Lencioni Triangle: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Lencioni Triangle, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Practices that may help

1. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
   Patrick Lencioni’s model describes five compounding failures that undermine teams: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results — each built on the one below. It is a practitioner framework presented as a business fable, not an empirically tested model, but its five dimensions align well with decades of team effectiveness research, making it a useful diagnostic even without controlled-trial support.
2. Use regular team health checks to surface dysfunction early
   Teams that check in on how they’re working together catch dysfunction before it compounds.
   The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
3. Build vulnerability-based trust
   Teams that can’t admit weakness, mistakes, or ignorance to each other cannot genuinely collaborate.
   The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
4. Use the horsemen as an early-warning system, not only a post-mortem
   Notice which horseman is present in the first 60 seconds of a conflict and intervene before it escalates.
   The Four Horsemen: Gottman's Warning Signs of Relationship Breakdown
5. The Trust Triangle
   Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
6. Recognize your demon dialogue -- the negative cycle running your relationship
   Every stuck couple has a predictable negative loop; naming it together is the first step out.
   Hold Me Tight: Sue Johnson's Seven Conversations for Lasting Love
7. The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni)
   Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius model describes six activities — Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity — that are required to complete any meaningful work. Each person finds two of these energizing (geniuses), two draining (frustrations), and two neutral (competencies). The model is a practitioner framework; it lacks independent peer-reviewed validation, but it provides a practically useful vocabulary for team role awareness.
8. Transform the relationship, not just the issue
   Use each conflict as an opportunity to raise the quality of the relationship itself.
   The Third Alternative, Made Practical
9. Map your three circles honestly
   Separately answer each circle — passion, best-at, economic engine — before looking for the intersection.
   The Hedgehog Concept
10. Assign project phases to genius-matched people
    Route early ideation to Wonder/Invention geniuses and execution phases to Tenacity geniuses.
    The 6 Types of Working Genius (Patrick Lencioni)

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• My team only ever talks about how we’re working together after something has already blown up→
• On my team nobody will admit they’re stuck or wrong or don’t know something→
• I can feel within the first minute of a disagreement exactly where it’s headed, like I already know the shape of the fight→
• We have the same fight over and over with different words on top, and in the moment it always feels like it’s their fault→
• We solve the immediate thing but the same ugly dynamic underneath stays exactly the same, so the next disagreement plays out identically→

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.