Author Patrick Lencioni

Pat Lencioni (00:00.118) Lencioni, but some people say ‘linceoni’ and I never correct.

Auren Hoffman (00:01.206) Lencioni. Okay. I, you know, I always, I never knew that Lencioni. Okay. I will say that. Okay. Perfect. Hello fellow data nerds. guest today is Patrick Len choney. Patrick is the founder and CEO of the table group, a management consulting firm and author of 12 business books that have sold for over 9 million copies worldwide. His book, five dysfunctions of a team has remained a best seller for over a decade. It is a book that I have read multiple times, actually. So I'm a big fan.

Pat Lencioni (00:06.318) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (00:29.194) Prior to founding his firm in 1997, he worked at Oracle, Sybase and Bain & Company. Patrick, welcome to World of DaaS. Super excited. Now, most tech companies are kind of obsessed with being smart and they optimize for strategy and product innovation. Why do smart companies still fail so often?

Pat Lencioni (00:36.11) It's great to be here. It's great to be here.

Pat Lencioni (00:52.46) You know, it's one of those crazy things. And it's actually how I got into this field, Auren. I used to work at a management consulting firm called Bain and Company. And essentially what we did is we helped companies be smarter. And we would go there and do all this data analysis and present it to them. And by the way, it's really important and really interesting. But I went to a client that had all these internal political issues and they were just using our data to compete with another department within the company.

that was also doing data. So they weren't really using the information. They were really just, it was just this internal politics. I remember I was very young. said,

Auren Hoffman (01:27.734) Isn't that what they always do consulting firms for is just to do something they already want to do or.

Pat Lencioni (01:33.164) Yeah, they were just trying to, our firm versus another firm, one department versus another. And I remember saying, hey, maybe we should help them fix the political problem they have because I think we're wasting their time and money. And they said, well, this is what we do. We don't do that. And I remember at that point, I thought, well, I want to help companies solve that problem so they can actually use the data and the knowledge they have. so often, and it's only gotten more so this way or in overtime, so often people have all the intelligence they need.

but they don't know how to work together to use it.

Auren Hoffman (02:05.59) And as companies get potentially smaller, let's say revenue per person goes up because of AI and because of other types of things out there, is it more important to work as a team or is it becoming less important as these teams get smaller?

Pat Lencioni (02:23.214) I don't think it will be less important by any means. And if you have fewer employees, the potential for politics to really thwart things is probably even greater. So as we get smarter, it might very well be that intelligence becomes less of a differentiator. As every company learns how to use data, it might be, well, what's our strategic advantage? Because it used to be, like 30 years ago,

Auren Hoffman (02:41.184) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (02:50.294) you could maintain a competitive advantage based on things you knew. Today, if there's gonna be access to information for everyone, now some will use it better than others, and we can talk about that, but I think that the cultural differentiations might actually become more important.

Auren Hoffman (02:59.711) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (03:06.614) And you you, you, we wrote five dysfunctional team. don't know a long time ago, because I remember reading it quite a long time ago. Um, what of those five, is there like one that is just like more prominent with like all the AI stuff that's coming, like one that is really, um, taking over.

Pat Lencioni (03:25.666) You know what's interesting? I think that conflict, you know what I found? We've been using AI more and more here at our company. And what I've found is that arguing about how to use the information is actually more important than I realized. Cause everybody thinks, well, AI is going to tell you what decisions to make. It's not, it gives you more information about how to make those decisions, but knowing what to ask for and how to use that is still just as important. And if you don't, if you don't create an environment of trust and conflict,

You could find yourself just following the data and not actually wrestling with it. So I think trust and conflict, the first two are going to be critical to make sure that we're not just kind of ceding responsibility to whatever the data says.

Auren Hoffman (04:07.838) And most, I mean, most people don't like they kind of shy away from conflict. How does one like engage in it in a productive way?

Pat Lencioni (04:18.552) Well, conflict is a good thing because it allows us to make better decisions. And it's not idea, it's not like personal conflict. That's the problem. Everybody thinks it's about, you know, going after each other. It's about actually disagreeing with passion around ideas. And the problem is it's always uncomfortable, Oren. No two people, even if you're debating something really objective, there is an element of personal risk involved in that. And most people are like, I want to avoid that at all costs.

Auren Hoffman (04:33.504) Mm-hmm.

Auren Hoffman (04:37.877) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (04:47.862) Yeah, because I don't want to I don't want to be wrong. I don't want people to tell me I'm wrong and you know.

Pat Lencioni (04:47.896) So we have to.

Pat Lencioni (04:52.054) Yep. And so we avoid it at our own peril. So what I say is you better get comfortable being uncomfortable. And every time you get through it, go, man, I'm glad every meeting I've led a CEO and their team through. And they had arguments. And at the end, they were like, man, that was really good. You made us talk about that. But the next time it happens, there's still the tendency to go, can we just avoid this? Can we just email each other and, and, and kind of avoid having to have a passionate discussion or argument?

Auren Hoffman (05:20.564) And most meetings, at least most meetings I've been in suck. like, is there like, is there like one easy way to just make that meeting way better?

Pat Lencioni (05:31.246) It's funny. I just saw that McKinsey came out with a list of the books people should read this year and they picked one of my books from 15 years, more than 15 years ago called Death by Meeting. when in that book, first of all, meetings do suck and it's for two reasons. One, they're boring. Nobody likes anything that's boring. And the reason they're boring is because there's no conflict, because nobody ever goes to a movie or reads a book and says it's boring if there's actually something going on there.

Auren Hoffman (05:50.016) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (06:00.885) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (06:01.11) And our meetings should be like that too. We should be actually debating and trying to solve problems that matter. So a boring meeting just means we're not doing our job as a leader.

Auren Hoffman (06:08.854) Right. Or if it's just like status update, like why have a meeting? Like there's other ways to get the status update. Right. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (06:14.164) Exactly, Plenty of good technology for doing that. The other thing, the reason why meetings are bad is because we tend to have four different conversations in one meeting. We're like reviewing something and we're debating something and we're solving a short-term problem and then we're brainstorming and you can't do that all at once. And half the people in the room think they're making a decision, the other people think they're brainstorming, everybody gets equally pissed off when the meeting doesn't turn out. So we've got to get more clear like...

Right now, all we're doing is updating, and we're gonna do it in 10 minutes. Right now, we're brainstorming. Don't evaluate this, let's just, right now we need to make a decision. got.

Auren Hoffman (06:50.09) Those separate meetings, like actual separate meetings, or should it just be like the agenda is update and then the agenda is brainstorm or something.

Pat Lencioni (06:54.061) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (07:00.076) Well, and know, there's a it's not black or white, although you need to really reposition human beings cannot shift that easily in context. So you need clarity of context. And what we say is every day you should have a five to 10 minute stand up with the people in your office. If you all work together. Okay. A lot of engineers do that. They, know, what are we working on? And then every week you need to have a tactical meeting where all you're doing is going through what are our goals? How are we doing? What do we need to adjust? Where do we stand?

Auren Hoffman (07:16.31) Mm.

Pat Lencioni (07:26.936) But then you have to have these strategic meetings, call them ad hoc meetings, where a big issue comes up and we got to get in a room and roll up our sleeves and argue and throw things against the wall. That's the most fun meeting we have. But when we try to have that meeting in a 15 minute increment in the middle of our weekly staff meeting, you just can't do it. And so people can't really adjust the context that well. It's kind of like, like to say, I had this saying in one of my, in the book about

My wife and I getting ready for the day and we're in the bathroom brushing our teeth and she says, hey, who's picking the kids up from school? Hey, where are we going on vacation this year? Should we have another baby? What are we having for dinner? Well, you can't have those conversations in one thing, but we do it all the time in our families. And at work, we need to separate out. Are we planning the future? Are we solving near term problems? Are we brainstorming or are reporting? Try to separate those things out. So when people are engaging in those, they're not confused.

Auren Hoffman (08:09.268) Right. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (08:24.98) find that like there's, you we have a half hour meeting on the calendar or something like that. And then like 25 minutes in there's something really meaty that gets brought up or something. And then you like, look at the clock here. Like there's no way we're going to be. And then it's just like, what do we do? And how do we do? then like you start talking about it, then you have to cut off mid sentence because people have to rush off to other things.

Pat Lencioni (08:36.397) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (08:48.334) You know what we say? Because that happens all the time. So you go to a meeting, you have an agenda and you're going through it and somebody goes, hey, did you read that article about this competitor and what they're doing? You got to go right there and go, okay, we're not going to derail this meeting and we're not going to try to talk about that important thing in 10 minutes. We are going to get our calendars out and find an hour and a half. I don't care what we have to cancel. That's too important not to do. And we're going to go into a room and really wrestle with that. That's why we call it a strategic ad hoc because they kind of come up.

Auren Hoffman (08:50.805) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (09:13.227) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (09:17.836) And you can't wait till the quarterly ops review to talk about it. So.

Auren Hoffman (09:23.222) And what do you like, how do you like, mean, there are these standing meetings that we have on our calendar and there, you know, there's definitely some real goodness in those standing meetings, right? Those are important. You have them with your team or whatever. So you've got a seven person standing meeting, let's say once a week or once every other week or something. Um, but you know, a lot of times people aren't engaged in those meetings. A lot of times like

You, you finish it. You're like, okay, that wasn't a good use of my time, but like, would say at least one out of three, really was a good use of your time. You can't just like not go to the meeting. It's like, so how, like, is there a way to just like, just somehow make it better or somehow like keep the agenda better? Or what does one do if one's like leading that meeting?

Pat Lencioni (09:58.211) Hahaha

Pat Lencioni (10:09.858) Yeah, don't wanna, this could take a long time, but let me see if I can get it. What we need to do is we need to go into that meeting and not necessarily have an agenda ahead of time, know what our top goals are, and then review how we're doing very quickly. We literally go through, and Alan Mulally at Ford used to do this at Ford, at the beginning of the meeting, you go through your key objectives and you go, is it green, yellow, or red? And then at the end of that 10 minute review of all the things going on, you go, are we gonna talk about the red things?

Auren Hoffman (10:20.384) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (10:37.718) Or are we gonna go through and peanut butter our time out among the green ones and the yellow ones? So by arriving and setting the stage for the meeting, by reviewing things, usually the real important issues come up to the top and you go, well, let's take those issues on first because if we do anything, we have to do that. Too often we go around, go, okay, you're the marketing person, give us your 20 minute report on marketing. And if marketing's not the biggest issue going on right now, let's take your time and spend a bunch of it on this. So what it is, it's like,

Auren Hoffman (10:41.397) Heh.

Auren Hoffman (11:04.544) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (11:06.04) come up with what we call a real-time agenda based on what's really going on in the organization and what deserves the most time.

Auren Hoffman (11:12.854) And is it like, let's say you have this standing meeting with seven people and really you need four of those seven to be in the meeting. Um, and the other three might find it a little bit of a waste of time. Should you like somehow know it ahead of time and say to the other three, Hey, Bob, like you could, you should skip this meeting. Like it's not going to be a good user. You don't need to be in it. We're not like, you know, that way, like Bob doesn't feel like he's like totally bored and et cetera.

Pat Lencioni (11:41.517) Well, you know, and it depends, you know, but let me try to answer this in a slightly controversial way. Bob probably needs to watch the sausage being made. If it's a real team and the decision they're making is going to influence the rest of the team. If Bob is coming to that meeting thinking, and a classic one is like, used to have like the chief legal counsel would be there and they'd be talking about something and the lawyer would be like checked out and they'd be signing papers or something.

Auren Hoffman (12:05.343) Yeah, yeah.

Pat Lencioni (12:06.136) And we go, hey, if you're really a strategic part of this team, then you're more than just the lawyer. You're actually supposed to be thinking about this. If not, then maybe you shouldn't be on the team and you should just be doing this other function. So it kind of depends on what kind of a team it is. And I like to think that whatever your job is, you should actually be trying to add value. Because sometimes the best ideas come from people really outside of the responsibility going on there. so I think generally, when in doubt,

be in the meeting and be engaged. And occasionally, yes, you should take something offline and go, hey, let's the three of us go off and take care of that. But there's something really good about people watching the sausage getting made so they can then represent what's actually going on in edu-

Auren Hoffman (12:50.848) So it has to be obviously still very interesting. like there, there is more conflict. So they're like, at least I'm going to watch like Susie and Ann go at it or something.

Pat Lencioni (12:54.477) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (13:01.228) You know, here's what happens in meetings. It's so interesting, Aron, and I've seen this over for so many years. You're in a meeting and you're the leader and you cease two people that don't agree. And instead of going, you know something, you guys don't agree, do you? And they're like, no, no, I think we're pretty close. Like, no, no, no, no, no. I want, I want you to make an argument. We should be what we call it mining for conflict because conflict is good. It makes it interesting. And we get at the underlying issues, but many leaders.

Auren Hoffman (13:19.926) Hmm

Auren Hoffman (13:23.466) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (13:30.136) we'll try to smooth things over and think they did a good job. We all have, and we always pay for it later when we like, yeah, we should have taken on that issue right there.

Auren Hoffman (13:32.178) yeah, yeah, for sure. I've done that, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (13:40.544) Now, when, when you're in person, it's kind of rude to have like your laptop open and stuff. And it's just like a lot easier to be more engaged when you're doing like a video meeting, which, you know, all nowadays we do so often, even if you have an in-person culture in your company, if you have offices around the country or something, you're going to have meetings, you know, from the management team that are video. and then of course, once your video, like, while you've got other things on your

desktop right in front of you that will distract you very easily. It's very easy to go through a few emails or look catch up on, you know, Twitter X or look at some other random things for your kids that pop up. So, like I feel like the burden for meetings is even like way higher when we're, we're, we're remote. How does one do things there?

Pat Lencioni (14:33.122) Yeah, the key there is, and this is where if you're the leader, and this is going to sound so painful, you have to call people out when you think they're not paying attention. And again, Alan Mullally ran the Ford Motor Company and he would say to people, hey, what are you doing there? A guy would literally have his phone out and he'd go, no phones in here. Well, he goes, no, I'm serious. And it sounds like something a fifth grade teacher would say to a kid, but it really matters to know that everybody's engaged and paying attention.

Auren Hoffman (14:40.98) Mm-hmm.

Auren Hoffman (14:54.325) Right.

Auren Hoffman (14:59.926) By the way, like that means the leader, because no one's going to call it the leader. is not. So the leader has to be really engaged, you know, which it might, that might be like the least the person is most likely to be multitasking on something or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm like so guilty. I'm constantly like, I constantly, and then I have to like, have, I literally have a post-it note on my monitor that says like, focus on the.

Pat Lencioni (15:07.051) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (15:12.906) well, if the leader's doing it, everybody else is going to do it too. And I've seen that happen.

Auren Hoffman (15:27.85) Like don't, don't do something else. Cause it's just so like you literally have this, like the most engaging thing ever built in the history of the universe, which like your computer right in front of you. It's very hard to like stay engaged.

Pat Lencioni (15:40.023) Right. Yeah. I mean, there's, know you, we've all thought this for years. Like sometimes it'd be better to have multiple. We think it's great that we have this one device that allows us to do everything. And our phone is even worse. And sometimes you just wish it only did one thing. I'm a screenwriter, you know, for fun. And I write fiction books, but, when I write fiction, it's not good that the messages pop up there. I should have a laptop just for writing books.

Auren Hoffman (15:55.69) Yeah, sure, for sure.

Auren Hoffman (16:05.705) yeah.

Auren Hoffman (16:09.38) you don't just like turn off your notifications. You just have like a separate, like air gapped thing in a way.

Pat Lencioni (16:14.038) Yes, I do. I'm pretty good at avoiding that. But even still, I do get distracted and that's not good.

Auren Hoffman (16:22.9) Now you're also involved in dealing with like do stuff, making federal government more less dysfunctional. I can imagine this is like the interest viewers. Yeah. I imagine this is like, it just, you know, it's like next level more difficult than making a company. like what, what does one have to do there?

Pat Lencioni (16:32.078) It's an interest of mine. It's an interest of mine.

Pat Lencioni (16:46.37) Well, I think that's one of those things that, you know, every one of us who's a taxpayer and looks at the budget and looks at our debt and everything else, and especially if you've worked in private enterprise, you understand how much you need to justify what are we spending money on and people on and time on and is it producing a return? And I just gotta think that so much of what happens in government, based on my own experience and people I've talked to that worked there and...

and the way I see things, there's so much that's not, and here's the thing, the people that work there that know that they're not, they're not happy. Now they're not gonna volunteer necessarily to get laid off, but how much would it suck to work in a job where you know nobody was actually using what you were doing and it really wasn't making a difference? And so I just think it's actually a service to everyone.

if we get really good at assessing how productive, how focused and how much ROI is there to what we're doing, because you know the people that really hate working, the best employees hate working someplace where there's a lot of slacking going on. And so I worry that the very best people wouldn't wanna work in government because they're like, well, gee, if there's not really a higher standard.

Auren Hoffman (17:57.952) Yeah, for sure.

Auren Hoffman (18:05.366) They hate it when it's slacking and they hate when there's just like bureaucratic things that stop them from doing their job. Right? Like that's what they really, if they have the more, less time I have to spend actually doing real work, they hate that.

Pat Lencioni (18:11.508) Exactly.

Pat Lencioni (18:17.964) Yeah, so I hope that we can be aggressive and astute in how we cut back on things. And I know it's hard. The purpose of any bureaucracy becomes the perpetuation of the bureaucracy. And so it's hard. But I think it's a service to everyone, including the people who work there that know that they're not productive, to help them find a way to be productive.

Auren Hoffman (18:40.554) Now, when you call like Comcast customer service and they keep you there for an extra hour or something, it is what it is. And Comcast is making some sort of determination on that. when, when citizens interact with the government and citizens, takes longer for the citizens. It literally hurts the GDP of the country, right. And the productivity and the happiness of the overall country. So it's like really bad for.

Like, is there a way we can also somehow get that ethos to actually help everybody, not just people who work in the government, but help everybody who's engaging with the government, which is, all of us.

Pat Lencioni (19:22.956) Yeah, it's so interesting because everybody knows that needs to happen and we've all been in that situation. And there's actually a slight comparison to like Comcast because the problem with your cable companies and things like that is you kind of don't have a choice almost. And so when you feel like I don't have a choice, you go to the DMV, have to do, you can't go, I'll tell you what DMV, I'm going to go to the other DMV that's better and we're going to put you out of business. So I actually think that there needs to be a sense of

Auren Hoffman (19:45.606) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (19:53.251) There needs to be something at stake for the people that run those organizations. But if we're not going to get rid of the person who runs the DMV poorly, and we're not going to get rid of a department within the government, and everybody knows it needs to be done, but then somehow Congress people go and then they vote to keep funding for things. So I don't know what the solution is. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. And I almost feel like we need some forcing function to go. And this is kind of what's happening now. Some people are saying, hey, if we eliminated that whole department, what would actually happen?

maybe just going through that exercise will be good and people will go, maybe it's only 20 % of it that we actually need. So I'm fascinated by this because people that work in the private sector have to prove that they're adding value. And I think that we should have a similar look at people that work for the government.

Auren Hoffman (20:44.158) In the private sector, my belief, and you can tell me if you think I'm wrong here, my belief is that in most companies, by most like 99 % of companies over a hundred people, there's at least 20, 25 % of people in the company that are adding negative value. They're actually significantly, like if you got rid of them, just immediately the company would be better.

And my guess is that's just as true in government as it is. There's just people who are not helping, actively hurting the mission of the company, actively making things go slower, et cetera.

Pat Lencioni (21:30.284) Yeah, you know what's interesting? In New York City, you know, they couldn't fire teachers because of the teachers union. So you know what they were doing with bad teachers? They were sending them to a big warehouse and letting them do crossword puzzles all day. And you know what's funny about that? Exactly. It's a good thing because because having them around the school actually distracted. And so if you can't get rid of them, better than to move them away from the classroom, which of course,

Auren Hoffman (21:43.51) It's actually probably a good thing.

Auren Hoffman (21:50.591) Right.

Auren Hoffman (21:57.226) Totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pat Lencioni (21:59.245) It's preposterous that we can't let somebody go who's not good at their job. But I think the same thing in companies. There's people that we do, we need that. The other one is, are they actually making it worse? And a good CEO based on clarity about the culture and productivity will actually find those people that are negative drags on productivity and kindly with respect remove them. you know who, who, happens when you remove somebody who does that, the rest of people's productivity and morale go through the roof.

Auren Hoffman (22:01.771) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (22:26.402) yeah. And people love it. Like their satisfaction goes up so much when you get rid of those. Yeah, of course.

Pat Lencioni (22:30.878) Do it with kindness, just like in the government. should be kind, but if there's things that need to be removed to make everything else work better, we should do it.

Auren Hoffman (22:39.35) One thing I thought was interesting was when Meta did their, they did a series of layoffs a few years ago. And usually the advice is do like one big layoff and then tell everyone you're not going to have any more of these. Cause obviously it's very dis, you know, it's very worrisome to people when you see people being laid off, like, am I going to be the one next? But what Meta did is they did like a series of very surgical, like three to 7 % layoffs.

because I believe they just didn't know who to lay off. And they had to slowly learn that. it took like, was like 18 months of layoffs, which in some ways is bad, but in some ways they were able to lay off like the exact right person.

Pat Lencioni (23:12.14) Well.

Pat Lencioni (23:21.996) Yeah, and of course, if you already know who they are, doing it in one fell swoop is easier. But if you're not sure doing it poorly in one fell swoop, you're going to eliminate the wrong people. And that sends a message to the company too. And I'm guessing that if they were doing it well, the fact that over time it took a while, probably everybody else got more effective because they were like, they're going to come look at this. Let's, let's actually figure out if we're using our resources well.

And I bet there was secondary benefits to the delayed process.

Auren Hoffman (23:55.668) Yeah. Interesting. What other advice would you give to like the Doge team?

Pat Lencioni (24:02.036) I would say don't read the newspaper. Do the right thing to do because, my gosh, it's just, politics is just such a bad environment for getting things done. This should not be a political thing. This should be a functional thing. This shouldn't be about one party or the other. It should be, do we need this and are we financially running our country?

Auren Hoffman (24:04.073) I'm

Auren Hoffman (24:22.9) Yeah. You have like a newer framework, which identifies kind of six types of genius. Can you, can you walk us through that?

Pat Lencioni (24:30.818) This is the most exciting thing we've ever done. For years, people said the five dysfunctions of a team was going to be the biggest thing we ever did. And then five years ago, we accidentally discovered a new way to look at work. And I love this for people in data as well, because one technology person is not the same as another, is not the same as another. And everybody thinks they're the same. So we discovered that when it comes to getting work done, not personality, but the kind of work we do, there are six things.

Everybody has a genius in two of those six. And a genius means they get joy and energy out of doing those. But the other four, they don't get joy and energy from. And in fact, two of them, lose energy. It drains them. And so the six types of working genius are very simple. It starts up at 50,000 feet with the genius of wonder. There's people that love to ponder things and ask the big question. Every great idea came from somebody saying, there must be a better way.

Auren Hoffman (25:27.702) Mm.

Pat Lencioni (25:28.238) Is there a better way? And then somebody else comes along with the next genius and invents a solution. That's the inventing genius. I have that one. I can't help it. I do it just because it gives me joy and energy. I wake up inventing things all the time. It's not because I'm smart. It's that I have a God given ability to come up with new ideas. But not every new idea is a good one. And that's why we need the next genius, which is called discernment. And these are people that have this ability to evaluate things using

data like, like it's, like not data like information, but like gut feel, it's like pattern recognition. They can look at something. Say, what did you say?

Auren Hoffman (26:04.054) That would be like the investor maybe in some ways or like the investor in a way.

Pat Lencioni (26:09.878) Yeah, they look at something like in the investment community. They will look at an idea and go, this one's a winner. And people go, how do you know you haven't even run the numbers? And they're like, I've seen this movie before. I see patterns here and they can't really justify it. In detail sometimes, but they just have a gut for what that is. That's called discernment. That's that's a genius. Some people have, but then there's another genius called galvanizing. There's people in the world who love to get up.

and rally the troops and push people out of their comfort zone and get people to do things. It's one of the geniuses a lot of people hate, but it's so valuable in organizations. There's two final geniuses. One is called enablement, and they're the people that just love to come alongside and help people. And when you ask them for something and they're like, yeah, absolutely, tell me what you need from me. They're so valuable. They're not just nice. They're not just malleable. They actually get joy and energy.

Auren Hoffman (26:45.067) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (27:09.516) out of answering the call, when you get up in front of them and say, need somebody to help me with this, they're like, I'm in. And the last one is called tenacity and they're people who finish things. They get joy and energy out of doing the last part of the work and getting it done and ensuring it meets its goals. Hey, Oren, I have no enablement and tenacity. So I don't like finishing things. I would have written zero books if it had been up to me, but I had people on my team with tenacity who said, you need to finish this and we're gonna hold you accountable to a high standard.

On any team, I don't care if it's a group of developers, a bunch of people in a startup or people in analyzing data, there's going to be different geniuses. And if you're missing any, it's going to cost you. so it's really this, we have this assessment, the working genius assessment. takes 12 minutes and people look at the team report and they're like, no wonder we failed at the last project. We didn't have a galvanizer. That's what happened. Or no wonder I hate it when I get assigned to these kinds of things.

You should be doing that and I should be doing this. It is crazy how teams naturally reorganize themselves around their geniuses as soon as they find out. And most people do not know what their geniuses are until they figure it.

Auren Hoffman (28:22.23) interesting because there are some special people that have a lot like if I think of Elon Musk he seems to have five of the six he's not the enabler but he's he's good at all the other he's probably he's he's he might be in the top 1 % of the other five

Pat Lencioni (28:37.294) He probably has like an amazing drive that overcomes weaknesses based on pure desire. But he will have two that he's best at. And I've not worked with him behind the scenes. I know what he does publicly. my guess is he has invention. Unless he's the kind of guy who looks at other people's invention and says, that's a winner. I'm going to get behind it. Maybe he's not the guy who comes up with it. And that's very possible.

He also has to have galvanizing because he looks at something and goes, let's do that. You know, and sells it and, and gets people excited. So I don't know if he's an IG and inventor galvanizer, which is called the evangelistic ideator, or if he's a DG, which is the intuitive activator. He's one of those two though, almost certain.

Auren Hoffman (29:08.406) Yeah, he's an incredible guy. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (29:24.896) Yeah. I mean, it's also very possible that most people have zero of those. They might be better at some, but my guess is a lot of people are not in the 50th percentile on any of

Pat Lencioni (29:35.885) Well, I think that everybody has the latent potential for some. Some have not developed it. Some people are just not motivated. They have wounds in their life or other things. And yeah, there are people that aren't motivated to use even their geniuses. And then there are other people that use four of the six, but there's two that we love naturally. And man, when people discover them, sometimes they get out of a career doing something that, well, I'm doing this because my dad did it and my uncle did it and I don't like it. It's like, yeah, you're not meant to do that.

Auren Hoffman (29:39.456) Sure. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (30:07.214) 12 minutes and people fill this out and they're like, I wish I'd known this when I was in college, but it's good to know it now.

Auren Hoffman (30:13.654) There are certain, have you ever thought about how people interact with time?

Pat Lencioni (30:19.294) yes. It's it's fat. mean, and there's so many ways to look at this one on the deepest level. I think it's interesting how people visualize time. I have it. My time in my mind is a counterclockwise circle with months and weeks on it. You're kidding. I've never met anybody else who said that.

Auren Hoffman (30:21.608) Okay, we'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Auren Hoffman (30:38.998) Oh my God. Mine is exactly the same. You're the first person I've ever met that does that. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly the way I think about both the months and the week and the, and the days of the week. Yeah. Yeah. Right. When I think of like, when I think of December, like I literally think of as a clock, like right there. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (30:50.19) So funny! Wow. But other...

Pat Lencioni (31:00.3) Me too. And then goes January and down here is July, August.

Auren Hoffman (31:03.56) Exactly. Yeah. That's so funny. That's that's the way. so that I very good at memorizing dates for that one reason is I just put on the clock. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (31:10.478) I see it, yeah. People go, what are you doing on December 21st? I'm like, oh, let me think up there. So, then different working geniuses look at time differently too. So my wife and three of my sons have the first working genius of wonder, which is they ponder things and they're up in their head and they are, it is so, they lose time so much because ponderers.

Auren Hoffman (31:15.19) Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Auren Hoffman (31:33.47) Yeah, well that would be the one where you could spend months doing something and then come up with like, you know, this would be like the person who writes Guns, Germs and Steel or something like really wondrous or something.

Pat Lencioni (31:49.113) So there are certain types. then like people that are the last two geniuses, are closest to the ground, which is enablement and tenacity, they're usually very aware of time. Because they're like, I'm trying to please you. I'm trying to get it done. The standards matter. I'm not up here in the clouds. I have to land this plane. And landing a plane means I have to do it on time and in this way. So working genius really informs that. And now when I have employees and I know they have a task to do,

Auren Hoffman (32:03.381) Mm-hmm.

Pat Lencioni (32:15.736) Based on their working genius, all know whether I need to remind them of the time frame or whether they're going to be all over that. And they need to remind me.

Auren Hoffman (32:22.806) So there are certain people I've met who can make decisions in different timeframes. So if you think of like a professional athlete or like a video game player, they can make a decision in like microseconds. Yeah. Right. They can decide where to pass the little Bron James can make this like incredible decision in microseconds. And then you get to, you know, and then, or like an improv comedy person or something. Right. And then you get to like maybe a salesperson who can think a little bit, think on their feet and they can, you know, and then maybe a

Pat Lencioni (32:29.582) Thank

Pat Lencioni (32:34.638) Right.

Auren Hoffman (32:52.63) CEO has to make decisions in hours or I don't know days or something. And then you get to the, you know, like the, big thinker that can make, that needs to make decisions in months or years. Is there, is there a way of like people understanding the time and is that somehow related to their genius?

Pat Lencioni (33:10.93) I think so. So I am an improv person. Like when I give a speech to 10,000 people, I want to take questions and I always do. And I'm actually at my best when somebody asks a question that I wasn't anticipating. Like coming onto this podcast, I looked at everything and I was like, I just, I don't, I don't need to write any notes down. And I'm very comfortable with that. And that's because I am a discerner, which means I'm informed by my gut. If I didn't have discernment, I would go, I want to go check the data.

Auren Hoffman (33:22.134) Mmm.

Pat Lencioni (33:40.076) And the truth is, don't necessarily.

Auren Hoffman (33:41.866) the way, you better because like traditionally people who make decisions in sub seconds are like those people are best in their twenties and you're no longer in your twenties. So is that, is that something you've gotten better at and it just happens to be, or is that something you were just like even more amazing at your twenties?

Pat Lencioni (33:58.883) I think that I'm getting better at it only because I've known that and I put myself in a position to use it a lot. And I think what happens as we get older, we start to think, well, that's no longer appropriate. I need to grow up and make and be more structured. So I've not grown up. So I feel pretty good at that.

Auren Hoffman (34:04.778) practice it. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (34:09.814) Mmm.

Auren Hoffman (34:13.502) Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. What what you know, you I saw a recent tweet of yours that says effective leaders aren't cool. Like, what did you mean by that?

Pat Lencioni (34:19.5) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (34:27.808) Yeah, they did a study recently, Arran, what makes a person cool. Literally, three universities studied people across cultures, languages, countries, nations, all over the world. And they said, what does cool mean? And they came up with six adjectives, like autonomous and adventurous and open and all these things. But the last two were powerful and hedonistic.

Auren Hoffman (34:42.902) Mm.

Auren Hoffman (34:54.132) What's hedonistic mean really?

Pat Lencioni (34:55.374) Hedonism is like my pleasure over everything else. Like Hedonist says, I do this because it gives me pleasure and that drives me. And what I thought of that when that came out and they covered it in the news like, hey, isn't this great? Now people know how to be cool. Like they actually codified it. Like you wanna be cool? Here's the six ways to do it. And I thought, oh my gosh, somebody who is...

Auren Hoffman (34:59.03) Okay, that makes sense.

Pat Lencioni (35:23.118) Powerful and hedonistic is as a dangerous leader because if they're all like I'm here to please myself And I'm gonna exercise power over others. You should run from those people and So I realized to be cool

Auren Hoffman (35:34.614) Mm-hmm.

There's so many well-known leaders are that like, yeah.

Pat Lencioni (35:41.081) They want to be. You know what I think is interesting about them? Most of them weren't when they were younger. And then they become powerful and they start to think, man, I should cash in on this. They were dorks when they were younger. And then they become like, and people are like telling them they're wonderful and women are paying attention to them if it's a guy, you know, and they're like, hey, this is great. And I think that's dangerous. And sometimes in the tech world, those are the most scary ones.

Auren Hoffman (35:55.39) Yeah, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (35:59.926) that. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (36:08.372) Yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Pat Lencioni (36:11.042) To be a great leader, you need to be driven but humble. You need to realize I'm no more important than anybody else in my organization, but my actions are really important because it's in their best interest if I do the right thing. And you and I talked about this in meetings, we have to focus. And I love the thing you have your thing which says focus, because even though you're the leader and you could go, yeah, I could just stick around and look at my.

email and surf the net while I'm in a meeting, you're like, no, for the people that I'm supposed to be leading, I have to humble myself to focus. And it's a decision we make. And I think leaders who don't feel like they have to do that can take advantage of others.

Auren Hoffman (36:50.262) What about leadership you think was true or wasn't true 25 years ago that now is true? what is, there are obviously there's eternal things that are eternal, but what has radically changed?

Pat Lencioni (37:04.046) You know, I think, and I think this is coming back right now. So I think we've seen a full cycle, I'm hoping we have. I think that there was a little bit more understanding that leadership 30 years ago, you were supposed to be humble. And then I don't know if it's social media or culture, where I think we tolerate it. And the idea that fame and infamy are the same things. And so I think it was like, hey, yeah, you know, if you're supposed to be a leader, you're supposed to be.

Auren Hoffman (37:27.638) Mm.

Pat Lencioni (37:32.567) all that. I think about, the movie, you probably saw the movie, you probably saw the documentary, I've seen that and I read the book about Elizabeth Holmes, know, Theranos, you know, and there was a time when people thought ego was actually a good thing in a leader. And that wasn't 30 years ago, but in the last 10 years, I started, everybody was IPOing and buying a jet and all this other stuff. And I think it's starting to change. I think the new generation is pretty

unimpressed by that and it's a little bit more substantive and I hope that's the case.

Auren Hoffman (38:05.558) Sure. So you think like 50, 60 years ago, like ego wasn't a big thing in leaders? okay.

Pat Lencioni (38:11.842) You know, it was different. It was different because like, and even though you watch TV shows like Mad Men and you see these people that are crazy and all that stuff, I think society said that's not okay. And I know when I came out of school, which was, how old am I now? It was 40 years, 38 years ago. I didn't think that was okay. And then as the tech, you know, everything boomed and.

Auren Hoffman (38:24.679) Mmm, okay.

Pat Lencioni (38:39.148) and the economy changed and culture changed. I think people started to get more comfortable with the idea that, know, egos, as long as you're famous, even if people hate you, it's okay. And I think that's changing. I hope it's changing. I think it is.

Auren Hoffman (38:56.384) people are, how good are people at assessing their own competence on things?

Pat Lencioni (39:03.49) That's a great question. This is one of the, EQ is one of the most important things we can have. And not being self-aware in any job is a real problem. And I meet people that have no sense of their own strengths and weaknesses. And usually they go together. And then people that do know their strengths and weaknesses and will actually...

Auren Hoffman (39:22.859) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (39:28.534) I thought EQ was being able to understand what other people are. You're saying EQ is about understanding yourself?

Pat Lencioni (39:35.724) Well, it's also about understanding how other people perceive you. So if you're in a meeting and you can understand others, you know, wow, when I say that, it really pisses them off. So I understand that I do that. so EQ definitely has self-awareness in it too.

Auren Hoffman (39:38.708) Right, OK, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (39:48.671) Yeah.

Cause I find that like, if you ask someone to assess their own IQ, they're usually quite accurate. When someone says they're in the top 10 % of IQ, they're almost always in the top 25 % of IQ. Um, but what I find when I ask people to assess their EQ and if someone says they're in the top 10 % of EQ, they could be anywhere. There, there's no, there, there, it's not statistically relevant at all.

Pat Lencioni (39:58.305) Yes.

Pat Lencioni (40:13.326) Ha

Auren Hoffman (40:17.358) So I feel like they're not as good at assessing their EQs, they are assessing their IQ.

Pat Lencioni (40:22.446) And or and I would even go so far as to say if they tell you confidently they're in the top 10%, they're almost certainly in the bottom 20 % because a person with high EQ would go, I think I'm pretty good at that, but I wouldn't want to be. I don't want to be cocky about that because if I'm wrong, I should know.

Auren Hoffman (40:28.134) That might be true, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (40:39.99) Was IQ is like, seems like people are pretty accurate. Like they're like, okay, I'm in top 10 percent. Okay. Yeah. Then they're probably in the top 25%. Yeah. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (40:43.0) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (40:47.542) It's that smart and healthy thing. Like if you ask somebody, are you handsome? They're probably like, well, okay, I can tell. Do you think that you have a good personality and get some of the biggest jerks in the world to go, yeah, I have a great personality. you're like, that's not as easy to measure, but you don't know.

Auren Hoffman (41:05.758) What? So I find that a lot of the most successful CEOs are low EQ. at least the ones that are, at least the founder CEOs are low EQ. Yes, I work in tech, but I would say founder CEOs across many things. you know, I, would obviously to work your way up through an organization, you need extremely high EQ to be able to

Pat Lencioni (41:19.046) You work in tech. And I've done a lot of work in tech.

Auren Hoffman (41:34.504) understand the political machinations.

Pat Lencioni (41:37.895) I see, see. Well, if we were comparing it to somebody had to work their way up, a founder might have the opportunity to have lower EQ and make it work because they're coming up with the idea and it might just be credit card. So that I will agree with you on. But I think when people finally become a CEO, even in relatively small companies, if they're successful, I think EQ is actually more important than IQ. And one of the reasons why it gets back to the working genius thing we talked about, Arun, and that is that

If you have high EQ, you know what you're bad at and you surround yourself with people that are better than you at the things you suffer at. And if you're low in EQ, you probably don't even realize it and there are gaps. So I would agree with you, founder versus somebody who's worked their way up, that might be true. But, and technology is interesting too, because it is one of the more, when you're talking about IPOs and early stage companies, you can get away with more.

purely based on a really great idea.

Auren Hoffman (42:34.09) Yeah, I mean, I think I'm like the successful hedge fund and private equity managers I know, like often they have extremely not all of them, but often they have pretty low EQ and

Pat Lencioni (42:43.426) Yes, yes. If you talk to them later in life, like I wonder if you went to like the founders who built a company up to bigger, I bet they said, my gosh, it was painful, but I had to develop EQ along the way. I think if you talk to people like, and I don't know Zuckerberg and all those kind of people like.

Auren Hoffman (43:00.63) Do you think EQ is more important today or less important than it was 25 years ago?

Pat Lencioni (43:06.38) More important.

Auren Hoffman (43:07.656) Interesting. I would have said for sure less.

Pat Lencioni (43:10.626) Yeah. The reason why is because so, so, and I'm a much older man than you are, aren't. But what's happened to me in my life is that information has become so ubiquitous. I mean, when I started my firm, I figured that I would meet plenty of leadership teams that were just too dumb. You know, I I thought I'd go sit down and go, man, they just don't know their industry well enough. That just never happens now. Cause everybody's got access to information. mean, when I was in college.

Auren Hoffman (43:14.864) Not really. Yeah, yeah.

Pat Lencioni (43:40.579) I used to go and use the microfiche at a library. And my first job out of Bain, when I did research, I was literally getting physical reports from the government and have to pour through data. My kids are in college, one's still in college, and they can get information better than I could have when I was at Bain. So I think the competitive advantage based on just information is not what it used to be. Now, the ability to know how to use that information is crazy.

Auren Hoffman (43:55.573) Yep.

Pat Lencioni (44:10.19) critical today. But I think that that kind of judgment goes more with EQ. We're in the old days that I mean, I remember this guy at a company, a very data driven company, and he had such low EQ, and they literally just gave him a different office. And he was the mad scientist, they locked him in a room and didn't let him interact with people. I don't think you can do that anymore.

Auren Hoffman (44:29.854) Yeah. Yeah. We've all worked with those people. Sorry, just one more question on because like, if you just think of like the peak EQ US president was probably Bill Clinton, I feel your pain. Right. So that was in the nineties. And then, you and then you move to like the Obama much more cerebral, lower IQ, lower EQ, doesn't want to interact with members of Congress.

Pat Lencioni (44:36.204) I could be wrong.

Auren Hoffman (44:58.74) You have Clinton's wife who runs for president who's much lower EQ than he has. So it doesn't seem like we're in like, at least the most successful politicians don't seem to have as high EQ as they used to.

Pat Lencioni (45:13.838) Politics has become more like celebrity. And celebrities, we actually like people that are kind of extreme almost, you know what I mean? Think about how many people in the public, we like people that are over the top. But I think when it comes to leading a team and managing a company, if you're in a meeting with those kind of people, it can be really hard. And I think what we see too, we hear these stories about

Auren Hoffman (45:17.182) Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Auren Hoffman (45:25.856) Mm-hmm.

Auren Hoffman (45:32.586) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (45:43.085) like people in Congress or in leadership positions like that who are really rough on their staff. I just heard a story the other day about this politician and she's just terrible to the people that work for her. She's not gonna be very, she wouldn't be successful in a business where they actually had to accomplish something.

Auren Hoffman (46:00.448) What are the interesting things in tech, at least, you know, which I've spent all my career in is I have never met a yeller. Ever. Yeah, I don't know. Like you, I see him in the movies like tech yellers, but I've never met one in real life.

Pat Lencioni (46:09.014) It's, isn't that interesting?

Pat Lencioni (46:18.722) But how many boring meetings have you been in where people didn't speak their mind and then went out in the parking lot and said.

Auren Hoffman (46:22.186) Well, plenty of those. Yeah, plenty. Yeah. But I've never, like, you know, the, whereas you hear about like, you know, the, the, the, the someone who berates their staff as, the politician or in entertainment, you hear about all these things happening all the time, or even in finance, but I've never seen it in tech. I'm sure it happens, but I have never witnessed it.

Pat Lencioni (46:43.448) What actually what I would say to you though or in because I feel the same way people say to me all the time Tell me about like the most outlandish thing like people it's like those are movies. I Would I always tell me I am always convincing people to have more conflict not less for every person For every person that I've had to have him tone down their conflict There's a thousand that I said you have to get more engaged and passionate and realize you can recover from that So many of them avoid it

Auren Hoffman (46:51.53) Yeah

Auren Hoffman (46:58.131) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (47:08.598) Yep.

Pat Lencioni (47:13.506) And then they create really that, you know what other kind of organizations, people don't yell at each other? Churches. But you know what happens? They go out in the parking lot and complain about each other because they go to meetings and they smile and they nod. And it's like, they're being nice, but they're not being honest. And I think in technology, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (47:27.946) right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. My wife has this anecdote where, you know, if you're in like San Francisco and you're you have a flat tire, people will drive by and like, are you okay? But they'll just keep driving. Whereas like in New York, like they'll come to you and you'll say, hey, what's the matter with you? You don't know how to change your flat tire. They'll start screaming at you, but they'll actually help you change it.

Pat Lencioni (47:43.374) Exactly!

Pat Lencioni (47:51.993) Totally. I saw a cartoon years ago that showed a guy in Los Angeles and he says to somebody on the street, good morning. But the bubble that he's thinking really says screw you essentially. And then it shows a guy in New York going, hey, screw you. And then the bubble says, good morning. That's what he's thinking. I love it. I love it. I'm in the South now. I'm in Tennessee. And I have to say people are very, very

Auren Hoffman (48:04.01) Totally. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (48:18.848) friendly and generous here, but there's that old saying they say, bless your heart. She's ugly. She's a hag. Bless her heart.

Auren Hoffman (48:22.518) Exactly. Now, you're part of I do is investing companies, how can I understand their organizational health better to make better investments?

Pat Lencioni (48:38.274) Go to a meeting. Go to a meeting.

Auren Hoffman (48:40.128) go to just like somehow be like a fly on a wall in a meeting or something or look at their recorded meetings or something.

Pat Lencioni (48:43.086) yeah.

Yeah. And if you were to ask them like, Hey, are your meetings? Tell me about your staff. If you were to say this to me, tell me about your staff meetings. they go, yeah, I hate going to those meetings. And here's the thing about that. It means they're not making great decisions.

Auren Hoffman (49:03.07) Yeah. But like, I don't know, like, I really haven't been to that many great meetings in my life. So yeah, it's like, I'd be the pot calling the kettle black there.

Pat Lencioni (49:09.036) Well.

But in this case, you want to be the tallest of the short people. and so does anybody go, our meetings are a party. I love going every time. But if they're not tired after the meeting for any reason other than being bored, they should be like, they're kind of exhausting and we get into all this. They're kind of tense. And when I'm done, I need to, but if they're like, yeah, they're just, we're just like going through the motions. It's like, if you were to say which football team is going to be better, I'd say go watch them at practice.

Auren Hoffman (49:15.206) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (49:24.277) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (49:36.342) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (49:42.302) Yeah, interesting.

Pat Lencioni (49:44.015) and are they working hard at practice? What else would I say? I would say, I would wanna find out if they're managing, if the best employees are staying. You know how I scare leaders into managing? Yeah. I always scare CEOs, go, you know, if you don't manage that person who's not a good employee out, you know what's gonna happen? Your best people will leave first. And they're like, crap.

Auren Hoffman (50:00.702) Yeah, that's a great way of looking at things. That's a good idea.

Auren Hoffman (50:11.646) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's very good. That's very good. What about board meetings? Because like, I mean, I have run many board meetings. I've been on boards, been in board meetings. Honestly, including all the ones I've run, they're all crappy. Like I've never run a good board meeting. I've never been to a good board meeting. Like how does one make a good board meeting?

Pat Lencioni (50:14.158) So thanks.

Pat Lencioni (50:24.62) They suck.

Pat Lencioni (50:34.862) I think that the answer, so I get asked to be on boards all the time and I'll say yes, but I'm not coming to meetings. If you want to put me on the document that says I'm on your board, I will. And you can call me anytime and I'll give you advice, but I'm not going to be on the finance committee. because boards are the equivalent of government. And so I think that the nature of a board is oversight and safety. And so they probably need to be focused.

Auren Hoffman (50:42.172) Right, right, right, right, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (50:54.774) Correct.

Pat Lencioni (51:05.352) and well run. But what I tell CEOs is, is don't try to please your board. Humor your board, respect them, but you can do everything your board members want you to do and they'll still fire you if the business doesn't go well. You can ignore their advice and if the business goes well, they're going to thank you. And I've seen too many CEOs spend most of their time preparing for board presentations and it's one of the worst uses of time they can have.

Auren Hoffman (51:21.237) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (51:24.789) Yes.

Auren Hoffman (51:32.886) Okay. I agree with that. Um, yeah, it's finally like one board I was on. It's just like, they just did so well. And I, I didn't add, I literally added no value at all on the board. All I would say every like board meeting is like, you guys are doing a good job. And then it would go to the next one. I look, I had no, there was just like, literally I had nothing to this whole company.

Pat Lencioni (51:35.042) I'm glad, yeah.

Pat Lencioni (51:55.693) And your job was to look for red flags or for smoke. And if you didn't see any of the best thing aboard, was on the board of directors at a, at a company and I, at the make a wish foundation, this was 20 years ago and what a great organization that was. And what I realized when I went to those meetings is I felt this pressure. They didn't pay us to be on it, but, I felt this pressure to add value. And the best thing a board member can do in a meeting is sit there and go, you don't need anything from me. I'm to let you keep going. But, but board members like, well, this is where I'm supposed to play God and prove how smart I am.

Auren Hoffman (52:13.482) Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (52:21.514) Yeah, Yeah, you want to feel useful, right? Yeah, I mean, you're,

Pat Lencioni (52:26.497) Ugh!

So I'm not saying lie to your board, no, no, no, but humor them in that your job isn't to jump through hoops to please them, because they have a life where they go back and do their thing. You have to run your company.

Auren Hoffman (52:40.923) A couple of questions we ask all of our guests. What is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

Pat Lencioni (52:46.414) Well, Kennedy did not get killed by a lone gunman. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced that there was many people within and outside of politics involved in that. I don't know what you're... Oh yeah, I he was, I think he was used by CIA slash Cuba slash the mob. don't know. Because then when you think about what happened to...

Auren Hoffman (52:50.814) You're convinced.

Auren Hoffman (52:58.102) So you think there's more than one gunman?

Auren Hoffman (53:04.032) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (53:09.568) But there still could have just been him as the gunman, even if he was used. But you think there was another gunman like on the grassy knoll or something or, or, yeah. Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (53:15.918) I see. Well, I've seen that and that seems pretty credible too, but I'm not sure about that. I just know that he, yes. It was, yeah. And then I don't think Epstein killed himself, but.

Auren Hoffman (53:22.87) You just think there are other people involved. okay. Got it. So, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Well, yeah, that's, guess that's a, that's probably a conspiracy theory that many people believe at this point. All right. Last question. We ask all of our guests, what conventional wisdom or advice do you think is generally bad advice?

Pat Lencioni (53:36.076) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (53:44.738) I'm glad you sent me that question so I could think about it. And it's, don't let them see you sweat. Remember that old deodorant commercial? Don't let them see you sweat. When you're a leader, the truth is people know you're sweating, even if you think you're covering it up. And it's much better to be the guy that goes, check this out. And then they're going, so you know, and you're comfortable enough about yourself to show that. It's like people really trust people and admire people that are actually very vulnerable.

Auren Hoffman (53:51.988) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (54:02.218) Hahaha

Auren Hoffman (54:06.569) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (54:11.902) What does that mean? Obviously you can say, I don't know if you get an answer question and like, got to think about that, but what do mean by let them see you sweat? Like there's some, have to still portray some confidence and things, right?

Pat Lencioni (54:15.885) Yeah!

Pat Lencioni (54:19.821) Like

Pat Lencioni (54:24.236) Well, yeah, and if all you do is sweat, you probably shouldn't be in the role you're in. But when you have concerns or when you make a mistake or when you're a little bit afraid of something, you actually gain credibility not by going and quit, but by just saying, hey, I'm a little concerned about this or I think I messed this up or I think you're smarter than I am. Don't pretend to be stronger, smarter or more capable than you really are.

Auren Hoffman (54:28.331) Yeah, yeah.

Auren Hoffman (54:45.355) Yeah.

Pat Lencioni (54:51.436) Because when you do that, you lose credibility. And some of the most capable leaders are the ones that go, like I love when a basketball player turns to people on the court and says, my bad. I'm like, you rule. it's my fault. And when in doubt, say my bad. You know?

Auren Hoffman (55:01.246) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. This has been great. Thank you, Patrick Lencioni for joining us on World of DaaS. I follow you at PatrickLencioni on X. I definitely encourage our listeners to engage with you there. This has been super interesting and a ton of fun.

Pat Lencioni (55:22.38) Yeah, it's been really fun, Auren, I appreciate it. And the workinggenius.com is a life changer. So I would encourage people to do that.

Auren Hoffman (55:26.944) Definitely, yeah. I highly recommend everyone check that out as well. This has been great.

Pat Lencioni (55:32.439) All right, thank you.