I must admit that I find it surprisingly difficult to reflect on the last ten years since the publishing of my first book, The Five Temptations of a CEO. Some of that is just my personality, but most of it is due to the fact that the last decade for me has been a blur.

In the year that the book was published, my wife gave birth to our first children (twin boys), we bought our first home, and a group of friends and I started a little consulting firm called The Table Group. Unbelievably, the nine years that have followed have been busier than the first one.

Since that time, my family has grown (two more boys), as has our consulting firm. I’ve been blessed to write five more books. To my surprise, I’ve also been asked to consult and speak to many wonderful organizations, companies, schools, and of course, churches. And so much of the opportunity I’ve had is due to the success of my first little book, one that was largely an accident.

More than ten years ago, I began consulting to a handful of CEOs from organizations of various sizes and industries. Over time, I began to notice a few consistent behavioral patterns—five actually—that seemed to be causing problems for these leaders, and I did what I do most naturally. I talked about it.

I explained my evolving theory to anyone who was interested, and I learned that people actually thought it made sense. And then one day a client said, “Pat, you should write a book about this.” I initially dismissed the idea as flattery, until that person said, “Well, if you don’t do it, someone else will.” And so I decided to be an author.

Wanting to tap into my interest in screenwriting, I decided to convey my message in the form of a fable. And with the support of my wife and the constant urging of a dear friend, I finally finished the book with generally low expectations that it would ever get published. In fact, my colleagues and I at The Table Group talked about taking the manuscript to Kinko’s and making copies to give to prospective clients.

We did, however, decide to submit the manuscript to a few publishers, and to our great surprise, the second one we sent it to decided to take a chance on this unique little fable.

A year after publication, The Five Temptations became something of an underground best-seller, which made my publisher, Jossey-Bass, comfortable in allowing me to write another book. A couple years later, as I saw my clients applying my leadership model to groups of people, I decided to write my third and best-selling book to date, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, based largely on the same theory I outlined in The Five Temptations. Looking back, I could never have imagined that it would all play out this way.

Some of the questions I’ve been asked by readers recently are why I think my ideas have been so well received and what I’ve learned about the model over the past ten years. Two things stand out.

The first was something that Ken Blanchard, the author of The One Minute Manager, told me after hearing one of my talks years ago. He approached me backstage and explained to me that the principles behind the five temptations are actually rooted in the Bible. This is something that I’ve come to understand and appreciate more and more with each passing year.

The other pleasant surprise for me was how readers embraced the simplicity of the book’s model. I have always believed that the world has more than enough intelligence and complexity to get along, but that what is really lacking is a compelling, simple explanation of what we already know. Which brings me to one of my favorite quotes from the writer Samuel Johnson: “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.”

I think that The Five Temptations of a CEO, more than anything, is just a reminder of simple concepts that we already know and have possibly known for a long time. I wrote it for real people in imperfect organizations who are hungry to be better leaders and managers. I am thankful to God for what it all has become, and for letting me be part of it.

Patrick Lencioni
April 2008