You Are Probably Working in a Dysfunctional Team
“Teams… because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional” — Patrick Lencioni
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a fable about the CEO of a fictional organisation called Karen. She is in her late 50s, married to a college basketball coach and has no experience in “High-Tech companies”. The book is about Karen transforming her executives into a high-performing team. As a new CEO, her role is to help the company regain momentum after two years of stagnation.
In his book, the author Patrick Lencioni aims to express that although teams may fail, they all fail in the same way. By learning what signals to look out for we can create strategies to prevent dysfunction.
Below, we will consider Lencioni’s ‘Five Dysfunctions’ and see how we can identify them in our own teams.
Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
Great teams are honest with one another… They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.
Have you been in a meeting where everyone takes it in turn to provide an update on their specific area? In this meeting, does each person end their section by asking whether anyone has a question? At the end of each update maybe there were no questions. Then the facilitator ends the meeting early and says: “Great, I will give you all 10 minutes back”. Was this useful? Was it interesting?
A lack of conflict or debate is a signal that there is an absence of trust in a team. If everyone provides an update and nothing needs challenging then is everything perfect? Perfection is rare. In this scenario, it is more likely that people are reluctant to be vulnerable with their team. Fear of reprisal makes people unlikely to be honest. Anxiety over appearing like you don’t know what you are doing can also cause people to act invulnerable. A team built on trust allows the people within it to admit when they need help.
One route to build trust is to learn more about the personal histories of the people in your team. There are exercises designed to help team members cultivate empathy toward one another. In the book, Kathryn adopts one of these techniques to help her executive team bond. She has each individual answer five nonintrusive personal questions. As expected, everyone in the team soon realise that they have more in common than they thought.
After everyone felt more comfortable she then followed with two more questions:
- What is your biggest strength that will help the team succeed?
- What is your biggest weakness that will prevent the team from succeeding?
In the absence of trust people would feel uncomfortable answering these two questions. Through many strategies, Kathryn succeeds in bringing her team closer. As a result, the team have a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Without being honest they would not have reached that point.
Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we’ll continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony.
Like a pernicious cycle, each dysfunction leads a team into the next. If there is no trust then team members don’t feel comfortable being vulnerable. Without a culture where people feel safe a team is void of discussion. Without discussion, there is no debate. In the end, a team has artificial harmony and 10 minutes back at the end of the meeting.
The clearest manifestation of this in Delivery teams is ‘Zombie Scrum’. Team members work through ceremonies and move tickets across a board. But instead of making real, valuable progress, they are posturing. No one in the team is comfortable confronting controversial topics. Instead, energy is wasted on low-value activities. The book doesn’t want us to be antagonistic. There is a difference between productive conflict and internal politics. With the former, the ultimate aim is to reach the best solution in the shortest possible time. Healthy conflict is a time saver.
How can a team engender a culture where productive conflict can happen? One option is to delegate a member of the team to be the ‘miner of conflict’. ‘The Miner’ is empowered to highlight sensitive issues. Once identified, The Miner needs the courage to stick with the topic and find a resolution.
Another option is to have the team complete a personality assessment. Examples of these are the Myers-Briggs test or the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Team members need to understand how they prefer to give and receive feedback. These assessments will help individuals to adjust their tone when tackling sensitive issues.
Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board.
Why do people in a team lose motivation? Lencioni suggests that there are two main contributors: Consensus and Certainty. When teams pursue Consensus and Certainty they end with a fear of failure. Or, to look at it another way: ‘analysis paralysis’. Teams prevaricate while they look for certitude instead of learning through iteration.
What is the consequence? Without a defined team goal individuals will rely on their own beliefs: Designers will believe the team should prioritise user feedback; Developers want to clear their backlog of Tech Debt and the Product Manager wants more metrics on what impact the team is having on the wider business. Everyone starts to move in different directions.
To reduce this risk a team needs to agree on their aims as a collective and as quickly as possible. The process of making a decision needs to take all opinions into consideration. Everyone needs to feel comfortable sharing their priorities. They also need to feel safe offering feedback to others. Lencioni describes this process as engaging in “productive, ideological conflict”.
In the book, Kathryn has a guiding principle to help navigate productive conflict. Her core belief is that most reasonable people are fine with not getting their way. People can accept not having their priority become their team’s priority. Instead, people at least need to have their point of view listened to and acknowledged. High-performing teams ensure that everyone shares their perspective. With all sides acknowledged, the team will enjoy what Lencioni calls ‘collective wisdom’. In conclusion, the collective can create a more informed, shared goal.
Taking this course helps teams align around a common aim. They can move forward without hesitation and can change direction without guilt.
Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do.
Everyone in a team needs to be accountable for maintaining the behaviours outlined in this article. They also need to be accountable for their responsibilities around the team goal. Carrying this out can be scary for people. Everyone wants to avoid interpersonal discomfort and calling someone out can be awkward. Yet, if everyone avoids calling out a drop in standards then the team risks creating unrest.
A team needs everyone to be working to the same standards. If someone starts to slack, then others will feel frustrated. With no formal avenue to provide feedback, discipline falls back onto the Team Leader. An awkward culture develops where one person handles accountability instead of the collective.
How can a team turn maintaining accountability into a habit? As Lencioni says, “The enemy of accountability is ambiguity”. To avoid ambiguity a team can go public with their goals. A team should publish their ambitions and express how they intend to achieve them. Creating a public record provides a point of reference for team members. People can use this as a tool to raise concerns with colleagues when they are not pulling their weight.
Another option is to utilise simple, regular feedback reviews. Feedback reviews provide a safe forum to share opinions of other people in the team. Without a formal process, responsibility falls onto the individual, which is unfair. Moreover, if someone does want to provide feedback, they don’t have a set structure to work with. Both facts make offering feedback an intimidating prospect. As a result, feedback is never given.
Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
No matter how good an individual on the team might be feeling about his or her situation, if the team loses, everyone loses.
For Lencioni, most teams don’t focus on results. Thus, establishing a target is a productive first step for a team. Most companies will have revenue or other financial measures as a guiding metric. But it is up to the team to work out what their micro goals are to help them measure their own success. The goal outlined by the team should complement the wider company’s targets. A team needs to be results-focussed and be set on delivering valuable work.
The team’s next priority is to be adaptive. They need to be aware enough to respond when their target becomes difficult. If they fail to respond, then the team will become disempowered or detached. In this situation, individuals elect to focus on their own individual goals instead. Or, they become complacent.
What separates this dysfunction from from ‘Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment’? For Lencioni, it is to do with ‘status’. When an individual disengages from a team they concentrate on status. Status can either be about the Team or the Individual.
For some individuals, being in a specific team itself is the goal. Lencioni discusses this point alongside academic institutions, political groups and altruistic not-for-profits. Whether it is Apple or the BBC, there are some organisations that are so revered that being in them is the success. Enacting change once being in them is secondary. The lure of status begins to outweigh making a difference.
Moreover, when a team’s goal becomes more difficult some people will enter self-preservation. Their status becomes a higher priority than helping the team get back on track. They will begin to focus on their own enhancement and what they can get out of the team. Both routes breed teams that stagnate and fail to deliver.
One way to safeguard against ego-driven success is to be public about the results. Teams that work in the open are more likely to bring more passion and desire. The stakes are higher and drive more commitment. Also, the goals need to be small enough to track on a daily basis. Teams need to revisit their goals and communicate every day. When the target becomes intractable everyone needs to be comfortable reprioritising.
Conclusion
The final sentence of the book comes from Kathryn: “Let’s get started”. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team doesn’t present itself as a panacea. Instead, the fable offers a toolkit to help teams identify their current dysfunctions. With these dysfunctions highlighted, team members can then look to resolve them.
The book’s final sentence reiterates that it is an emerging process and not a quick fix. Being purposeful, accountable and consistent will bring the rewards in the long term. These techniques are not complicated, but Lencioni reminds us that implementing them every day is difficult. Let’s get started.
