Book Review - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
A lot of the business/management/leadership type books that I read are either so basic I just say to myself "they paid someone to write the obvious?" or so full of stats and impractical theory that Im exhausted trying to remember all the salient points and give up.
This book by Patrick Lencioni was not like that, however. He has ideas of why teams fail and the first part of the book is a fictional tale that illustrates the theories. It's the story of a new CEO coming in to a company, exposing the team dysfunctions and eliminating said dysfunctions.
The second part of the book is a little more clinical and goes into more details on the theories.
Here's what he identified:
Absence of Trust - not feeling that you can show your weaknesses to your co-workers
Fear of Conflict - incapable of engaging in unfiltered debate, resorting to veiled comments
Lack of Commitment - no actual buy-in and feigning agreement during meetings
Avoidance of Accountability - not calling peers on missed deadlines and counterproductive behaviors
Inattention to Results - putting individual needs (ego, recognition, etc.) above the team's goals
I have to admit I found a lot of what goes on in our company that could illustrate his described dysfunctions. I'm sure most people could do the same with their workplaces, too.
The one that rang true the most to me was the avoidance of accountability. We have some people who just seem to skate by, missing deadline after deadline, messing up on tasks, etc. while others pick up their slack or just let it go.
I'm one of the slack picker-uppers because I know what needs to be done and it comes down to we have to take care of our customers. I've decided, however, to start calling people on these situations. It's not easy. I hate conflict so my nature is to let things go uncalled. Trying to get better at that, though.
This book by Patrick Lencioni was not like that, however. He has ideas of why teams fail and the first part of the book is a fictional tale that illustrates the theories. It's the story of a new CEO coming in to a company, exposing the team dysfunctions and eliminating said dysfunctions.
The second part of the book is a little more clinical and goes into more details on the theories.
Here's what he identified:
Absence of Trust - not feeling that you can show your weaknesses to your co-workers
Fear of Conflict - incapable of engaging in unfiltered debate, resorting to veiled comments
Lack of Commitment - no actual buy-in and feigning agreement during meetings
Avoidance of Accountability - not calling peers on missed deadlines and counterproductive behaviors
Inattention to Results - putting individual needs (ego, recognition, etc.) above the team's goals
I have to admit I found a lot of what goes on in our company that could illustrate his described dysfunctions. I'm sure most people could do the same with their workplaces, too.
The one that rang true the most to me was the avoidance of accountability. We have some people who just seem to skate by, missing deadline after deadline, messing up on tasks, etc. while others pick up their slack or just let it go.
I'm one of the slack picker-uppers because I know what needs to be done and it comes down to we have to take care of our customers. I've decided, however, to start calling people on these situations. It's not easy. I hate conflict so my nature is to let things go uncalled. Trying to get better at that, though.
