TeamDysfunction

Patrick Lencioni�s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a fable about Kathyrn Petersen, the CEO of a Silicon Valley technology startup, who turns around a dysfunctional company. She uses the following simple model to diagnose and treat the dysfunctionality.

Let's discuss Lencioni�s model. I would like to start the discussion with the first two levels of the pyramid -- absence of trust and fear of conflict.

Trust means that a member of the team feels both safe about full participation and the good intentions of other members. Trust is absent in a dysfunctional team.

How are members of your team appreciated by each other?
How safe do you feel with your team? What's your interpretation about how other members feel? Is fully participation possible?
What do members of the team do when they are puzzled or make a mistake? Can they speak up?

Conflict means productive fights about concepts and ideas rather than unproductive, mean spirited fights about interpersonal politics. Even productive conflict has passion and emotion, which may cause outsiders to mistake the fight as unproductive discord.

During your team�s meetings, is productive conflict present? If not, what is present?
Can members of your team put the moose on the table? In other words, are controversial topics avoided?
Does your team seek the opinions and perspectives of all its members?

I like Lencioni�s book. It can be read in a few hours and it made me think. (See also TheRoleOfConflictInMeetings.) If you read it or one of his other books, please share your thoughts.

SteveSmith 2003.09.20

I think this pyramid could almost serve as an organizing principle for the AYE conference, and certainly for lots of topics on this wiki. Maybe someone will take the trouble to sprinkle a few links on this page to those other discussions. - JerryWeinberg 2003.09.21

Good idea. I've created new pages for the links. I'll add some links later. If you or anyone else is interested, please add items to the pages.
FunctionalTeamsResults
FunctionalTeamsAccountability
FunctionalTeamsCommitment
FunctionalTeamsConflict
FunctionalTeamsTrust

SteveSmith 2003.09.22

Interesting questions. I just moved jobs and joined an already established team. There are three other new people joining this team at the same time. I find that TIME is an important element in helping the team with trust. We are all still a bit too new to one another to fully trust and thus engage in productive conflict.

In the change model, we are still in chaos and feeling our way around. It does take time to work through this.

DwaynePhillips 22 September 2003

Dwayne, I agree it does take time to build trust.

Does management realize that you will be much less productive until trust is built? Does management expect you to build trust on your own? If not, what concrete plans do they have for helping you?

SteveSmith 20003.09.22

The managers are in a fog on this. Some of them have some understanding of how change occurs, but most think things just happen. I spend some time each day talking with different managers (when they are not locked away in meetings).

Their learning is also a change process which will also require time. I have to keep remembering that.

DwaynePhillips 23 Sept 2003

I've been wondering why this discussion has been bugging me. I think I'm getting it now. (As I have noted before, I am slow, sometimes.) Discussing five dysfunctions seems kind of backwards to me. What's it take to make a team work, or perhaps more accurately allow a team to work? That's a bigger deal, to me. I'd be willing to work real hard to allow those to happen. I'll get more stuff. Well, perhaps it takes five things:

Trust,
The right kind of conflict,
Commitment,
Accountability,
Results

I speculate that the moves which allow a team to jell and perform have to do with encouraging and establishing these five things. I speculate further that these five things together form a kind of self-correcting system that allows a team to jell and perform.

So, my small discomfort seems clearer to me. I speculate that there are lots and lots and lots of possible dysfunctions of a team. The "five most common" or "most deadly" is a useful discussion. The five dysfunctions of a team that when resolved allow the team to function, that's kind of interesting. The five functions of a team that allow a team to be resiliant - kind of immune to other pertubations - that's a big deal.

How about: "The five characteristics of self-steering teams?" That, I can do something about, and would be inclined to.

-- JimBullock 2003.09.24

Jim, For me, your post contained five key characteristics of a self-steering team. FWIW, the appendix of Lencioni�s book provides diagnostic and treatment information.

SteveSmith 2003.09.24

Updated: Wednesday, September 24, 2003