The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni

reviewed Joseph's Myers-Briggs results and explained the roles and responsibilities of his new peers, as well as their collective goals.

They called each other on the carpet once or twice in ways that made Joseph uncomfortable, but in each case they brought the discussions around to results.

Kathryn decided it was time to trim down the number of executives who reported directly to her. She believed that the larger the company, the smaller the team should be at the top.

her staff had grown to a barely manageable eight.

it was increasingly difficult to have fluid and substantive discussions during staff meetings with nine p...

genuine teamwork in most organizations remains as elusive as it has ever been. Second, organizations fail to achieve teamwork because they unknowingly fall prey to five natural but dangerous pitfalls, which I call the five dysfunctions of a team.

absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

This failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.

A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a...

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...

Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actio...

Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the ...

teamwork deteriorates if even a single dysfunction is allowed to flourish.

imagine how members of truly cohesive teams behave: 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.

In practice, however, it is extremely difficult because it requires levels of discipline and persistence that few teams can muster.

it might be helpful to assess your team and identify where the opportunities for improvement lie in your organization.

In the context of building a team, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers' intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group.

This description stands in contrast to a more standard definition of trust, one that centers around the ability to predict a person's behavior based on past experience.

It requires team members to make themselves vulnerable to one another, and be confident that their respective vulnerabilities will not be used against them.

The vulnerabilities I'm referring to include weaknesses, skill deficiencies, interpersonal shortcomings, mistakes, and requests for help.

As “soft” as all of this might sound, it is only when team members are truly comfortable being exposed to one another that they begin to act wi...

Achieving vulnerability-based trust is difficult because in the course of career advancement and education, most successful people learn to be competitive with their peers, and protective of their reputations.

Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another

Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback

Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas o...

Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without att...

Fail to recognize and tap into one another's skill...

Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Admit weaknesses and mistakes

Ask for help

Accept questions and input about their areas o...

Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics

Offer and accept apologies without hesitation

It requires shared experiences over time, multiple instances of follow-through and credibility, and an in-depth understanding of the unique attributes of team members.

Personal Histories Exercise In less than an hour, a team can take the first steps toward developing trust. This low-risk exercise requires nothing more than going around the table during a meeting and having team members answer a short list of questions about themselves. Questions need not be overly sensitive in nature and might include the following: number of siblings, hometown, unique challenges of childhood, favorite hobbies, first job, and worst job.

team members begin to relate to one another on a more personal basis,

It is amazing how little some team members know about one another, and how just a small amount of information begins to break down barriers.

Team Effectiveness Exercise This exercise is more rigorous and relevant than the previous one, but may involve more risk. It requires team members to identify the single most important contribution that each of their peers makes to the team, as well as the one area that they must either improve upon or eliminate for the good of the team.

All members then report their responses, focusing on one person at a time, usually beginning with the team leader.

While this exercise may seem somewhat intrusive and dangerous at first glance, it is remarkable how manageable it can be and how much useful information, both constructive a...

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

Everything DiSC.

require the participation of a licensed consultant, which is important to avoid the misuse of their powerful implications and applications.

360-Degree Feedback These tools have become popular over the past twenty years and can produce powerful results for a team. They are riskier than any of the tools or exercises described so far because they call for peers to make specific judgments and provide one another with constructive criticism.

The key to making a 360-degree program work, in my opinion, is divorcing it entirely from compensation and formal performance evaluation.

By being even slightly connected to formal performance evaluation or compensation, 360-degree programs can take on dangerous political undertones.

experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes.

Individual developmental areas must be revisited to ensure that progress does not lose momentum.

Even on a strong team—and perhaps especially so—atrophy can lead to the erosion of trust.

The most important action that a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first.