The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team is split into two parts. The first three quarters of the book starts with a fictional tale to help put the 5 dysfunctions into the context of a business. This is then followed by the 5 dysfunctions model, which provides details on symptoms, how to overcome the dysfunction, the leader’s role in managing the dysfunction, etc. The fable tells the story of a former automotive manufacturing executive, Kathryn, becoming the CEO of a troubled, Pre-IPO tech Silicon Valley startup, DecisionTech. The last two years have not gone according to the board’s plan; there’s been little growth, projects are delayed, and they’re falling behind their competition even though they have more investors, a better product, and a more experienced executive staff. The chairman of the board has hand-selected Kathryn because of her ability to right the ship in these types of situations.

Kathryn spends her first two weeks simply observing her new executive team and finds that they aren’t functioning as a team at all. Instead, they are each doing what’s best for themselves and their department - a pretty common situation among executive teams and one that Kathryn is all too familiar with. She devises a plan to bring this executive team together, knowing it’s a long, difficult road that many of her team will push back against.

Kathryn schedules three weekend team off-sites to occur within the next three months. The context of the message is simple:

• The executive team is not functioning as a team and that has to change.
• Everything we do is about making the company succeed.
• Everyone still on the team at the end will come to realize why this is so important.
• We’ll need to solve for the five dysfunctions to really start acting like a team.
• It’s very easy to fix it on paper, but incredibly difficult implement in our day-to-day lives.

The First Dysfunction: Absence of Trust

Symptom: Invulnerability

“Trust is the foundation of real teamwork… The only way to build trust is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”

“Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal... Most successful people learn to be competitive with their peers… but it is only when team members are truly comfortable being exposed to one another that they begin to act without concern for protecting themselves. They can then focus their energy and attention completely on the job at hand.”

Overcoming this dysfunction can take a significant amount of time. It requires that the team share experiences, it requires team members to follow through on what they’ve said they’ll do in order to build credibility, and it requires the team to understand the attributes that make each of the team members unique.

Lencioni provides a few exercises that can dramatically accelerate the process and decrease the amount of time needed and risk levels for each activity. They include a personal histories exercise, a team effectiveness exercise, a personality and behavioral preference profile (e.g. Myers-Briggs, etc.), as well as a few others. Be careful in performing any of these before the team is ready for them; a certain amount of existing trust may be required for the exercise to be effective.

The leader’s role in overcoming this dysfunction is to 1) show the team that it’s okay to be vulnerable by first demonstrating vulnerability and 2) ensuring that the environment does not punish vulnerability.

The Second Dysfunction: Fear of Conflict

Symptom: Artificial Harmony

Office politics can be a big driver of this dysfunction. “Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think... If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we’ll just continue a sense of artificial harmony” that brews tension. Tension is not the same as conflict.

“Every effective team I’ve ever observed had a substantial level of debate… I don’t think anyone ever gets used to conflict. If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway.”

“The first step is acknowledging that conflict is productive and that many teams have a tendency to avoid it. As long as some team members believe that conflict is unnecessary, there is little chance that it will occur… Teams that engage in productive conflict know that the only purpose is to produce the best possible solution in the shortest period of time… It is ironic that people avoid conflict in the name of efficiency because healthy conflict is actually a time saver… Those that avoid conflict actually doom themselves to revisiting issues again and again without resolution... The higher you go up in the management chain, the more you find people spending inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to avoid the kind of passionate debates that are essential to any great team.”

Strategies for overcoming this dysfunction include “Mining” and “Real-time permission.” In mining, the leader assigns the “miner of conflict” role to a team member and that person hunts out hidden disagreements within the team and brings them to light. Real-time permission is a method of continuously reminding the team that the conflict they are in engaged in is good for the team and not something to avoid.

The leader’s key role here is to stay out of the way of an engaged team. Even though it may feel like the leader is losing control, we must allow a natural resolution.

The Third Dysfunction: Lack of Commitment

Symptom: Ambiguity

Certainty and consensus are the two biggest reasons why teams do not achieve commitment from their members.

• Certainty - Many times, the lack of information is cited as the reason why a decision is not made. “In most cases, the teams have all the information they need but it resides within the team itself and must be extracted through unfiltered debate... Paralysis and lack of confidence breeds within a team." Teams will save time by making the decision and later pivoting if that decision ends up being wrong, rather than waiting for all of the data.
• Consensus – “Consensus is horrible. It becomes an attempt to please everyone, which usually leads to displeasing everyone equally." To boot, it's not even needed for commitment. “Most people don’t have to get their way in a discussion. They just need to be heard, and to know their input was considered and responded to... Disagree and commit.”

This dysfunction can be overcome by: 1) Summarizing the decisions – quite often it is uncovered that members are not on the same page. While this may re-open the debate, that is far better than going down the wrong path for the next several days (or weeks). 2) Assigning deadlines – this can help the team to stay focused and come to a conclusion rather than dragging out the decision. 3) Reducing concerns – the lack of data and the finality of making a decision can be daunting. Concerns can be reduced by assessing the worst-case scenarios, building contingency plans, and reminding the group that we can pivot later if our decision ends up being wrong.

The leader’s role in this dysfunction is to: 1) Push the team for closure on any uncovered issues. 2) Occasionally act as the ultimate decision maker/tie-breaker. 3) Be comfortable with being wrong. 4) Ensure that those team members that did not agree with decisions are still 100% committed to the direction.

The Fourth Dysfunction: Avoidance of Accountability

Symptom: Low Standards

Accountability in this context is the “willingness to call out our peers on performance and behaviors that might hurt the team... We have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do... but people aren't going to hold each other accountable if they haven't clearly bought in to the same plan."

"As hard as it is to ‘enter the danger’ with your direct reports… it’s even harder with your peers... Most executives hate to do it… They want to avoid interpersonal conflict.”

“The enemy of accountability is ambiguity. Keep agreements in the open so that no one can easily ignore them… There is nothing like the fear of letting down respected teammates that motivates people to improve their performance.”

This dysfunction can be overcome by 1) publicizing goals and standards, 2) simple and regular progress reviews, and 3) developing a team reward system.

The leader’s role in overcoming this dysfunction is to let the team act as the primary accountability mechanism. The leader should only step in when necessary and to set an example for how the team should hold one another accountable.

The Fifth and Final Dysfunction: Inattention to Results

Symptom: Status and Ego

“The ultimate dysfunction of a team is the tendency of members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group.” It’s easy for team members to be more focused on their individual status rather than their team’s results. “The key is to make the collective ego greater than the individual egos.”

Ask yourself, “which team is my first team?” Is it your direct reports or is it your team of peers? If you’re closer to your direct reports, then you’re at risk of prioritizing your individual goals over the team’s goals.

Everyone needs to adopt a common set of goals and metrics and then use them to make decisions on a daily basis. “No matter how good an individual on the team might be feeling about his or her situation, if the team loses, everyone loses.”

The leader’s role is to ensure the group remains focused on what is valuable. “If team members sense that the leader values anything other than results, they will take that as permission to do the same.

Teamwork will be significantly impacted if even one dysfunction exists. Fixing the team dynamic can be a long and difficult process. Not everyone will make it through the process. Some team members may need to exit the team in order for the team to grow as a cohesive unit. That’s okay; not everybody wants to be intimately involved in that kind of team.

Other Quotes and Key Takeaways:

“It is teamwork that remains to ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare... If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

You don’t necessarily have to be an expert in the industry to be a good leader. “Jack Welch didn’t have to be an expert on toaster manufacturing to make General Electric a success.”

“Everything we are going to be doing is about one thing: making this company succeed.”

To be effective in meetings, we need to focus. Shut down our computers and e-mail. “Everyone needs to be fully engaged in whatever we are talking about… It’s more of a behavioral issue than a technological one”

It’s common for an individual’s strengths and weaknesses to be rooted in the same behaviors. The behaviors that make us strong in one skillset may make us weak in others. That’s okay; that’s the reason why we need each other. Nobody should be expected to lead an organization without feedback and help from our peers.

Is this a team or is it a collection of individuals?

“When people don’t unload their opinions and feel like they’ve been listened to, they won’t really get on board.”

“If everything is important, then nothing is.”

“Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don’t think it’s easy to hold anyone accountable.”

“Push with respect, and under the assumption that the other person is probably doing the right thing.”

“Small gaps between executives high up in an organization become major discrepancies by the time they reach employees below.”

Verdict

The DecisionTech fable is a fun way to be introduced to the five dysfunctions. The story is all too common for those working in a wide range of professions and there are several one-liner quotes that you’d miss out on if you skipped over it. Once I got into Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions Model, I found myself flipping back to the story to re-read some of my notes and highlights. Overall, the ideas Lencioni describes are incredibly simple and he reiterates them on multiple occasions throughout the book. The issue will always be practicing those ideas on a day-to-day basis and getting buy-in from everyone on the team.