The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

I recently read the book named “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni in Manga Style comics. It is simple superb and very engaging book. It is written in the Comics style, this is the 1^st time I am reading team management related book in this style.

Author explained 5 dysfunctions in these Comics having the real time situation using the fictitious characters. He organized these in Pyramid format and how each one of these 5 things relates to each other.

• Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
  • Fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust on a team.
• Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
  • The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.
• Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
  • The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.
• Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
  • The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.
• Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
  • The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective results.

It perfectly make sense to Keep absence of Trust as the base for this pyramid; as without trust nothing else works in the team environment. We generally talk about trust when it comes to work relationship, but in this book author explain Trust as “when you have trust with each other you can count on them they don’t play with your weakness, inefficiency etc”. If we have this kind of trust within a team, they can achieve to their fullest potential and enjoy throughout the period doing that.

Author summarized all 5 five dysfunctions after the story is completed, how to handle to them, different techniques can be applied to the specific dysfunctions.Even though this book is targeted for the Executive board members, I would still recommend this book any manager who manages team which has common goal to achieve and it is worth of time reading.

You can try out scoring sheet to find out where your team stands,
http://flpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/pdfs/Five%20Dysfunctions%20of%20a%20Team.pdf