The second attribute of the ideal team player according to Pat Lencioni in his book of that name is the state of being hungry. Now Pat describes hungry as basically the opposite of coasting, or laziness or complacency. Of course you’re going to want team members who would be willing to stay late and hammer out a key proposal the night after a surprise business opportunity surfaces. But are we really talking about the disposable 80+ hour a week drones that our knowledge based economy breeds only to be discarded when they eventually burn out? I mean what happened to work life balance, right?
Then again, I really can’t picture Michelangelo or Mozart or Einstein whining about work life balance in the middle of pounding out one of their civilization changing masterpieces… So, for me, the real question is where that hunger comes from. Is it the hunger of a Yo-yo Ma seemingly possessed by the piece he’s playing, who couldn’t put down the cello even if he wanted to; or is it the hunger of a quota driven sales person desperate to make their numbers just one more quarter before some younger, hungrier team member or competitor (at that point what’s the difference?) replaces them with better performance numbers.
It’s easy and cheap for organizations to setup the latter scenario only to be plagued by high turnover, high drama, low morale and inconsistent long term results. It’s far more difficult and time consuming to build an organization that strives to help each team member to find their true intrinsic motivation; but if and when that happens, the fruits of off the charts productivity, non existent turnover, zero recruiting costs and an incredible sense of engagement and well being speak for themselves.
