of that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Patrick Lencioni
And so, I just, I agree completely with what Bruce said. And I think that it’s our job. And if we don’t really want to know what people are working on and coach them and be responsible for making sure they’re successful, then we don’t want to be a manager or a leader.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. And so then, so you laid out a couple of things. You understand what they’re working on, and the status of those things, and you are available to chime in and do some coaching as necessary. And so then, what is too much in terms of managing? What is true micromanagement look, sound, feel like?

Patrick Lencioni
You know, that’s a great question. And it’s one of those things like we promote conflict, and people say, “Well, what’s too much conflict?” And I would like to say, well, here’s the deal, 95% of people engage in too little conflict. So, rather than worrying about what’s too much, let’s realize that’s a high-class problem.

Now, I’ll answer the question though, but I would say that most managers undermanage. What’s too much? I suppose too much is asking somebody to give you a daily accounting of how they’re spending their time, and asking them to prove every day what they’ve accomplished, and questioning every decision they make, and not giving them any freedom and autonomy. The truth though is I think in all the jobs I’ve ever had, and most of the people I talk to, there’s actually very little of that that goes on in the world. Most people are undermanaged.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s funny, I actually do ask for a daily accounting of my people’s time, but it’s because they’re in another country and we don’t have much face to face.

Patrick Lencioni
That’s different.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s like six lines long most of the time, “I did this and then this and then this, and tomorrow I plan to do that.” It’s like, “Perfect. Thank you.”

Patrick Lencioni
Hey, you’re not micromanaging. You’re saying, “I just want to know what you’re doing so we can make sure that we’re all rowing in the same direction.” You’re not doing it because you’re questioning whether they’re golfing or watching too much TV.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, not at all.

Patrick Lencioni
Right. And, by the way, you doing that at the risk of saying you’re overmanaging is far better than say, “Well, once a month or so, we check in and I see how they’re doing.” Successful businesses don’t undermanage. They know what everybody is doing and they help each other.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, so we’re situated there. Let’s dig into more about your latest book here. So, we’re talking about The Motive and so your core message there is that there are different motives that drive leaders. And can you break this down for us a little more?

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, this is the 12th book I’ve written, and if somebody were to say, “Which book should I start with?” I would say this one because this is the first book where, instead of talking about how to lead or how to manage an organization, I address the first question, which is “Why?” Why do you want to be a leader in the first place? And some people have the wrong motivation for that. And I realize that because years ago, Pete, I was talking to a bunch of CEOs and giving them advice, like it was at a conference.

And I was giving them just straightforward advice about how to deal with things, and there were a handful of them that weren’t writing anything down, they were just dismissing everything, and some of the advice seemed really straightforward and other people were getting it. And I thought, I was starting to figure out what was going on with them, and I realized, “You know, if they’re doing this for the wrong reason, none of my advice makes sense to them.”

And the wrong reason is this, “I want to be a leader because it’s a reward for a lifetime of hard work. I’ve arrived, it’s a title, it allows me to focus on the things I like to do, and it’s kind of cool that I get to be the leader.” And there are a lot of people that go into leadership, young and old, for that reason, and that’s a terrible reason to be a leader.

You know, when I go to college graduations, people say to these people, “Go out and be a leader.” I want to yell, “No, please don’t be a leader unless you’re doing it for the right reasons.” You see, the right reason to be a leader is to say, “I’m taking on a burden and a responsibility. It’s a responsibility. And the economics of it are going to be very bad. I’m going to pour far more of my energy into being a leader so I can serve these people than I’m going to get back from it. And I have my eyes wide open. I realize it’s a responsibility and a duty, and it’s going to be hard.” If you do that, then you’re going to do the right things as a leader.

You’re going to say, “Yeah, I don’t want to have to have a difficult conversation.” That’s one of the other things leaders don’t do. “I have to have hard conversations with people. It is my job.” You know how many CEOs I worked with, Pete, who do it for the wrong reasons, who will do anything to avoid having a hard conversation with somebody? They’ll even fire somebody without that conversation just so they never have to have it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, I wanted you to actually go deeper into this, so I think it was in The Motive in which there was a tale of someone replaced a chief information officer, so one of the CEO’s direct reports, you called him Fred. Give us the whole story. It’s a winner.

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, and that’s not fiction. All my books are fiction but that’s not fiction. That’s in the back of the book where I talk. So, a true story, a famous CEO of a big company, who I don’t think was a great leader, for obvious reasons when I tell the story, he had a chief technology officer, actually. I think I changed it too, and I knew the guy because we were doing some consulting in the organization, and the CEO wanted to bring in a different CTO, chief technology officer. And, instead of sitting down with the old one and explaining that, “I’m going to hire somebody to replace you,” he just hired a new one.

And one day, the old CTO comes to work and sees an email that goes out to the company saying, “Hey, John Jackson is our new CTO. Let’s all welcome him.” And this guy is like, “I thought I was the CTO.” And so, he calls the administrative assistant. I can’t make this up, right? In fact, this happened about 20 years ago, and I just wonder if I’m making it up because this seems too crazy. Somebody sitting here in the room listening to this is going, “Nope, you didn’t make it up. It was true.”

So, this guy calls the executive assistant to the CEO and says, “I’d like to meet with the CEO,” and they just can’t find any time to meet with him, “Oh, he’s busy.” Weeks, literally, like weeks go by. This guy is coming to work knowing that there’s another guy in the company with his title. Finally, he’s about to get on a private plane with the CEO, small private plane, he says, “I’ll finally have a chance to talk to him.” They get on the plane, the CEO closes his eyes, pretends to sleep the entire time, never speaks to him. Finally, the CTO just quits.

And that’s not just an interesting, wacky story. It goes to show you there are certain people that are leaders but they don’t have the courage or the character to sit down with somebody and say, “I need to give you some tough feedback,” or, “I need to let you know what’s going on.” Now, I get it, all of us are tempted to do that, and I’m not saying we should go around, like, “Hey, all I want to do is have difficult conversations with people.” But that’s our job.

And if a leader isn’t willing to do that, it’s probably because they’re doing it for the wrong reason, they’re like, “Hey, I’m supposed to have fun. Hey, I’m the leader of this department or this organization.” “I’m the principal of this school, the pastor of this church, the CEO of this company, I should get to pick and choose what I spend my time on, and that doesn’t sound interesting to me.” That’s a fundamental problem in organizations.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’ll tell you, even though my team is small, those words really resonated and echoed back to me in terms of, “Wait, am I just doing this because it’s fun? Am I just not doing that because it’s not fun?” And it’s really quite a look in the mirror in terms of like, “Yeah, oops.”

Patrick Lencioni
One of the people that endorsed the book, we sent the book to a CEO of a company, and he sent it back and he said, “Yeah, I’ll endorse it.” And his quote was, “This book rocked me to my core. I wish I had read it 20 years ago.” Hey, we all are tempted to do things for the wrong reasons. I look back at my tenure here at my own consulting firm and realized there were times when I was largely doing it for myself, and I wasn’t good.

And so, we can read this and go, “Okay, I don’t want to do that anymore. I have to do it for the right reasons.” So, life isn’t black and white, we’re not binary. We’re capable of changing, but sometimes we have to be asked that question or ask ourselves that question, “Is my motive really the right one?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. So, thank you for that. That’s good. And then, at the same time, you talk about there’s suffering, there’s sacrifice associated with leadership, and yet you’ve also got a concept called joyful accountability. How does that fall into things?

Patrick Lencioni
Well, that question is a great one, and the answer to both of those comes back to a very famous CEO, who’s become a friend of mine, named Alan Mulally. Now, Alan Mulally was the guy who turned the Ford Motor Company about, I don’t know, 10 years ago. He took over the company when they were hemorrhaging money and they were about to go out of business, and he took it over and didn’t take any money from the government. He’s an amazing leader.

I mention him because both of the questions you just asked me relate to him. First of all, he came to visit us after he retired, and he said, “I don’t like that part in your book, Pat, The Advantage, when you talked about management being a sacrifice, that there’s suffering involved. It’s a privilege.” And I was like, “Alan, that’s not how the world works anymore.” He was like a Boy Scout from Kansas. I think I even said, “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Alan.” And he thought, “Well, why would anybody not see that job as a privilege?” And I said, “You know how many people want to be the CEO because they think it’s cool and because they have the right to do whatever they want?”

And if we don’t help people understand the hard part, we’re inviting them to take a job that they don’t want. So, he got that. But the thing about Alan was he had this way of holding people accountable. I mean, here, he turned the Ford Motor Company around. I think he said he only fired one or two people. So, you’re thinking, “Wait a second. How do you turn a company…?” This was the DMV, basically, that he was taking over.

And he said, you know what he would do, he’d see somebody behave in a way that was contrary to what he wanted, he would go to them and he’d say, “Hey, I noticed that you were doing that,” and they’d say, “Yeah, I don’t really want to do this thing you asked me.” And he’d go, “That’s okay.” And they go, “Really?” And he goes, “Oh, yeah, we could still be friends but you can’t work here if you’re not going to behave that way, so it’s up to you. Let me know. You can either opt in and act this way, or you don’t have to, and honestly we can still be friends.” He wasn’t being snarky. And people opted out or they opted in, and very times did he actually have to manage them out of the organization because the point of the matter is, if you hold people accountable and tell them there’s no breathing room there, they’re going to choose the right path.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Patrick Lencioni
In or out. And so, he had this way of joyfully, he wasn’t afraid to do it. And I think that’s why he was able to turn that company around. He would have hard conversations that other people would just agonize over, and he’d go, “What’s the big deal? They can work someplace else.” And I think it’s a great lesson.

Pete Mockaitis
No, and I think that is great and I think there’s, I don’t know, just fear in the mix or maybe litigation, lawyers, lawsuits, wrongful termination. It seems like, I guess, those things do happen, but I have a feeling that these are kind of hobgoblins of the mind that are just sort of just trying to feed the justification to avoid doing the hard thing. So, yeah. So, I’d love to maybe zoom in there. So, let’s say, hey, you know you got to have a conversation, you don’t want to have the conversation, but here you are, you’re tempted to pretend you’re asleep on a plane or duck it by any means necessary, how do you summon the stuff from inside to do what needs to be done?

Patrick Lencioni
You mentioned the word justification. I think the false justification we use, and I’ve certainly done this in the past, because I’m a wus, I’m going to tell you I’m a wus. I don’t like doing this either. If we justify it by saying, “Man, I really care about the people that work for me, and I just don’t want them to feel bad so I’m going to avoid telling them this thing because it can make them really sad.” That’s a lie. And I used to do that. And then, one day, I realized, “Oh, wait a second. You know who I’m really wanting to avoid feeling bad? Me, because I’m going to be uncomfortable. They’re not going to feel better when I don’t tell them because it’s going to come back to bite them later.”

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. Either they’re fired, or their career doesn’t progress, or they get less cool, fun, interesting responsibilities. One way or the other it hurts.

Patrick Lencioni
Exactly. And so, I was like, “If I love these people,” and I used the word L, “I should love the people that work for me. Even if I don’t like them all the time, I should love them. And if I love them, I have to tell them the truth.” I mean, I have four sons, right? Do I think that I’m doing them any favor by not telling them the truth about things they need to get better at? No, I love my children. To deprive them of that is crazy. If I’m a manager, I should feel the same way. So, once I kind of debunked that myth that I was actually a nice manager by not saying things to people, it gave me the courage to do it. And I still have to do that and I struggle with it all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s excellent. And so, when you say that you need to love your people but not necessarily to like your people, how are you defining love in this context?

Patrick Lencioni
Love means I’m willing to do something that benefits them even at my own expense. I think love is a verb. I’m committed to them. I’m not even enjoying their company right now, and maybe that’s my own fault or whatever else, but I am willing to do what’s in their best interest ahead of mine. You and I are both Catholic, it’s a biblical definition, right, to…

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

Patrick Lencioni
I was just reading in the Bible today about loving your enemies, right? Well, first of all, so love our enemies, and the person who works for me, who actually, they’re on my team, and I have to tell them something that’s going to be hard for them to hear, I think I should be able to love them for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And as we talk about your sons, I’m thinking about my son right now. He’s two years old.

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, wow.

Pete Mockaitis
And he’s in a habit of doing some screaming when he can’t get what he wants, and so we keep…

Patrick Lencioni
So, my advice to you is never discipline him, always let him do whatever he wants, and then when he’s 20, he’s going to be great. We would never do that.

Pete Mockaitis
No.

Patrick Lencioni
But so many leaders are like, “Oh, I don’t want to tell this person.”

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like, “I would have to remove this from you and it’s for your own good, and it’s going to cause you to scream, which is going to cause me to feel stressed and unhappy, but here I am making that sacrifice on your behalf. Much like I‘m going to share some feedback with a person and that’s going to make me uncomfortable. And if I make them uncomfortable, maybe yes, maybe no, in the moment, but ultimately has positive consequences downstream.

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, Pete, I’m going to tell you. So, my kids are 21, 21, 17, and 13. I have four boys. I know I’ve learned more about being a leader by being a parent, I think half of these books come about because of the crossover between being a parent and a leader at work and team work and all the things. There’s so much in family life that crosses over the business, and around humility, and around accountability, and around all these different things. So, it’s fascinating. My poor wife, because we have to apply this together, luckily, she’s interested in it too. And my kids are now, even my 13-year old, the other day said, “Yeah, this stuff is really interesting.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool.

Patrick Lencioni
So, it’s going to be fun watching. What’s your two-year old’s name?

Pete Mockaitis
Jonathan.

Patrick Lencioni
Jonathan. It’s going to be fun talking to you in five years when he’s seven.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Yes, I think so too.

Patrick Lencioni
That’s an exciting thing.

Pete Mockaitis
So, here’s a scenario I thought I might run by you just because I was thinking about our upcoming interview and prepping some stuff, and I was also doing some training for an organization, we’ll keep it broad, in the health space. And so, right before the training started, we’re sort of chatting a little bit, and then I heard someone ask an assistant who’s helping us out, “Oh, hey, what’s up with all the contractors and stuff next door?” They said, “Oh, there’s this executive and they’re building out a suite on this floor for his office.” And then they said, “Really? So, we’re cramped on space, we always have to do this and this and this, and this guy needs a suite and so we’re going to have even less space.” And then the assistant said, “Oh, yeah, and they might actually take over this conference room that we’re in too. They still have to decide that.” And they just sort of shook their heads.

And so then, I got you in my ear, thinking about organizational health and conflict and all these things, and I just thought, I said this out loud, it was like, “Wow! So, it seems like you perceive some sort of wrong or injustice is occurring here, and yet I have a feeling that they’re probably never going to know about it and you’re just going to feel a little bit miffed, a little bit resentful over it over time.” And it’s like, “Is that accurate or am I right way off based here? It’s like I’m pontificating.” And they said, and a couple more people chimed in, it’s like, “Well, yeah, I’m not going to say anything about it but it’s because they didn’t ask and they don’t care.” And I thought, “Man, this is the stuff. I think this is kind of like where the rubber meets the road in organizational health.”

It’s like on the one hand you could say, “Hey, this executive, it was hard to recruit him. He needs some things to be one over.” And then it’s like, “Is it really their job, or duty, or responsibility to explain every decision they make to the people who also dwell in the office?” But, at the same time, if you don’t get into that messy stuff, you’re just going to have this resentment and bitterness and stuff unspoken in the mix, and it’s harmful. So, Pat, putting you on the spot, how should healthy organizations deal with just these everyday kinds of things that need to be addressed?

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, those people are right to wonder what’s going on. Secondly, it’s not their job to go ask why this is going on. Somebody else knows this and they’re not doing it. And so, I would say either somebody is letting that CEO or that executive down by not questioning it and preventing him or her from doing something that looks really bad.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, and that person’s going to have poor relationships with all the people that are kind of miffed because he’s taking all the space.

Patrick Lencioni
Or he knows and he doesn’t care.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, possible.

Patrick Lencioni
Okay, this happened to me once. In fact, the first book I wrote, and the first part of that first book, came from this too. So, I worked with a CEO of a company, and he took over when the company was kind of in trouble, and they were laying people off literally, and so offices were coming open. And an office would come open and people go, “Ooh, can I have Fred’s office now that he’s gone?” And so, the facilities people, their numbers were actually going up because they were doing all these moves at a time when the company was hurting. So, the CEO rightly said, “Okay, it’s time for a little adult supervision,” and he announced that there would be a freeze on all office moves and facilities. Okay, that made sense.

The very next week there were contractors in the main headquarters, in the lobby where people came, building out the conference room that they use for customers and for meetings and turning it into his office. And the reason why they had to make it bigger was because he was having office furniture flown in from the East Coast and they needed to make it fit so they had to change the shape of the conference room. And I didn’t know at the time but we look at it now, his motivation was not to serve others. His motivation was about himself and it was completely consistent with who he was, and that is the problem.

Now, if he’s doing that and he’s just clueless, boy, somebody could be his hero and say, “Hey, do you realize what kind of a message you’re sending?” And that’s why a leader’s job is to surround themselves with people that are going to tell them the truth and push on them. And so, I think that’s a fantastic example that you gave, one that I’ve seen too, and I think it’s probably is an issue of motive.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I think that’s quite likely. And so, I’m wondering, in this kind of a situation, what would be the ideal healthy way for leadership and teams to address this issue? It’s like, “Hey, we’ve got some competing demands on our limited space,” how do we hash that out optimally?

Patrick Lencioni
Right. What I would say is this, so that executive, his team, it’s a he it sounds like, his team, the question is, “Do they have the kind of trust, vulnerability, and conflict on their team to put these things on the table?” because that’s where it belongs. And he has to be the one to be vulnerable enough to say, “Hey, you guys could ask me any question and challenge me. Even if I disagree with you, I’m going to be honest with you about how I feel. I’m not going to punish you for that.” So, the question is, “Why isn’t that team having those honest conversations?” And the leader has to take it upon himself to create that kind of trust.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Fair enough. Well-said. Pat, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, no, but I’m going to go back to the question you asked at the beginning, and you said, “What’s one of the big insights?” The big insight, and I touched on it before, is this, what I’ve come to realize is that if you’re a leader and you constantly remind people about what they need to do to improve, 95% of the time, more, they’re going to either improve or they’re going to go someplace else where they fit better. And I think if I could give any leader advice, it would be become completely immune to your fear of saying to somebody, “Hey, you did that thing.” You talk too much during meetings, “Hey, you did it again. Hey, you did it again.” Most human beings, if they’re constantly reminded about how they need to improve, are going to do it because they’re tired of being reminded or they’re going to leave because they don’t want to change.

And if every company did that, there’d be far less firings, which are very painful, and far less lawsuits, and companies would actually start attracting the right people and repelling the others. And it usually comes down to a lack of courage on the part of leaders. So, that’s one of the things I’ve learned. So, I think that’s it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Patrick Lencioni
Theodore Roosevelt once said that “Comparison is the thief of joy.” That’s a fantastic quote. And then my favorite Bible verse, it’s “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Sometimes I think we make things harder than they need to be because of our pride and because it’s self-oriented and things like that. So, those would be my favorite two.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Patrick Lencioni
I like the one I learned in social psychology where the person, like if you go on the street, and you ask somebody, “Hey, will you help me do this?” A high percentage of people will say yes. And then if you introduce a financial element to that, fewer people would actually say yes because now they feel like it’s an economic decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, so you pay people and then fewer of them want to do it because they’re getting paid.

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, like, you’re unloading things out of your car, and you say, “Hey, can you help me carry this across the street? I need to unload my car,” and like X percentage would say, “Yeah, I’ll help you.” And then you said, “Now, I’ll offer them $5 to do it,” and fewer of them would actually say yes. And I think sometimes we think that people are coin-operated and it’s actually a disincentive to do that. And people’s inclination toward helping others and doing the right thing is much higher because it’s the right thing to do. And I think companies do that too, like, “We need to pay people more.”

It’s like, no, how about treat them well, get to know them, thank them, help them understand why their job matters. People really want to work hard. Great volunteers at a church or a nonprofit work harder than people being paid in a for-profit because they’re doing it for the right reasons. That’s not to say, “Hey, go cut your people’s pay,” or, “Don’t offer people money.” But I think sometimes we overemphasize the financial incentive of behavior and don’t appeal to people’s better nature.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Patrick Lencioni
You know, Dean Koontz is my favorite author, and he wrote a book called Brother Odd. He has a series called Odd Thomas, but there’s a book called Brother Odd which I think is fantastic. It’s funny. It’s mostly really deep and funny and clever.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Patrick Lencioni
The whiteboard. You know, in my office here, we just add it onto our office and have a new cottage, and we’re like, “What artwork should we put on the wall?” And we just painted it with that. There’s a new paint that’s like it turns a wall into a whiteboard and, boy, do we use it, and good stuff comes out. I’m looking at stuff right now where we solve problems and then we leave it up there. So, the whiteboard.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool.

Patrick Lencioni
In my house, at home, I should have whiteboards in every wall.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you become more awesome at your job?

Patrick Lencioni
Well, it helps me in my job and it helps me in life, and that’s praying the Rosary.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good.

Patrick Lencioni
Fifteen minutes a day, usually do it in the shower.

Pete Mockaitis
You do the whole Rosary in 15 minutes?

Patrick Lencioni
I could do it for 15 minutes.
usually that’s when I’m flooded with peace and it helps me think through my day and be more charitable and kind.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a particularly resonant nugget, something you share that really seems to connect with folks and they quote it back to you again and again?

Patrick Lencioni
I always like to say, “The truth is don’t make the truth.” I mean, the perfect enemy of the good. And people repeat that back. Because I’m a believer in the 80/20 principle, “Get the first part done and we’ll figure it out from there.” And so, I think that’s one that probably comes back my way.

[36:01]

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Patrick Lencioni
I would point them to our website, which is TableGroup.com. And we have a podcast also called At The Table with Patrick Lencioni. We just started it this year and we’re having fun. We’re not as professional as you. You said you had a 302, 300 episodes.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that was the Bruce Tulgan episode, 302, yeah.

Patrick Lencioni
Wow! Yeah, I think we’re at like 25 but we’re loving it. We’re loving it. We’re enjoying it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, it’s definitely fun. Well, hopefully, you’re getting better and better as you get in there.

Patrick Lencioni
We’re trying.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Patrick Lencioni
You know, I think that take the risk of speaking truth to people in kindness, and good things happen. And we tend to think that the cost is going to be too high to do that, but if you speak truth and love and kindness and humility, you’ll be a leader’s hero, because we’re not all CEOs. But if you can go to the leader, nine times out of ten, they’re going to be glad that you told them, and five times out of ten, they’re actually going to listen to it and make you a hero, and four times, they might ignore you, one time they might not like you, but it’s always the best thing to do. I think people are too risk-averse when it comes to pouring into a leader upwards. So, manage up. Manage up.

Pete Mockaitis
Pat, this has been a treat. I wish you lots and lots of luck and blessings as you’re pursuing these adventures.

Patrick Lencioni
Thank you, Pete. And have fun with Jonathan and your family. God bless.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. You, too.