Summary: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Lencioni, Patrick, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1995.

Summary

I was strongly encouraged to read this book at a previous company. Overall, I am not very impressed with the approach. While it is a worthwhile exercise to examine these dysfunctions within an organization, I think the suggested improvements lead to managers that are much too aloof. There is a lot of focus on getting a group of peers to solve problems, set goals, plan, hold each other accountable, etc. I believe the fundamental problem in this strategy is in not taking individual interests and incentives into consideration. This is especially true for the sections on trust and accountability. A manager should be looking for these issues (and others!) to arise and make sure the root cause of the problems are addressed, not offloading this to his or her team. Regardless, the model itself is worth reviewing.

Model Overview

Teams fail to work together due to these 5 pitfalls, or dysfunctions. These should not be only viewed separately. They are part of an interrelated model. Each dysfunction leads into the next.

Dysfunction 1: Absence of Trust

“Trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. In essence, teammates must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another.” (p195)

Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict

Some conflict is needed in the workplace to bring out all sources of information. The key is to make it productive. Personally attacking others or always being the devil’s advocate are NOT being productive. Raising honest disagreements or concerns to a particular issue is being productive.

Dysfunction 3: Lack of Commitment

“Great teams make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision … The two greatest causes of the lack of commitment are the desire for consensus and the need for certainty.” (p207)

1. Consensus. If everyone is honest with their thoughts, very few decisions can be made unanimously. A team must ensure that everyone’s ideas are heard, but at the end the team must be able to make a majority decision.
2. Certainty. There is always uncertainty when making a decision. In most cases any decision is better than not making one. In cases where the uncertainty seems especially high and there is some time to decide, determine what pieces of information are most vital, who will get them, and the deadline to reconvene.

Dysfunction 4: Avoidance of Accountability

In the context of teamwork, accountability is “the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might hurt the team.” (p212)

“The essence of this dysfunction is the unwillingness of team members to tolerate the interpersonal discomfort that accompanies calling a peer on his or her behavior and the more general tendency to avoid difficult conversations. Members of great teams overcome these natural inclinations, opting instead to ‘enter the danger’ with one another.” (p212-213)

Dysfunction 5: Inattention to Results

Team members should be focused on the collectives results of the group. In many cases this gets trumped by team status and individual status within the organization.

Links

Amazon: link.

NOTE: These are the highlights that I found most interesting. However, there are many details that are omitted. I recommend reading the entire source for the most value.