The Table Group

Founder & President

Recognized as a true pioneer in leadership and business, Patrick Lencioni is a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader. In 2008, he was named by Fortune magazine as "one of the new gurus you should know."​

Pat is the architect of organizational health, a concept that he calls "the last competitive advantage in business today."

Pat is also the founder of The Table Group, a management consulting firm located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the author of 12 books which have sold over 7 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. His practical and straightforward approach has helped leaders and organizations tackle topics related to organizational health, teamwork, and employee engagement.

To learn more about Pat and the organizational health movement, visit https://www.tablegroup.com/.

The hidden danger of leadership isn’t failure. It’s comfort.
When leaders avoid hard conversations or difficult decisions, they’re not protecting peace. They’re protecting themselves.

That choice quietly erodes trust, weakens teams, and hurts the very people they’re called to serve.

Leadership isn’t about privilege or perks.
It’s about responsibility.

Great leaders:
• Have the hard conversations
• Make the tough calls
• Put their people first

If you’re in a position of influence, remember this: comfort is tempting, but courage builds healthy teams.

Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni is a bestselling author, speaker, and founder of The Table Group. Creator of The Working Genius and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Success can be one of the most deceptive words in leadership.
The world often defines it as more — more followers, more money, more recognition.

But real success is knowing why you do what you do.

It’s choosing meaning over metrics, calling over comparison.

When you don’t define success for yourself, someone else will — and you might not like where it leads you.

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We often think of politics as something that happens in toxic offices. but remote teams are just as vulnerable.

When we’re physically apart, the space between us quietly fills with misunderstandings and mistrust, even among the healthiest people.

In this new episode of At The Table, Cody Thompson and I unpack “virtual politics”—how distance changes team dynamics, what the ladder of inference looks like in action, and why “wasting time” with your team might be the most productive thing you can do.

🎙️ At The Table Podcast Ep 254 – Virtual Politics
 https://lnkd.in/gsCCsfmh

The foundation of every great team isn’t talent or strategy—it’s trust.
And real trust isn’t built through competence or credentials.

It’s built through vulnerability.

When leaders admit mistakes, ask for help, and own their weaknesses, they give others permission to do the same.

That’s when real teamwork begins.

Great teams aren’t built on perfection.

They’re built on honesty.

Start with trust.

Alison Westerlind

If your team’s running on empty, it might not be a workload issue.
It might be a misalignment issue.

When people feel drained, it’s rarely because they’re doing too much. Often, it’s because they’re spending too much time doing the wrong kind of work. The kind of work that pulls energy instead of giving it back.

We often assume that if someone is competent, they should keep doing what they’re good at. But just because you’re good at something you don’t enjoy does not mean it doesn’t cost you.

Leaders mean well when they tell someone, “You’re great at that, keep going.” Yet over time, that kind of encouragement can lead to exhaustion. What drains someone is not weakness. It is information, a clue about how they’re wired and what gives them joy.

Healthy teams don’t just celebrate strengths. They also honor frustrations. They make space for people to say, “I can do this, but it drains me,” and then adjust roles, projects, or expectations accordingly.

When leaders pay attention to both gifts and frustrations, they don’t just get better results. They build teams that are sustainable, dignified, and deeply human.

🎧 Listen to the Working Genius Podcast Episode 98: Honoring Working Frustrations
https://lnkd.in/gpuwq845

Tim Nieminen

Innovation and efficiency have always driven progress. But when they become the ultimate goal, they start to strip away what makes work meaningful.

Leaders face a choice:
Pursue what’s fastest and cheapest — or what’s right and sustainable.

The healthiest organizations know that profit and purpose aren’t opposites. They hold both.

True innovation serves people. It preserves dignity, strengthens teams, and builds cultures where efficiency is guided by virtue — not detached from it.

Performative cultures don’t last. Real ones do.

There’s a difference between talking about values and living them.
Between culture as a campaign and culture as a conviction.

This Forbes article by Vibhas Ratanjee captures something I’ve seen for years working with teams.

When leaders care more about how their culture looks than how it truly works, it eventually breaks.
Real culture is quiet.
It’s not found in slogans or launch videos.
It’s found in consistency, when people act the same behind closed doors as they do on stage.

At The Table Group , we’ve always said: culture isn’t what’s written on the wall, it’s what’s tolerated in the hall.

If you want to build something that lasts, don’t polish your culture. Practice it.

➡️ Read “Why Performative Cultures Break — and Real Ones Last” on Forbes.
https://lnkd.in/gm5RfQu9

Most people search for meaning in their work.

But if you manage or lead others, you already have one of the most meaningful jobs there is.

Leadership is about more than results.

It’s about shaping people — their confidence, their character, and their sense of worth.

That’s the kind of impact that outlasts any goal or metric.

Conversations about competitiveness too often come back to work hours.
👉 72-hour workweeks.
👉 “Right to Disconnect” laws.

But neither builds true competitiveness.

The best employees:
✔ Don’t just log time—they own outcomes.
✔ Step up not because they’re forced to, but because they care.
✔ Respond with loyalty when given trust and flexibility.

When leaders hire for hunger and reward ownership, they create teams that are both competitive and sustainable. That’s how companies thrive.

📖 Read the full article here: Compete With Hunger, Not Hours

Open article: Compete With Hunger, Not Hours by chiefexecutive.net

“Slow down.”
Two words I’ve heard more times than I’d like to admit.

I tend to jump five steps ahead, whether I’m solving a problem at work or helping one of my kids think something through. The issue isn’t being fast. It’s that people don’t always see how I got there.

As leaders, we can’t just hand people the answer.

We need to take them through the process, because how we think is just as important as what we decide.

🎧 Working Genius Podcast Episode 99: The ID Pairing with @clairelaughlin
https://lnkd.in/gpuwq845

We’ve seen firsthand how easy it is to assign people work they’re good at but don’t enjoy, and how that slowly saps their energy and joy. True leadership means recognizing that what drains one person may energize another.

If we want sustainable teams and dignified work, we need to move beyond short-term efficiency and think about long-term effectiveness. Check out this episode to learn how to respect the limits of others—and your own.

🎧 The Working Genius Podcast Episode 98: Honoring Working Frustrations
https://lnkd.in/gpuwq845

Sometimes we treat short-term efficiency like the ultimate goal.

But real leadership is about long-term effectiveness—doing work that actually lasts.

Great leaders build teams where people can contribute from their working genius most of the time—and know they’re supported when they have to step into the tough stuff. 

🎧Listen to the whole episode from The Working Genius Podcast – Episode #98 Working Frustrations https://lnkd.in/g-Ah3TDx

I’ve spent most of my career helping leaders build teams that are humble, hungry, and healthy.

These three assessments are the foundation of that work—and they continue to transform organizations around the world.

If you haven’t used them with your team yet, now’s a great time to start.

For a limited time, they’re 25% off with code FALL25. 
https://lnkd.in/gDCPB4w9

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