I just came across the name of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” book after listening to some podcast that I’m following. I was sceptic because I’m bit tired of books that lists for you the “dos/don’ts” so just added the book into my Amazon books wish-list and moved on ;) Then I heard about this book in some other media sources and said to myself, that I might be mistaken here…
TL;DR yes, I was totally surprised! and I really think that anyone shall read this book either if you lead people or just want to influence the teamwork culture in your company without standing at the corner
What I really liked in this book is that its a story. It takes you into a realistic journey in a fictional organization and sometimes you just feel like you are one of the people in the room. The book is taking you into real situations and conflicts that many teams face and It doesn’t really matter if you are part of an executive team or another. What Patrick Lencioni aims to show is that teams are inherently dysfunctional just because we are human beings but if you build a good teamwork you can achieve many things that are very difficult to get in other ways — at the end, its not magic… its difficult but possible.
The story is about a technology company — “DecisionTech” (a fictional organization) that had a great executive team, top-tier investors and all the great ingredients for a technology company to succeed in the Bay Area but unfortunately after some time they started to experience problems such as employees started to leave, morale changed, etc. Kathryn that didn’t have any Hi-Tech experience but was a COO of a large company in San Fransisco has been hired as the new CEO to lead the company. The journey starts here and takes you from her first days in the company to the meetings, plans, off-sites, conversations that she had and how people observed her. The whole story aims to show you the 5 dysfunctional pitfalls of a team that Patrick calls “The Five Dysfunction Model” and at the end of the book, he provides an overview of the model, a team assessment questionnaire and provides you with recommendations and tools on how to overcome those dysfunctions that you identify.
Obviously you might be able to find more book reviews that tend to talk about each one of the ingredients in this model, but this time I want to talk a bit about Kathrine’s journey and what I felt while reading this book.
Kathrine’s journey starts with her first weeks at the company. Her first weeks characterized with observing the company, its difficulties, attend to company meetings, write down and not jump in to change. It was even more interesting to see how the team that worked with her observed her actions — they didn’t understand why she doesn’t really do much and they didn’t really trust on her capabilities especially when she came from another background that isn’t tightly related to the technology company that she had to manage. Kathrine learned the problems and more importantly she was confident. I liked how she focused on the fundamentals first and preserved her boundaries even when Martin (the CTO) didn’t want to join the first off-site meetings that she organized. I like how she discussed her decisions with the chairman, she was confident and explained the importance of providing her the ground to help the company that isn’t going to the right direction.
Kathrine started to work in the first off-site with her team on the fundamentals — “Absence of Trust”- as she explained:
“Great teams do not hold back with one another,” she said. “They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.” Lencioni, Patrick M.. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (J-B Lencioni Series) (p. 44).
It was interesting to see her journey to convince the team that there is a problem, their doubts and how she interacted with them. The most important part here is that she was confident with her ability to explain that dysfunction, make her team to be aware of that and convince them that this is the foundation to any team work. It wasn’t easy and she had to create an environment that the team can open up and make them believe that they can truly trust each other. What I liked is how she drove the conversations and her 1:1s with the people to believe in the way and obviously trust her.
The next dysfunction that Kathrine talked about is (which at the top of the pyramid) — “Inattention to Results”- as she explained:
“… the ultimate dysfunction: the tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of results. And I’m referring to collective results — the goals of the team.” Lencioni, Patrick M.. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (J-B Lencioni Series) (p. 71).
She discussed ego, how it can hurt us as a team and I think most importantly is how to collect the individuals around the team goals and responsibilities. If I take it to our day-to-day, if you are in team meeting and other team members present their sales/product/whatever team achievements, you should be part of this conversation and not say to yourself that it’s not related to you. We are all part of the same team but for that we need to have clear goals either as teams and employees.
The third dysfunction is — “Fear of Conflict” — as she explained:
“If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we’ll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony.” Lencioni, Patrick M.. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (J-B Lencioni Series) (p. 91).
She didn’t understand why the meetings are so boring, why people don’t really discuss, provide their feedbacks and why people in her team in such situations roll their eyes and not say anything. Meeting tend to reflect alot on such problems and its important that people will be open enough in order to have meetings that can really help, drive decisions towards the team results and that people shouldn’t be afraid to convince on some topic while they got enough information to create a constructive discussion i.e. pros/cons…It obviously can’t be that everyone in a meeting agree on the same thing without arguing or at least say their thoughts.
The fourth dysfunction is — “Lack of Commitment” — as she explained:
“I’m talking about committing to a plan or a decision, and getting everyone to clearly buy in to it. That’s why conflict is so important.” Lencioni, Patrick M.. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (J-B Lencioni Series) (p. 94).
She discussed why commitment is important and how its related to the fear of conflict. It was interesting to see how hard it is for her to convince her team what commitment is and why conflict help to make things clearer. You can discuss, argue but at the end there is a decision and we should be committed to it in order to drive the goals.
The last dysfunction is — “Avoidance of Accountability” — as she explained:
“Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do, for high standards of performance and behavior.” Lencioni, Patrick M.. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (J-B Lencioni Series) (p. 98).
She discussed why you should avoid discomfort and why you should be confident enough to discuss a topic. As we all know, people won’t be accountable if they don’t understand the plan, not part of it and not buy in.
As I said in the beginning, you should read the book and it can be one of the parts in your toolbox. There is much more in the book and I think you can learn alot just by reading the conversations in there.
