This is another book I read recently, recommended in The Phoenix Project — story of DevOps to help business win. The author Patrick Lencioni, is an American writer who writes books on business management and famous for this book, The Five Dysfunctions of a team. He is also the founder and president of the Table Group, a management consulting firm focused on organizational health.
This is a leadership fable about a technology company which is struggling to grow its customers. The leadership/executives of the company are not working as a team and struggles to come to any agreements which results in negative morale. The newly appointed CEO, Catherine Petersen, recognizes the potential of the team and brings in the teamwork among them by making them understand the dysfunctions.
The model
The above pyramid, the model described in the book, explains how one dysfunction leads to another and in the end, results in a negative morale of the team.
#1 Absence of Trust
Bottom of the pyramid is the absence of trust, when team members are unable to show their weakness, resulting in being reluctant to be vulnerable and being open with one another. Team members will be afraid of admitting their mistakes and will be unwilling to ask for help.
#2 Fear of Conflict
Lack of trust results in fear of conflict which in turn results in team members incapable of engaging in debates or openly voicing their opinions. The team completely avoids conflicts which results in inferior results.
#3 Lack of Commitment
Fear of conflict results in lack of commitment. As team members have not bought into the decisions, they don’t feel committed to the same which resulting in an environment where ambiguity prevails.
#4 Avoidance of Accountability
Lack of commitment results in team members not making each other accountable. If one has not bought into the decision, they won’t make their peers too accountable.
#5 Inattention to Results
If the team members don’t feel accountable, they put their own needs [ego, recognition, career development etc.] ahead of the team goals. This results in team loosing sight and the company suffers.
Addressing Dysfunctions
As the first step for addressing these dysfunctions, every team needs to understand that these dysfunctions exist. The leadership in the company needs to lead by example and set the tone for the whole team to overcome these dysfunctions. This means the leadership being the first one to be vulnerable, encouraging debate and conflict, making responsibilities and deadlines clear, setting the team’s standards, and last but not least being clear on the team’s outcome. It is important to understand that reaching consensus is not the goal, instead make sure that everyone is being heard. Interestingly, it is contradictory to the normal assumption that the team should avoid conflicts, instead encourage and embrace conflicts.
Ask these simple questions to understand the level of dysfunction you are facing:
- Do team members openly and readily disclose their opinions?
- Are team meetings compelling and productive?
- Does the team come to decisions quickly and avoid getting bogged down by consensus?
- Do team members confront one another about their shortcomings?
- Do team members sacrifice their own interests for the good of the team?
No team is perfect, but constantly work to ensure that the answers to the above questions are “yes”. Such an environment is key for creating a culture of Blameless Postmortems and creation of such a culture is a continuous effort like lean which is a journey not a destination.
