Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” — A Book Review
“If you could get all the people in an organization moving in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
Making a team high performing — i.e. high-functioning, collaborative, cohesive, aspiring and engaging — is no easy task. Having been acounsellor for many colleagues — for starters, midcareer professionals and partners — I’ve learned that building and becoming part of a high performing team is often a challenging process. Following this path towards growth and maturity requires self-discipline, honesty and many unwanted moments of self-confrontation — and joy. But above all, it requires a method. Throughout the years, I’ve been fortunate to have been working with Patrick Lencioni’s methods and insights. His books provide a rich source of hands-on material that can be used by professional services organisations to reach their full potential. This article is a brief book review of Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” (2002).
A Silicon Valley-based firm in trouble
The book’s cover text reads as a Hollywood blockbuster-like trailer: “Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech’s CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail?” The first part of Lencioni’s bestseller tells the gripping but fictional story about DecisionTech, a Silicon Valley-based firm in deep trouble.
Its newly appointed CEO is Kathryn, a 57-year old traditional manager who has a “an amazing gift for building teams”. “What she could not have known when she accepted the job, however, was just how dysfunctional her executive team was, and how they would challenge her in ways that no one before had ever done.” (p. 18) Slowly yet surely, she succeeds in showing her colleagues — who failed to have worked as a cohesive unit — that teamwork is key to overcome any organisational shortcomings.
The second part zooms in on Lencioni’s “five dysfunctions” (i.e. absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results).
Lencioni’s 5 dysfunctions
Throughout the fable of Kathryn’s journey towards team-based leadership, Lencioni sums up the five dysfunctions that are impeding DecisionTech’s growth and which will be familiar to any team working together to achieve organisational goals:
· Dysfunction 1 is the Absence of Trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust. In this case, managers can ask help from their team members when admitting their own weaknesses. Once the team manager takes the lead, others will hopefully follow. Repeat this cycle and trust will slowly become the foundation of the pyramid.
In a nutshell, members of trusting teams:
o Admit weaknesses and mistakes
o Ask for help
o Accept questions and input about their areas of responsibility
o Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving at a negative conclusion
o Take risks in offering feedback and assistance
o Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
o Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics
o Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
o Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group (p. 197)
· Dysfunction 2 is the Fear of Conflict
Without trust there will be no serious debate about important organisational topics. This will affect decision making and result in gossips, back-biting and intrigues. Conflicts are therefore welcome in team discussions. Yet, most people fear conflict and hence team members are likely to repress anger or frustration and will avoid confrontation. When conflicts are not well managed, teams will eventually fall apart. Therefore, each team member must be able to speak up and provide feedback in an atmosphere of trust. “Trust lies at the heart of a functioning, cohesive team.” (p. 195)
· Dysfunction 3 is the Lack of Commitment
A lack of conflicts results in barriers to commitment in decision making. Subsequently, team members will lack any sense of direction and spend valuable time chasing the wrong objectives. Teams need clear deadlines, clear decisions and clear communications.
· Dysfunction 4 is the Avoidance of Accountability
Without a clear plan, team members will not feel committed to achieving results. Progress will be slow and the outcome mediocre. However, if team members hold one another accountable, difficult issues will be brought to the table. Progress reviews, clear standards and team incentives may help to make the teamwork work.
· Dysfunction 5 is the Inattention to Results
In most cases, team members will put their individual interests first, including ego, career development, etc. — ahead of the collective team goals. This will impede the team objectives and hence harm the business objectives. Teams whose objectives are built on trust, healthy conflicts and team accountability will be committed to the organisational performance.
“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” ends with a questionnaire to evaluate teams and specifics to help one understand and overcome common shortcomings. So where does the team leader or counsellor come in? He or she is the one who is willing to demonstrate vulnerability first and create a secure environment for team building. Vulnerability-based trust therefore requires a shared journey of experiences, confrontations, time spent together, the willingness to give and receive feedback and a genuine understanding of the unique qualities of individual team members.This applies to all levels of the organisation — at partner level, management team-level and audit team-level — and even more so in matrix organisations.
The Lencioni Trust Pyramid is divided into five layers, starting at the bottom, the Trust layer being the largest one. It is key that all levels and its requirements are fulfilled.
Actionable steps
Obviously, there are multiple ways to run and coach a team. For me, the book provides actionable steps to overcome dysfunctions among teams.One of the practicalities is the list mentioned in the final pages of the book (p. 222). The fable concludes by stating how Kathryn, the book’s leading character, ran her staff after her team-building off-sites and the significant investment in time that it required:
· Annual planning meeting and leadership development retreats (three days, off-site)
Topics might include budget discussions, major strategic planning overview, leadership training, succession planning, and cascading messaging.
· Quarterly staff meetings (two days, off-site)
Topics might include major goal reviews, financial review, strategic discussions, employee performance discussions, key issue resolution, team development, and cascading messages.
· Weekly staff meetings (two hours, on-site)
Topics might include key activity review, goal progress review, sales review, customer review, tactical issue resolution, cascading messages.
· Ad hoc topical meetings (two hours, on-site)
Topics might include strategic issues that cannot be adequately discussed during weekly staff meetings.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, “the ultimate test of a great team is results”, as Lencioni states. Ultimately, teamwork is about practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time. “Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.” The book is a must-read for teams willing to achieve their goals and dreams — it indeed takes teamwork to make the dream work. This book has given me the practical tools to help inspire team members to mature and blossom.
Marcel de Kimpe is a Certified Professional Auditor, coach and counsellor.
About the book and its author
“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — A Leadership Fable” (first edition) by Patrick Lencioni was published by Jossey-Bass (2002) and forms the foundation for his “The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team”profile system, developed by Lencioni, his team at The Table Group, and in collaboration with and powered by Wiley’s Everything DiSC model. Patrick Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to providing organisations with ideas, products and services that improve organisational teamwork, and employee engagement. To learn more about Lencioni and The Table Group, visit www.tablegroup.com.
