Patrick Lencioni's book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team was published nearly a decade ago, and yet it has proven so invaluable to entrepreneurs that it continues to show up on all-time best leadership book lists such as this recent one.

Why?  Because Lencioni shows how investing in your workplace to build exemplary team building strategies is not just good for business, it creates perhaps the ultimate competitive advantage.  The author and president of management consuntancy The Table Group argues that when your employees are all "rowing in the same direction," your company can dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.

A powerful statement, no?  It's one Lencioni himself will speak to in Dallas on June 16 at our joint Leadership Conference with Inc. Magazine.  (I booked my hotel and flight for the event this week and am especially excited for this session.)

Winning Workplaces has employee engagement research that supports Lencioni's claim.  In the application for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award, we asked the essay question Please share 1-2 examples of how your investment in people has improved the performance and results of the organization.  I put the responses of the winners (which have been selected but won't be revealed until the June issue of Inc. comes out; click here for our 2011 award timeline) and those of the other applicants into Wordle to create tag clouds to see how prominent "team" was for both groups.  Here's what I found:

As you can see, among the winners teams are as important as the company.  That's profound by itself, but even more so when I show you evidence that their team-oriented people practices are having a tangible, measurable impact.  Also from our 2011 award applications, here are data on key organizational metrics by applicant group:

If a greater focus on teamwork can yield these results as a means to achieving industry and marketplace dominance – as we see with our 2011 workplace award winners – why not join me in learning the how-to's from one of the prominent thought leaders on this topic?  Click here for more info on our conference; if you register by May 6 you can save $300!