Lot of talk about a simple concept

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Sure, but the guy reading the book was terrible, almost put me to sleep several times. I would buy the book not the audible version. Go to the end and simply read the overview. If you have read a lot of Patricks stuff then this is repeated material on some levels. I do love Pats stuff so don't think I'm down on him, not at all, just that it is repeating material.

Has The Ideal Team Player turned you off from other books in this genre?

No

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Stephen Hoye?

Whoever it was that narrated "The hard thing about hard things" by Ben Horowitz, THAT was a great book and well narrated. Also, Steve Jobs narrator.

Did The Ideal Team Player inspire you to do anything?

Perhaps, but not much.

19 people found this helpful

Required Reading/Listening

Would you listen to The Ideal Team Player again? Why?

As the Chief of Staff for my organization I am designing and implementing the Team Development programs. These programs are based on The 5 Dysfunctions of Teams, The Ideal Team Player, and Sean Covey's The Four Disciplines of Execution. While "5 Dysfunctions" focuses on team level development, "The Ideal Team Player" focuses on individual development. I find that I "rewind and re-listen" often with Lencioni, and that I stop and take notes (OneNotes) and record thoughts.

What did you like best about this story?

The drama was fantastic. The characters and personalities engaging.

What about Stephen Hoye’s performance did you like?

Hoye's performance was great. I liked his energy and pace.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes!

Any additional comments?

While I began this book thinking about how to teach and share the principles of ideal team players with others, I came away with the determination to change my nature and to become a much better team player. Having and using this book is changing my life and making me a much better team player, and I am making my life a whole lot more fun and exciting.

16 people found this helpful

Humble, Hungry, and Smart

Like his other books, the business advice is provided through the telling of a story. The benefit of doing it this way is that it provides a context as if you're in the story and can relate to what the characters are going through. You gain an understanding of the advice and how it might apply in real life. However, the author should not have written the story as if it's a fiction book written for entertainment, where the plot is drawn out to create suspense and details are added to develop the characters. Finally after multiple meetings and discussions, the characters (executives of the construction company) conclude the three key qualities of an ideal team player are: humble (not arrogant or dismissive of people), hungry (wanting to do more and learn more), and smart (emotional intelligence). Then the story dragged on again as they met with employees to figure out if the employees possessed those qualities. The last few chapters were useful in explaining key behaviors expected from ideal team players, such as willing to display vulnerability and build trust, hold people accountable, and commit to group decisions.

8 people found this helpful

Great format, narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would definitely recommend this. I found the story form "fable" in the first 70% of the book to be a solid way to put the concepts into practice, so that the nuts & bolts description of the model was crystal clear.

What about Stephen Hoye’s performance did you like?

I listen to virtually all audio books at 1.5X speed, and I found that to be a good pace for this narration. The narration was very clear, contained appropriate inflections, and was engaging. For those who listen to audio books at 1X and find themselves getting distracted/bored, speed up the narration to a speed that will keep you engaged.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It would be a lot of information for one sitting, but the "fable" portion could certainly be engaging for one sitting. The model/application would be something you'd want to listen to more than once. Since the book was split up in this fashion, one can listen to the nuts & bolts application portion and get a lot of benefit w/o having to listen to the entire book over again.

6 people found this helpful

loved it

my husbands company required him to read this book. what a great way to show your company Style. it's nice because he's listening to it on his drive to work great motivator

5 people found this helpful

Good book, horrible voiceover

My only complaint here is the person doing the audio book itself sounds like he learned to speak from William Shatner. I feel like I’m listening to a Star Trek reading, his over enunciation is absolutely horrible and making this book a challenge to get through.

4 people found this helpful

Maybe the best book in team players yet.

I really enjoyed listening to this book. It has provided me some tools that are going to help me a great deal in hiring and coaching staff

3 people found this helpful

In a perfect world….

Heavily relies on modern day capitalistic slavery. This is an excellent how to get your employees to make you lots of money. This would work in a perfect world, where the leader’s themselves follow through on what they say, but I have worked in the construction industry for many years, and that is almost never the case.

2 people found this helpful

Tedious and not for non-managers

I had to read this as a work requirement. Not being in a managerial position, it was far from any information that I need and the whole book can be summed up as follows.

You want employees who are hungry (ambitious), humble (know and admit when they're wrong, or when someone can do better), and smart (aware of people's feelings, and abilities). I just saved you five hours, and not having to hear the word "jackass" literally fifty times.

At the end of the book while talking about who is humble, Lencioni goes into the most humble person that still walks among us -- Jesus Christ. I can accept someone wanting to promote their faith, but it does rather come out of nowhere. Perhaps he also wants us to hire just Christians. Don't know.

The narrator is absolutely wrong for this book. Perhaps good for an episode of Nova, but is utterly dry for any kind of story.

Overall, this book is far too time consuming for something that could have been written in ten pages. I suppose there are managers who eat up this stuff, but if you're not a person who hires then there are more enlightening books about the human condition.

2 people found this helpful

Subjective much?

A pleasant tale about a team becoming more cohesive. K. So, what objective tools can a business use to achieve that goal? I dunno, cause you certainly won’t find that information in this book. There is no evidence based fact on what to look for in successful employees. Just vague mentioning of “strong culture” and “no jackasses”. There is never once a clear definition of what “success” actually looks like. Save your time, look up actual research, and find objective useable data that is relevant to your company.

2 people found this helpful