271. Time, Risk, and Innovation
At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
Patrick Lencioni
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 watched their consultants produce original songs, recognize an ideal team player, rent an eight-foot tree, and even paint The Table Group office. The conversation reveals how time constraints, trust, risk, and freedom can unlock creativity in ways that careful planning often cannot.
Topics explored in this episode:
(00:00) The Power Of Limited Time
- Pat introduces the idea that limiting time can actually increase innovation, creativity, and execution.
- Cody explains the purpose of The Table Group’s annual consulting conference and how the team wanted to create a short but meaningful offsite experience.
(04:03) One Hour, $400, And A Ridiculous Challenge
- Pat and Cody describe the challenge: teams had one hour, $400, and a goal to create the most ridiculous, creative idea possible.
- They reflect on how quickly the consultants moved through the Working Genius process, from wonder and invention to discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity.
(05:47) Recognizing An Ideal Team Player
- One team went to the hotel manager, taught the Ideal Team Player model, and asked her to identify someone on staff who embodied humble, hungry, and smart.
- The team honored the chosen employee with gifts, cake, and a standing ovation from the consultants.
(08:03) Songs, Trees, And Creative Chaos
- Another team found a musician at a coffee shop and paid her to write and perform an original song about The Table Group in one hour.
- A different team rented an eight-foot tree as a callback to the “Plant Your Friggin Tree” episode and turned it into a memorable symbol of action and urgency.
(13:25) The Office Painting Risk
- One team secretly entered The Table Group office and painted Matt’s podcast room red with references to the Five Dysfunctions, the Advantage model, and the Ideal Team Player.
- Pat, Cody, and Matt reflect on how the experiment proved that trust, risk, fun, and people-centered experiences can make business conversations more effective.
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.
Register for “Why Your Spouse Acts That Way” here: workinggenius.com/marriage
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At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
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This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the things we've learned at the table group over the years is how much can get done in a short period of time. |
| 0:05.0 | And sometimes limiting the amount of time you have actually accelerates your innovation and your creativity. |
| 0:12.0 | Because people are pretty talented as it turns out when you turn them loose. |
| 0:16.2 | Welcome to At the Table, the podcast that lives at the intersection of teamwork, leadership, organizational health and culture. I'm Pat Lanchone. This is Cody Thompson. We're the co-hosts of this podcast. And today's is going to be kind of different. What's it called, Cody? Time, Risk, and Innovation. Yes. Today we are going to do a podcast about a recent meeting we had. Well, some crazy stuff happened and we just |
| 0:39.6 | want to share it with people. And if you don't usually watch our podcast, this is one you're going |
| 0:43.4 | to want to watch on YouTube because there's some visual stuff coming that's pretty interesting. |
| 0:46.6 | We had our annual consulting conference here in Franklin, Tennessee, south of Nashville, where we brought in |
| 0:53.3 | between 40 and 50 of our |
| 0:56.0 | consultants from around the world. Cody, you're in charge of that part of our business. Tell them a |
| 0:59.9 | little bit about what we try to do at those meetings. Yeah, so one time of year where we have everybody |
| 1:05.5 | fly in, we spend a couple days together, and we typically try to, you know, give an overview of our business and give them some |
| 1:12.7 | idea of what we're working on and what's ahead. We try to figure out ways that we can create some |
| 1:18.1 | more connection and trust while we're together. And then we just have some really interesting |
| 1:22.3 | and fun conversations. Like we do a couple of dinners together. A lot of it is relationship |
| 1:26.9 | building. Some of it is just like a littleners together. A lot of it is relationship building. |
| 1:33.2 | Some of it is just like a little bit of development and some of it is some some vision casting for the business moving forward. So it's it's a great time. We have 52 total consultants. |
| 1:38.9 | Almost all of them make it every year. And it's one of our favorite events every year. |
| 1:43.1 | Many people listening to this probably have worked with at least one of those consultants, so wonderful people. So this year, |
| 1:48.3 | we were like, let's do something fun. But when you do an offsite like this, if you schedule |
| 1:54.4 | too much time for something fun, they can go like, I flew in from around the world for this. |
| 1:59.3 | And if it's not good and it's goofy, that's not good. |
| 2:03.8 | So we decided we were going to try to do something that was short, |
... |
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