At The Table with Patrick Lencioni

Why does becoming a better leader sometimes make you feel like you're falling further behind? The more you grow as a leader, the more you realize how much you still have to learn, creating a frustrating paradox where progress can make perfection seem further away. In episode 280 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson explore why this realization is actually a sign of maturity and how humi...

How can you pursue excellence without becoming discouraged by imperfection? Organizational health does not mean eliminating conflict, dysfunction, or difficult seasons forever. In episode 279 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson explain why leaders need to replace the pursuit of organizational perfection with resilience, learning to expect downturns while continuing to move toward great...

Are you treating teamwork as a real competitive advantage or simply something your company says it values? In episode 278 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson revisit the debate over remote work, arguing that there is an important distinction between hiring genuinely remote employees, offering reasonable flexibility, and allowing local teammates to avoid working together. They chall...

Are you avoiding a difficult conversation because you care about someone, or because you are protecting yourself? In episode 277 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson explore why accountability is consistently one of the hardest behaviors for teams and argue that avoiding difficult feedback is often selfishness disguised as compassion. They explain that real accountability comes from car...

Are Your Meetings Too Comfortable? Workplace drama has a bad reputation, but in episode 276 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson argue that genuine drama is often exactly what healthy organizations need. When teams allow real emotions, disagreements, fears, and convictions into the room, they can address difficult issues instead of letting them quietly grow. The challenge for leaders is...

Where do you actually do your best and most important work? Work does not always happen where, when, or how people expect it to happen. In episode 275 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson explore why thinking, brainstorming, reflecting, and solving problems should count just as much as the visible activity people typically associate with productivity. They challenge leaders to create cu...

Why might physical work become more valuable as AI advances? Physical, hands-on work may be entering a new era of relevance as artificial intelligence changes the future of desk-based careers. In episode 274 of At The Table, Pat and Cody explore how tangible work can provide economic stability, human connection, visible accomplishment, and opportunities for personal development. They also challeng...

Why can two people leave the same meeting with completely different understandings? A newcomer’s perspective reveals something experienced professionals often forget: work is far messier and less logical than it appears from the outside. In episode 273 of At The Table, Pat and Cody examine how fear, nonverbal communication, personality differences, and unspoken assumptions cause even healthy teams...

What happens when your business starts treating profit as the goal instead of the indicator? In episode 272 of At The Table, Pat and Cody challenge one of the most common assumptions in business: that maximizing profit should be the goal. They argue that profit is essential, but when leaders treat it as a company's purpose, they risk harming customers, employees, products, and culture. Leaders are...

What would happen if your team was challenged to do something ridiculous on purpose? In episode 271 of At The Table, Pat, Cody, and Matthew share the story of a risky, creative experiment from The Table Group’s annual consulting conference in Franklin, Tennessee. After giving teams one hour and $400 to create something ridiculous, outlandish, and loosely connected to organizational health, they wa...

Why does trust become even more important in a world shaped by AI? In episode 270 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni, Cody Thompson, and Matthew Lencioni discuss how much the workplace has changed across generations, from voicemail lights and computer labs to AI and virtual work. While the tools, speed, and structure of work have changed dramatically, they argue that trust, teamwork, clarity, and h...

What important message have you stopped repeating because you assumed people already knew it? In episode 269 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson make the case that people need reminders more than they need brand-new information. They explain why leaders often undercommunicate the most important things: they are afraid of sounding repetitive, annoying, or insulting. Through examples...

How can you design an offsite that your team actually values? Most offsites fail because they are either too loose to be productive or too rigid to be meaningful. In episode 268 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody break down what made their most recent offsite the best in decades. They reveal why the right mix of structure, vulnerability, and flexibility can transform an offsite into a powe...

How can you tell if your company has a strong culture or just generic values? Most companies don’t struggle with being cult-like; they struggle with having any real culture at all. In this episode, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson break down the critical differences between strong cultures and actual cult behavior, highlighting why clarity and conviction matter. You’ll learn why great organizati...

How do you know if someone truly belongs on your team? In episode 266 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson review the surprising origin of The Ideal Team Player and why its simple framework continues to resonate years later. You’ll learn how the combination of humility, hunger, and smarts defines great team members—and what happens when one is missing. You’ll walk away with practica...

How would your team’s culture shift if you started catching people doing their jobs well and celebrating those moments publicly? In episode 265 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson revisit Pat’s book The Truth About Employee Engagement , arguing its lessons are crucial now. They unpack the three root causes of employee misery - anonymity, irrelevance, and immeasurement - and show how an...

What is one behavior you repeat that may be undermining your leadership? In episode 264 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson discuss how leaders can grow by identifying habits such as interrupting others, avoiding conflict, or deflecting discomfort with humor. Leadership advice often focuses on adding new tools, strategies, and frameworks, but sometimes the most powerful improvement...

How can strategy stay intentional when planning cycles keep shrinking? In episode 263 of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson examine how the pace of change has transformed strategic planning. What once centered on five or ten-year plans now often lives within a three to six-month horizon. Rather than viewing this shift as chaotic, Patrick and Cody explain why a short-cycle strategy ca...

What are you willing to repel in order to attract the right people? In this episode of At The Table, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson challenge the idea that businesses should try to appeal to everyone. Instead, they argue for being intentionally extreme in two areas: core values and strategic anchors. When organizations are unmistakably clear about how they behave and how they succeed, they nat...

Are you creating a workplace environment that feels like a cage or a park? In episode 261 of At The Table, Patrick and Cody unpack a powerful metaphor—“cocaine water”—to explain the dangers of isolation at work. Drawing from a well-known behavioral experiment that involves cages and parks, they connect addiction, loneliness, and disengagement to modern workplace culture. The conversation makes a c...

Are you creating a workplace environment that feels like a cage or a park? In episode 260 of At The Table, Patrick and Cody unpack a powerful metaphor—“cocaine water”—to explain the dangers of isolation at work. Drawing from a well-known behavioral experiment that involves cages and parks, they connect addiction, loneliness, and disengagement to modern workplace culture. The conversation makes a c...

If you’re achieving at a high level while ignoring the health of your inner life, how can you reset? In episode 259 of At The Table, Pat and Cody explore why high achievement can be a warning sign rather than a badge of honor. They explain how leaders often use success to compensate for fear, insecurity, or unresolved personal issues. The conversation underscores that true leadership effectiveness...

Why does recommitting to trust matter more than recommitting to strategy? Episode 258 of At The Table episode explores the moments when teams and relationships reach a breaking point—where everything could unravel or deepen. Pat and Cody reflect on their own recent off-site, sharing how choosing vulnerability and recommitment led them to greater unity, clarity, and trust. They argue that the “mess...

Do you sometimes over-rely on data to cover yourself instead of trusting your judgment? Episode 257 of At The Table explores why leaders often cling to data, certainty, and predictability—even though business is inherently messy. Pat and Cody discuss how fear of failure drives over-analysis, slowing decisions and weakening judgment. Ultimately, they argue that great leadership is an art fueled by...

How does working in a “toxic” culture affect your ability to perform and trust others? Also, if your organization has an unhealthy work environment, how can leaders begin the process of internal correction? In episode 256 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson unpack what “toxic culture” really means—and what it doesn’t. They explore how toxicity rarely starts at the bottom but usually tr...