"Teamwork Makes the Dream Work," says one of many inspirational posters on the subject. But how do you make the team work? In his book The Ideal Team Player, author and business consultant Patrick Lencioni shares insights into building good team. He says that if you look at the employees who work well on teams, you will consistently find three virtues: they are humble, hungry, and smart.

• By “humble” he means they are not motivated by ego; they care more about the success of their whole team than about themselves looking good or succeeding individually. We can easily spot arrogant teammates. It can be harder to spot the ego in teammates that hide under a false humility and a deference to others. Being humble is really about honesty about your gifts and using those gifts to benefit everyone, not just yourself.
• “Hungry” means people are willing to work hard. It is not just about working long hours. Hungry means a person is committed to the success of the team and is willing to pitch in and help out wherever necessary to see that the team succeeds.
• “Smart”, as he uses it, means people-smart, not just book smarts. Team members need to care about more than the job. They need to care about how the other members of their team are doing personally and emotionally. Smart teammates are “tuned-in” to the thoughts and feelings of one another.

This list seems stupidly obvious. We can see that teammates who lacked humility would care more about themselves than the team. Teammates who weren’t hungry would not step up and pitch in. And teammates who weren’t people-smart would be hard to work alongside of. I think most of us would love to work with people who are humble, hungry, and smart. 

The truly radical part of the book is not the idea that these virtues are necessary for team players. The author says that companies who are committed to a culture of teamwork should hire only people who have these virtues. They should pass on skilled or highly-qualified applicants that are not hungry, humble, and smart. As radical as it sounds, it does make sense. It’s basically impossible to build a team when people don’t have the necessary virtues to work together well. He also discusses how to help your employees grow in these virtues, and how a culture of teamwork will increasingly attract the right sorts of people and lead to lower employee turn-over and higher job satisfaction.

I want to apply this insight to a different area of life. Good marriages should feel like a team, correct? I work with a lot of couples preparing for marriage, trying to make a marriage work, and trying to figure out why a marriage didn’t work. Regardless of who makes the money, cooks the food, or cares for the children, a good couple works together as a team. And struggling marriages often feel like it’s every one for themselves.

What would happen if, as people were dating, they asked these same three questions: Is he humble? Is he hungry? Is he people-smart? That might sound cold and calculating, but it isn’t meant to be. Dating is kind of an extended interview process for the really important position of life-partner and teammate. The couple wants to learn if they are compatible. Questions include, “Do we have similar goals and dreams? Can we merge our individual lifestyle preferences into one? Do we have similar values and morals? What are we expecting married life will look like? How will we raise our children?” In the process of asking those very important questions, it also makes sense to ask yourself, “Does this person have the virtues necessary to be a good teammate?” That is, “Are they humble, hungry, and people-smart when it comes to our relationship?”

I know that people are messy and they bring insecurities, wounds, unmet needs, and baggage into their marriage. And just like with a hiring processes, there is often not an abundance of candidates to choose from. But take an honest look at the marriages around you. How many of them really look like a great team? What are those couples doing to build a team spirit? And for the marriages that are struggling, what virtues seem to be missing? Could dating with these questions in mind lead to lower marriage turnover and higher satisfaction?

~ Published in the Antigo Daily Journal on 8 May 2026