The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni
Told as a fable, The Five Dysfunctions follows the first year of a new CEO entering a company that has all the key ingredients for success. And yet they are failing: why?
The new CEO quickly diagnoses the source of the problem: the executive team. Over a series of offsite retreats in Napa, the new CEO educates her colleagues about the five dysfunctions and enlists them to create their own solutions.
It isn’t easy. Certain VPs openly sulk. Others quietly rebel. Not all will still be there by the end of the book. (Note to Hollywood: this book would be easily-adaptable to the horror genre!) Fortunately, the model CEO remains calm and confident that when the right team finally starts to work together, results will follow.
Here are the five dysfunctions:
Absence of trust. This underpins everything, and means that team members refuse to admit vulnerability.
Fear of conflict. This results from lack of trust, and means that the team may function with artificial harmony. That prevents important decisions from being made, and keeps disagreements simmering below the surface.
Lack of commitment. This can stem from the fear of conflict. If people haven’t said aloud their concerns in order not to rock the boat, they may agree to something without actually being committed to it, meaning it’s unlikely that project will actually succeed.
Avoidance of accountability. In part because of all of the above, team members may not hold themselves or their peers accountable. Themselves because they didn’t actually commit to the decision, and their peers because they fear conflict. The result is low standards.
Inattention to results. If the team doesn’t agree on a shared goal then they focus instead on their own departmental or individual wins. These may in no way contribute to the actual mission, but they can be satisfied with their own job well done. This is directly counter to the whole point of working together in the first place.
Countering these dysfunctions requires the CEO to convince the group to agree that they exist, see how they play out in real life, and decide to work together to course correct. Meyers-Briggs tests are involved! The CEO must be patient with missteps and backsliding, but ultimately when they start to see the changes in their company’s bottom line, the talented executives unite.
Like the ending of any good fable, the team lives happily–wealthily–ever after.
Do I recommend The Five Dysfunctions of a Team to nonprofit leaders?
Yes. Definitely. It’s so hard to be an imperfect human leading groups of other imperfect humans, and this book makes that really clear. I suspect The Five Dysfunctions has endured for decades largely for the acknowledgment of how tough it can be to bring people together, and that improving the team dynamics won’t be a linear process.
Nonprofit leaders will also likely find the solution of focusing on results to be especially useful. Recentering on how to best achieve the mission is likely to be a powerful unifier for mission-driven people and teams.
As well, the book gives extra emphasis to the “nice” problem, which I’ve witnessed in many nonprofits. (And by witnessed, I mean fostered. Cringe.) Because the group is full of kind and thoughtful people, many nonprofits mistakenly believe they have strong team because everyone is always polite. And yet, obviously-needed changes may never be enacted because it might hurt someone’s feelings. Lencioni places a strong emphasis on the importance of heated debate, even comparing meetings to movies: they’re more interesting when they have a conflict.
There are a few moments in The Five Dysfunctions that feel distinctly old-fashioned. For example, the CEO has one employee with a penchant for eye-rolling and sarcasm. The CEO is clear and direct with that employee about what needs to change or else she’ll need to leave the organization. A more modern first step of a top-notch leader would be to have a deeper one-on-one conversation with the employee to understand what’s beneath the behavior. If that doesn’t work, then the CEO should continue with the more ultimatum-style conversation about what needs to change and by when or else what.
Still, my final recommendation is yes, nonprofit leaders will likely appreciate this book. At the very least, it’s a guilty pleasure to read about someone else’s staff meeting drama.
