262. Be Extreme
At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
Patrick Lencioni
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 naturally repel the wrong employees and customers while attracting the right ones. Through examples like In-N-Out, Dutch Bros, Costco, and Nordstrom, they show how clarity and conviction create a stronger culture, cleaner decision-making, and more loyal teams and customers.
Topics explored in this episode:
(00:00) Why Great Organizations Repel the Wrong People
* How strong values naturally filter out misaligned employees and customers
* Why trying to include everyone weakens culture
(04:11) Extreme Culture as a Competitive Advantage
* How distinctive companies become “weird” on purpose
* Why noticeable culture creates loyalty and differentiation
(07:46) Strategic Anchors and the Power of Saying No
* How a clear strategy eliminates distractions and opportunistic growth
* Why discipline matters more than chasing every opportunity
(11:33) Attracting the Right Customers by Design
* How strong strategy repels misaligned customers
* Why businesses grow faster when they stop trying to serve everyone
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 | Strong values will repel employees who don't fit. |
| 0:03.5 | And a strong strategic anchors will repel customers who you really don't want. |
| 0:08.8 | Because when your core principles, when they're not very clear, |
| 0:12.2 | you're going to get customers that are coming there for the wrong reason. |
| 0:15.0 | But when a company says, no, we are all about this, |
| 0:17.7 | we're going to go above and beyond and do crazy things to prove it. |
| 0:21.2 | Customers who go, I don't value that, are going to leave you alone. And that's going to make |
| 0:24.7 | everything easier. It's ironic to think that if you don't repel some customers, you can't |
| 0:30.3 | possibly attract to the right ones. Welcome to At the Table, the podcast that lives at the intersection |
| 0:36.9 | of teamwork, culture, organizational health, and leadership. |
| 0:42.4 | I'm Pat Lynch-ony, your host with Cody Thompson, my co-host. |
| 0:45.8 | We have an interesting topic today. |
| 0:47.3 | What is it, Cody? |
| 0:48.1 | You really nailed that intro, Pat. |
| 0:49.8 | You just got them right out there. |
| 0:51.7 | We've said it 250 times, and you're still trying to find all the words. I love it. |
| 0:56.3 | Pretty docile title here. It's called be an extremist. |
| 1:00.4 | That's right. Be an extremist. And of course we don't mean about everything. But that word extremism has, it has negative connotations. And in many many cases it should there are a few things in |
| 1:12.2 | business when it's actually good to be extreme and one of the thing about being an extremist |
| 1:17.7 | is that people will say that's weird you're kind of odd and there's certain places in business |
| 1:22.4 | where you want people to see what you're doing and know who you are and think, that's kind of weird, because |
| 1:28.7 | that's the sign of a good business. And we're talking about two things. She'd be extreme in your |
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