A couple years ago I read a great book, from the New York Times Best Seller list, called “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni“. Lencioni uses a fictional setting to discuss very real issues that anybody in Middle and Upper management would immediately recognize assuming they had any degree of perception during a typical staff or team meeting. The issues are not clear cut (again realistic) and can easily favor one function or department over another. The team leader patiently takes them through a team building process.
In this fable Kathryn Petersen has been tapped as the new CEO of DecisionTech, Inc. This start-up company is well funded and well staffed with quality personnel, but for the past two years has been unable to produce meaningful results. Sound familiar? As if that task wasn’t daunting enough, Kathryn has to deal with the complexity of working directly with the former CEO. He is now heading up business development and is an integral member of her team. I’m sure you have similar dynamics going on at your level of management don’t you?
At the core of the book is a model related to creating high functioning teams. The pyramid below summarizes the 5 key areas that you need to address starting at the bottom and over time, working your way up in order to build a high functioning project or management team.
Dysfunction 1: Absence of Trust
These quotes of Kathryn’s, the CEO, seemed to clearly define this dysfunction:
- “Trust is the foundation of real teamwork.”
- “Great teams do not hold back with one another.”
- “They (team members) admit their mistakes, their weaknesses and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”
- “I see a trust problem here in the lack of debate that exists during staff meetings and other interactions among this team.”
Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict
“If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, idealogical conflict.” Failure to do so results in:
- No collaborative solutions.
- Solutions that lack the input of all team members.
- A team with “artificial harmony” – skin deep team approval. Tacit agreement followed by people pursing their own interests anyway – sound familiar?
Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment
Essentially this is failure to buy in to decisions.
- Share Opinions: “It’s as simple as this. When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board.” Weigh in before they buy in.
- True Consensus: “Consensus is horrible. I mean, if everyone really agrees on something and consensus comes about quickly and naturally, well that’s terrific. But that isn’t how it usually works, and so consensus becomes an attempt to please everyone.” And when this happens you have a weakened solution that probably will not work well.
Dysfunction 4: Avoidance of Accountability
The pyramid continues to build on itself. There must be commitment before there can be accountability.
- “People aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought in to the same plan.”
Dysfunction 5: Inattention to Results
“Our job is to make the results that we need to achieve so clear to everyone in this room that no one would even consider doing something purely to enhance his or her individual status or ego. Because that would diminish our ability to achieve our collective goals. We would all lose.”
If there is going to be ego, it should be collective ego that is greater than the individual egos. Similarly, people are going to look out for their own interests. However, the team’s interests (results) should be more important than individual interests.
Id’ recommed this book to any senior leader or person responsible for a group of people tasked with meeting a common set of goals. It doesn’t matter if you believe the group is currently dysfunctional or not, it would help you take that group to the next level either way.
