Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni’s book, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is a very helpful and practical guide to overcoming the five most destructive traits in teams and learning how to become and maintain the best team possible. Though this book is primary focused on teams that work together in a secular work place, the information is also very applicable to teams found in churches, non-profits, and even within relationship structures like marriage and family. Patrick writes, “Teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped.”[1]
The five main team dysfunctions listed and addressed in the book are:
- Absence of Trust
- Fear of Conflict
- Lack of Commitment
- Avoidance of Accountability
- Inattention to Results.
The author uses a pyramid structure to illustrate the importance and priority of each dysfunction. The first dysfunction that the team must overcome and is illustrated as the foundation is, “absence of trust.” Trust is the foundation of the team as Lencioni states, “No quality or characteristic is more important than trust.”[2] Secondly, the most important dysfunction to overcome is the “fear of conflict” because without healthy confrontation the team cannot truly grow past their individual disagreements and unify their best ideas.
Next, “lack of commitment” needs to be overcome because if a team is not equally committed to accomplishing their tasks they will never achieve their goals. Second from the peak is “avoidance of accountability” because for each team member to give his or her best to the team they must be personally assessed, critiqued, and encouraged. Lastly, but not the least important, just simply the last thing to do in an effective team, is to overcome “inattention to results” because without team assessments and goal reviews the team cannot achieve its goals and reach beyond them.
TEAM PROBLEM SOLVING
The book takes time to give practical insight to establishing each level of the healthy team pyramid by correcting the dysfunctions. In other words, the book instructs the reader on what to do right by avoiding the common pitfalls. The book ends with giving the reader a basic “Team Building Field Plan” regarding how to build a successful team on good practices that will help insure a strong foundation. Most of the insight in the plan is common sense and probably will not strike the reader as, “new information.” However, I do believe the chart and brief description regarding “Conflict Resolution” is very good and insightful.
Basically, Lencioni illustrates getting to the “heart of the matter” with circles within circles getting smaller as one gets closer to the resolution. The four main circles are:
- Individual Obstacles
- Relationship Obstacles
- Environmental Obstacles
- Informational Obstacles
Therefore, when a team can properly understand and move effectively through the various obstacles they can truly resolve the conflict in a beneficial and efficient way for the team to achieve its goals.
In conclusion, I would recommend this book to just about anyone who desires to either lead a team or be a better team member. Below I have posted some helpful charts with the more in-depth ones at the bottom. I hope that this post has helped encourage you to build a better team and solve team related problems effectively!
CHARTS
Click to enlarge the more detailed charts:
Footnotes:
[1] Lencioni, Patrick. Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 3.
[2] Ibid., 13.