Life
Patrick Lencioni was born in 1965 in Bakersfield, California. After university he worked at the consultancy Bain & Company and in management roles at Oracle and Sybase. In 1997 he founded the consulting firm The Table Group, which specialises in building healthy leadership teams.
He is a practising Catholic. He co-founded the Amazing Parish initiative, which helps pastors build leadership teams and renew parishes using his teamwork models.
Works
Lencioni writes mainly in the form of “leadership fables” - stories followed by an explanation of the model. Key books:
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (2002) - see the five dysfunctions of a team;
- Death by Meeting (2004) - on running good meetings;
- The Advantage (2012) - on “organisational health” as an organisation's greatest advantage;
- The Ideal Team Player (2016) - three virtues of the ideal team player: humble, hungry and people-smart;
- The Motive (2020) - on the motive for leading: responsibility rather than reward.
Significance
Lencioni's models are very popular in team development, including in communities and parishes, because they are simple, concrete and based on values close to the Gospel: vulnerability-based trust, humility and accountability. See trust, team leadership.
Sources
P. Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Jossey-Bass 2002 P. Lencioni, The Advantage, Jossey-Bass 2012 P. Lencioni, The Ideal Team Player, Jossey-Bass 2016 P. Lencioni, The Motive, Wiley 2020 The Table Group, tablegroup.com Amazing Parish, amazingparish.org