The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”
3 Main Messages:
In order to get good results, team members should be able to hold themselves and one another accountable.
This requires commitment and the ability to have debate and healthy conflict.
Underpinning all of this is trust, which comes from building positive, vulnerable relationships.
As a former school leader, I firmly believe that are three levels necessary to enable staff and students to thrive. The first is safety: we need to be safe and feel safe in order to allow our attention to focus on anything other than survival. This comes from trusting those around us and those leading us. Everything is based on trust and relationships.
Once this is in place, we can focus on happiness and kindness: friendships and collaborative experiences; positive connections are key - belonging and feeling valued. From this place we will be best placed to learn and to grow. Trust, then relationships, then learning.
Rewatching the final episode of Ted Lasso again (I’m just assuming you have all watched it - if not, why not?), when the team jigsaw together their purpose word, Ted mutters “And there it is: number four,” to himself. He is referring to the fourth function of the team: accountability. Trust is the first function. Ted Lasso, I now realise, is a portrayal of this book on a football pitch. No wonder I adore it.
Patrick Lencioni’s work certainly is legendary and has been used as the basis of team coaching and training by many leaders, including Ted, for over 2 decades, since this book was first published in 2002. He believes that the first dysfunction of a team is the absence of trust. By contrast, successful teams demonstrate deep trust and vulnerability at their foundation and everything else is built upon this.
“At the heart of it all, at the foundation of being a team, lies the most precious of all virtues and the antidote for all sin, which is humility”
This book is brilliant for so many reasons. The main concepts are introduced and explained at the beginning and the end, but the bulk of the book is told as a story. This means that the reader is able to fully understand the five dysfunctions and how to work through them in a practical way.
I admit to being utterly delighted that the main character is called Kathryn. It’s the first time I’ve ever read a book with my name repeated so frequently, and the example she sets us is both entertaining and inspiring. I skipped through the book in a day and was completely caught up in the tale.
Lencioni tells the fictional story of Kathryn and how she addresses the needs of a dysfunctional team, turning it around (spoiler!) so that each dysfunction is addressed, reversed and turned into a strength. The story starts with a team retreat, allowing the team members to get to know one another and begin the foundations of the work.
“A strong team spends considerable time together.”
The characters in the story are believable and the examples of conversations, arguments, and push-back are all too familiar. All are specifically written in order to allow the reader to understand the principles and the consequences of their absence.
Lencioni then follows this up by explaining each of the dysfunctions in detail, and providing tools which leaders and teams can use to assess themselves and invoke positive change.
It’s a simple, highly effective and enjoyable concept and I strongly believe that this is a book that every team needs to read, respond to and reflect on. If it’s enough to inspire a multiple award winning television series, it’s certainly going to inspire you.
