258. The Fruits of Recommitment
At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
Patrick Lencioni
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 “messy” work of recommitting isn’t soft; it’s the most essential and transformative part of leadership.
Topics explored in this episode:
(03:17) Why the Cliff Always Feels Real
* Early moments in The Table Group’s history when setbacks could have ended everything but ultimately created stronger bonds.
* Parallels between organizational plateaus and long-term marriage.
(07:06) Messiness, Trust, and Misconceptions
* Why leaders shouldn’t judge their own teams for imperfection.
* Challenging the myth that offsites should be purely strategic.
(10:58) The Moment of Truth
* The “moment of truth” where a leader either risks more vulnerability or puts a ceiling on the entire organization.
(15:03) Recommitment as the Path to Fruitfulness
* Why trust—not strategy—is what makes or breaks performance, speed, and long-term health.
* How naming hard truths unlocked unity, clarity, and deeper commitment.
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 podcast@tablegroup.com.
This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I don't think any relationship that avoids risk and discomfort is a very deep one. |
| 0:05.0 | It's about the willingness to be vulnerable again. |
| 0:08.0 | And it's not soft. We're not going to apologize for it. |
| 0:10.0 | The things that people mistakenly accuse of being soft are often just the most painful. |
| 0:15.0 | It's messy. It's about vulnerability. It's about relationship. |
| 0:18.0 | It's about the willingness to do hard things. There's nothing, nothing soft or touchy feeling about it. It's about relationship. It's about the willingness to do hard things. There's nothing, |
| 0:21.4 | nothing soft or touchy-feely about it. It's just human. Welcome to At the Table, the podcast that |
| 0:27.9 | lives at the intersection between leadership, teamwork, organizational health, and culture. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm your host, Pat Lanchone. This is Cody Thompson, my co-host. You know him. How you doing, Cody? I'm doing great, Pat. Yeah, love podcast days. They're fun. They are. They really are, aren't they? We really do enjoy this. It's good. And we love hearing from listeners and when we go out, I give talks and people come up and will mention a specific episode or say they listen to it. And I'm always amazed. That's great. What's our topic |
| 0:55.2 | today, Cody? The fruits of recommitment. Yeah, that's a, that's people are like, what the hell |
| 1:00.9 | does that mean? Heck does that mean, you know? This is one, and I don't have a prepared intro, |
| 1:06.2 | it's just something that we've gone through in our company this year and many times in the past. |
| 1:10.4 | And I think every |
| 1:11.8 | organization, every relationship goes through it, I've never heard of people talk about it. And we |
| 1:17.1 | want to get into this today. And that is that, so you have a good relationship or a good culture |
| 1:21.7 | in your company, you inevitably come to an impasse, a moment when it's going to unravel or you're going to |
| 1:30.9 | recommit to it. And it's usually painful and it's messy and it's so tempting to say, maybe it's |
| 1:38.6 | not worth it this time or maybe this is the end of the road. Because we've been through this |
| 1:43.5 | before and if we're here again |
| 1:46.1 | gosh what's wrong with us and the truth is every marriage every every kind of strong relationship |
| 1:52.9 | gets to that point and when you go through it and you you recommit it gets better than it's ever been |
| 2:00.2 | before and anybody that's been married i've been married 33 years. And anybody that's been married, I've been married 33 years, |
... |
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