Book Review: Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni

Read this stuff if you are facing the problem in your team. This will try to grap you out of the dirty politics. The book is belongs to the category of Team Building. Patrick Lencioni, famous for Five Temptations of a CEO, has written this book in the same manner. He is well know of conveying management lessons by fictional story.

Here he is giving a story of one company, which is having best assets, best finanicial support, best employees in comparision to its competitors. But then also the output is not as expected. You guessed it right this all because of lack of team effort at the top management level.

Chairman of company decides send S.O.S for his company. Which results in recruitment of new CEO, while ex-CEO was relegated. Patrick while narrating fable conveys that dysfunctions can happen in any team, any company small or big, or even in sports team. He segregates five dysfunctions that can deviate best teams to path of failure. The five dysfunctions are: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commetment, avoidance of accountability, inattention to results. Which are set up in the following manner by author.

First dysfunction: Absence of trust

If the team members are not open to suggestions from peers, and they just press Alt+I (ignore) to them then, this dysfunction comes into picture. How can it be cured? By openly agreeing what are your faults, weeknesses etc.

Second dysfunction: Fear of conflict

Absence of trust paves the ways for this dysfunction. Team avoid debating openly on any issue. Cure: take only five minutes to reveal the past experience of team member, his/her success and failures in life. By this rest of the team knows well about the other team members.

Third dysfunction: Lack of commitment

Imagine a team where in members are not able to debate properly how will they be able to make a commitment, just think.

Fourth dysfunction: Avoidance of Accountability

Team without commitment will avoid to take responsiblity. And thus avoid accountability.

Fifth dysfunction: Inattention to Results

If all the above dysfunctions are present in team then fifth infiltrates automatically.

Till fifth dysfunction, problem of team is not visible. But it does not take time to get the glimpse of team mismanagement. Infact it is like dog trying to bit its own tail. If the results are deteriorated then dysfunctions are likely to increase and if any of the above dysfunctions penetrate in the team then results are to be aggravated.

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In my next blog:

• Thougthts after working in office