257. The Art of Messiness

At The Table with Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni

Pat, Business, Success, Work, Entrepreneurship, Companyculture, Patricklencioni, Teamwork, Leadership, Organizationalhealth, Culture, Management

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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 instinct, courage, and human interaction—not algorithms or metrics.

Topics explored in this episode:

(03:15) Data vs. Instinct in Real Business

* Why instinct and common sense dominate real executive decision-making.

* The human tendency to return to predictability even when it repeatedly fails.

(06:29) When Data Misleads and Context Matters

* How statistical predictions often fail to capture real-life variables.

* How leaders hide behind numbers to avoid personal responsibility.

(09:13) The Power of Seeing the Problem Directly

* How over-reliance on data can obscure common sense and slow down problem-solving.

(11:40) Business as Art, Not Science

* The modern trend toward treating business as a purely scientific discipline.

* Why instinct and integrative thinking will never be replaced by either data or AI.

This episode of At The Table with Patrick Lencioni is brought to you by The Table Group: https://www.tablegroup.com. We teach leaders how to make work more effective and less dysfunctional. We also help their employees be more fulfilled and less miserable.

At The Table is a podcast that lives at the connection between work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4hJKKSL), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/6NWAZzkzl4ljxX7S2xkHvu), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/At-The-Table-YouTube).

Follow Pat Lencioni on https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-lencioni-orghealth, http://www.youtube.com/@PatrickLencioniOfficial, and https://x.com/patricklencioni.

Be sure to check out our other podcast, The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni, on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4iNz6Yn), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/3raC053GF5mtkq6Y1klpRU), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/Working-Genius-YouTube).

Let us know your feedback via [email protected].

This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's human nature that we want to know. Can you please tell me that we're making the right decision? Of course, you will never have certainty. But people will look for more information to make sure they're making the right decision, and they'll end up making the decision too slow and too late because they're so afraid of being wrong. The failure to embrace messiness and to overindex on data and predictability is because we're like, can't I cover my butt and make sure that I know this decision is going to go well.
0:24.4	And that never. over index on data and predictability is because we're like, can't I cover my butt and make sure that
0:22.4	I know this decision is going to go well? And that never happens. And when we do that, we do some of
0:27.4	the dumbest things ever because we trust the numbers way too much. Welcome to At the Table,
0:34.3	the podcast that lives at the intersection between leadership, teamwork,
0:39.1	organizational health, and culture.
0:41.3	My name is Pat Linchony.
0:42.3	I'm your host, joined by my co-host Cody Thompson out in Utah.
0:46.1	How you doing, Cody?
0:47.2	I am doing well, Pat.
0:49.1	I got to tell you, Cody, every time I go someplace and people say, hey'm your I listen to your podcast and they always
0:55.7	ask questions about you they're like hey and remember when Cody did this and and it's isn't it
1:01.3	interesting in Cody's office behind him he has these different things and it's just really fun you know
1:06.3	we love our listeners and it's fun to talk to people that listen to the podcast. And that was just to
1:11.1	make you nervous. Whatever you're saying, people are talking about it. I had a neighbor,
1:15.4	neighbor drive by on a bicycle the other day and say, I listened to your podcast. And I was like,
1:19.2	oh, okay. I'll take note of that. So I better think a little harder about what I say.
1:24.8	Yeah, yeah. What's the topic today, Cody? The topic is the art of messiness.
1:29.3	That's right, the art of messiness.
1:32.3	And this is one of those things that we were talking about recently.
1:36.3	The messiness of business, the lack of precision in running a business is so much greater than we know. And even though I've been, that's how I got
1:47.3	involved in this. I was a management consultant that did all this data analysis for our clients.
	...

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