The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni

It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.

The fact remains that teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional.

“Trust is the foundation of real teamwork. And so the first dysfunction is a failure on the part of team members to understand and open up to one another.

“Great teams do not hold back with one another,” she said. “They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”

“Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”

the ultimate dysfunction: the tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of results.

create the best team possible, not to shepherd the careers

“The key, of course, is to define our goals, our results, in a way that is simple enough to grasp easily, and specific enough to be actionable.

“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 to preserve a sense of artificial harmony.”

lack of commitment and the failure to buy in to decisions.”

most reasonable people don’t have to get their way in a discussion. They just need to be heard, and to know that their input was considered and responded to.”

we have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do, for high standards of performance and behavior.

People aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought in to the same plan. Otherwise, it seems pointless because they’re just going to say, ‘I never agreed to that anyway.’”

Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating.

trust is not the same as assuming everyone is on the same page as you, and that they don’t need to be pushed. Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.”

Push with respect, and under the assumption that the other person is probably doing the right thing. But push anyway. And never hold back.”

Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.

Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings.

Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team.

Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.

They trust one another. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas. They commit to decisions and plans of action. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans. They focus on the achievement of collective results.

a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first. This requires that a leader risk losing face in front of the team, so that subordinates will take the same risk themselves. What is more, team leaders must create an environment that does not punish vulnerability.

By building trust, a team makes conflict possible because team members do not hesitate to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate, knowing that they will not be punished for saying something that might otherwise be interpreted as destructive or critical.

One simple but effective way to do this is to recognize when the people engaged in conflict are becoming uncomfortable with the level of discord, and then interrupt to remind them that what they are doing is necessary. As simple and paternal as this may sound, it is a remarkably effective tool for draining tension from a productive but difficult interchange, giving the participants the confidence to continue.

One of the most difficult challenges that a leader faces in promoting healthy conflict is the desire to protect members from harm. This leads to premature interruption of disagreements, and prevents team members from developing coping skills for dealing with conflict themselves.

commitment is a function of two things: clarity and buy-in.

it is better to make a decision boldly and be wrong—and then change direction with equal boldness—than it is to waffle.

unwillingness of team members to tolerate the interpersonal discomfort that accompanies calling a peer on his or her behavior and the more general tendency to avoid difficult conversations.

Members of great teams improve their relationships by holding one another accountable, thus demonstrating that they respect each other and have high expectations for one another's performance.