Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” is an easy read. Lencioni uses a fable format to present his case. In the story, a failing startup is faced with the unenviable task of replacing its founder with an experienced turn-around CEO. The new CEO takes a few weeks to size up the leadership team. She schedules quarterly two-day offsites to analyze the players, diagnose the dysfunctions, and work on rebuiling the team and culture.
As the story unfolds and the characters are introduced, the conflicts illustrated are strickingly familiar to managers working in corporate America.
Her team is resistant to the touchy-feely outings, and the new CEO is tested in fixing what has become a toxic workplace. In her meetings, the brilliant but socially awkward CTO spends more time responding to emails than listening. The capable and cock-sure CMO lacks confidence in her colleagues and prefers to operate her team and projects without outside collaboration. The CEO’s offsites and management meetings gain momentum after the team’s initial skepticism. Once the team returns to the office, the dysfunctions and bad habits return. The executive outings and meetings are providing little improvements despite the promissing progress discussed during the meetings. The little gains eventually gather momentum as resistant leadership members voluntarily and involuntarily exit the company. With each passing quarter, the dysfunctions are reduced. Finally, after many fits and starts, the team begins to operate as a cohesive and productive unit.
Lencioni’s use of the fable is interesting. In the story, the theory meets the messy reality of an idiosycratic team. Lencioni could have used a more familiar how-to approach to present the 5 dysfunctions and the recommendations to eliminate these defects. The how-to method invariably over-simplifies the solutions and gloss over the difficulty in getting buy-in. Lenconi’s fable better exemplifies the reality of the focus, dedication and discipline required by the leader, in this case the new CEO, to see the change management program through towards its ultimate objective of developing a cohesive executive team. The new program suffers from skepticism, attrition and sabotage during the introductory phase before it begins to breakthrough and convert the leadersship team. A half-hearted implementation of a radical new business approach is dangerous if the leader is unwilling to persevere and deal with the initial backlash. Change is hard. Change is a treat to the status-quo. Members subscribing to the status-quo will not adopt change without a fight. The question for the leader looking to radically shake up the culture is “are you willing to go through many dark days and outright rebellion?” Unless the answer is a demostrative “yes”, its best to put the radical restructing plan on hold. The resistant team will likely outlast the change agent.
What are the 5 disfunctions?
The diagram sums up Lencioni’s thesis.
- The “nice” culture.
When an organization’s culture is overly collegial, collaboration and quality suffers. The team is overly concerned about bruising each others egos, and therefore allows mediocrity to thrive. Concensus decision-making is common in the “nice” org as well. A simple decision gets over-complicated as too many opinions are gathered and considered.
2. The “tyrannical” culture.
The counter to the “nice” culture is the fear-based culture. One or more high-level executives call the shots. They ignore or belittle line-workers and other stake-holders who dare to question their decisions. When a problem arises, the leader will blame the failures on others, rather than the ill-conceived plan they have directed. The culture of fear spreads and the unappreciated members are silenced and discouraged by their lack of influence and control.
3. The “me” culture.
When personal achievements are rewarded irrespective of team performance, the organization lacks the cohesiveness to win. The high performers head in their own individual direction, leaving the team without a clear pathway to success. Turf-wars develop and collaboration breaks down.
Is teamwork nurture or nature?
Can you blame a toxic work environment for bad behavior, or do toxic individually naturally gravitate to toxic organizations?
Does a healthy culture naturally reject toxic members?
Can a problematic employee be reconditioned to perform collaboratively in a healthly team culture?
In the story, the CMO fully resists the new collaborative culture. To the benefit of the team, she is exited after warnings and months of disruptive behavior. In contrast, the CTO slowly buys into the new program and eventually is converted into a believer. As the organization notches wins after a rough launch, the buy-in grows. Ultimately the new collaborative and honest, often brutally-honest, culture takes hold.
Transparency, accountability, teamwork, and trust. Obvious right?
Read “The Five Dysfunctions of the Team” and it becomes clear that practice is messier than theory.
Another good business fable book, in fact inspired by “The Five Dysfunctions”, is “Get a Grip” by Gino Wickman and Mike Paton. “Get a Grip” focuses on setting well-defined roles and accountability for a business. The book recommends a process for the leadership team to set and achieve short-term (weekly), medium-term (quarterly and annual), and long-term (3-year and 10-year) goals to drive a business forward without getting bogged down. The approach provide a framework for a business to get out of the trap that battling day-to-day distractions create. Using Wickman and Paton’s approach a business can focus on the big picture and take actionable steps to drive the business foward.
