Liberate the Five Dysfunctions of your Team — Part 2

Use Liberating Structures for workshops to overcome the 5 dysfunctions of Scrum Teams.

This is the second part of a three-part series. You should read the first article to enjoy the other ones.

In the first article of this series, we're talking about:

• The description of the five dysfunctions of a team
• The parallelism between a healthy team and the values proposed by Scrum
• The learning methods to coach the team

The topic of this article is how to facilitate the workshops for overcoming the five dysfunctions. And the fun we had doing this, is another topic too!

In the beginning, I thought that a great source for organizing such a workshop was the Field Guide of Patrick Lencioni. I read it, but most of the exercises were based on the Myers-Brigg personality test.

Personality (depositphotos.com)

In the same period, I was reading the book of Benjamin Hardy “Personality isn’t permanent”, which was very sceptical versus the Myers-Brigg test. The argumentation of Benjamin convinced me to redesign the workshops, avoiding the use of a personality test. As the opposite, I decided to use Liberating Structures, which unleash and engage everyone in a group, without preconceptions.

Team behaviors discussion — Workshop #1

Not all the team members had the possibility of reading Lencioni´s book. So during the first workshop, we explored the healthy and unhealthy behaviors of a high-performing team.

Too often in our environment, we use ideas or terms, that mean different things to different people. If we want to start a discussion about a topic, we need to get everyone in agreement about what that means.

So we tried to get a common understanding and a basis for the dedicated workshops that will follow. Those will address the specific dysfunction (Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflicts, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability, and Inattention to Results) more in detail.

Common, shared understandings are prerequisites for common, shared commitments.

Photo by Zuzana Ruttkay @unsplash.com

My challenge was to find the most suited Liberating Structures for achieving this goal. For stimulating this flow of discussion, the LS “Wise Crowds”, came to my mind.

I like a lot the Client-Consultant format of this structure because the series of individual consultations makes the learning cumulative. Each participant benefits not only from being a client but also from being a consultant several times in a row. (Please refer to “liberatingstructures.com” for a deeper description of all Structures used in this article)

For each dysfunction (Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflicts, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability, and Inattention to Results), a different Client reads the dysfunction behavior slide and asks for advice “How can my team improve about this dysfunction?”. The rest of the team gives advice.

Example of Dysfunctional and Healthy Behaviors

Outcomes and observations

This structure is a little bit complex, so in the first round, the facilitator should play a big role in helping to maintain the flow. But from the second iteration, things get easier, and also the participants’ spontaneity increases.

My suggestions if you want to facilitate this structure: do not be afraid of the problems you could have at the beginning. Also for the team members is a continuous inspection and adaptation, and things get better with empiricism.

Another interesting outcome was the team spirit: this discussion acts as team building, and most of the solutions found were constructive and could be implemented inside the team without the help of the organization.

Lack of Trust — Workshop #2

Agile team members should respect each other as capable, independent, and trustworthy people. For the environment to be safe all team members must practice respect.

For practicing respect, trust should be built, and I used the string of LS shown in the next picture.

The proposed LS string

At first, I would like to experiment because Trust is so important for us with “Nine Whys”.

And then use “TRIZ” to search for ways to make progress on our deepest purpose of building trust.

A powerful closing for the workshop was a “Help me Now” activity. With “Troika Consulting”, the participants will get insights on issues they face.

And after this insight, team members can set their action point to solve the issue with a “15% Solution”.

Expected Learning from this workshop was:

• Practice deeper listening with colleagues
• Stop counterproductive activities and anti-trust behaviors to make space for better collaboration
• Get practical and imaginative help from colleagues immediately
• Set a personal action or solution

Outcomes

I liked many things doing this workshop:

• With the designed string of structures, we experienced a perfect flow. The output of one string was the input for the next one.
• Using TRIZ a lot of funny and exaggerated reflections stood out. Teams often laugh and otherwise taboo issues get a chance to be aired and confronted.
• The possibility of making a future retrospective about the self-assigned action points emerged with “15% Solution”.

Remarkable was the use of the Scrum value empiricism. By using it, we were able to inspect our weaknesses and propose an adaptation to overcome them.

Fear of Conflicts — Workshop #3

My intention for this workshop was to establish that conflicts are welcome and purposeful. To reach this goal, the design of the workshop had four steps:

• The facilitator shares his knowledge about the Five Levels of Conflict
• The facilitator shares his knowledge about Conflict Navigation
• The team has a “Team conflict profiling” [we know each other as a team]
• The team has a “Team conflict norming” [we give preferences as a team]

Five Level of Conflicts

An agile team will display conflict all the time. Team members sit arm’s distance apart for hours on end every day while they create products together, all the while responding to the built-in pressure of the timeboxed Sprint.

At first, I tried to give a common understanding of what conflicts are and of the levels of conflict. Lyssa Adkins has a very interesting approach, using a volcano as an example. (see Coaching Agile Teams book)

The five levels of conflict

Conflict Navigation

Most conflicts, especially those living below the surface, can’t be solved or resolved in the sense of arriving at a place where everyone involved is 100% happy and comfortable with the outcome. Therefore, a first step in learning to navigate conflict productively is to let go of the belief that all conflicts can and should be (re)solved.

The conflict type “Problem To Solve” is a great source of learning and growth, especially if we learn how to navigate it productively. It requires that:

• we learn how to develop and express our ideas and emotions
• we understand and empathize with other views
• we integrate and create new ideas together
• we must agree to implement relevant solutions.

Although not all conflicts can be truly solved in the sense of finding a solution, often the act of talking about it openly and showing the effect it has on each of us is an important step forward.

Team Conflict Profiling

This was the first exercise proposed to the team. The idea is to profile which type of conflict is acceptable for each team member and to reflect on how we are different as human beings.

It is divided into three steps:

Step #1, answer to this question (homework):

• What do you know about yourself that might affect your perception of and ability to engage in conflict?
• In what geographic area were you raised? What conflict style was accepted and expected?
• What professional experiences have influenced your ability to engage in unfiltered debate?

Step #2: short presentation to the team from each team member

Step #3, depending on the answer given to previous questions ( using LS “1–2–4-ALL”):

• What did you learn about your colleagues’ background and experience with conflict that you did not know?
• How might this information affect your team’s ability to engage in meaningful conflict?

Liberating Structure “1–2–4-ALL” was very engaging in step #3

Step 1 was homework because the content is personal and should not be elaborated in hurry.

Team Conflict Norming

This exercise is designed to formalize the expectations the team has about how to engage in meaningful conflict. Individually team members, write down their preferences, as they relate to meaningful conflict:

• What kind of language and tone of voice should be used in meaningful conflict situations?
• What emotions should be evident? What emotions should be suppressed?
• What other expectations do you have?

As a group, using the LS “Conversation Cafe”, answer these questions:

• What do the collective preferences seem to be?
• Where were there differences in opinion?

Outcomes

For me was very interesting to see the cultural differences in how a conflict is perceived; inspiring me to better knowing my team.

Thanks to the trust build in the previous workshop, the participants were very relaxed and ready to discuss personal habits and weaknesses. I was happy to get the confirmation that Trust is the deck of the Scrum Temple. (as described in the first article of the series)

The Scrum Temple (Source Elzbieta Rogalska)

Conclusion

As Benjamin Hardy argues in his book “Personality isn’t permanent”, empathy and understanding are the ingredients for a meaningful conversation. Furthermore, I had the confirmation in these two workshops.

My next article will cover the last three dysfunctions: Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability, and Inattention to Results.

Special thanks

Special thanks to Christiaan Verwijs and Barry Overeem from The Liberators, that inspire my daily job with their meetups, articles, and strings of Liberating Structures.

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