Team Dysfunction and How Leaders Can Unlock Team Success

Team Dysfunction – A Look at Lencioni’s: “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”

In today’s dynamic workplaces, teams are the cornerstone of productivity, innovation, and success. However, the journey towards effective teamwork is not without its hurdles. In his seminal work, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni outlines the common pitfalls that sabotage team effectiveness and offers insights into overcoming them.

On my bookshelf, I have three books by Patrick Lencioni. His books, packed with high-value ideas, follow a fable or story format and describe how teams and groups work and function together, or maybe not! And you know me – I love a good story!

Let’s explore team dysfunction and examine how we, as leaders, can help our teams overcome or avoid them.

Team Dysfunctional Traits

Absence of Trust

Trust forms the foundation of all successful teams. Team dysfunction accumulates when team members are reluctant to be vulnerable with one another, creating an atmosphere of apprehension and undermining collaboration. Building trust requires openness, honesty, and vulnerability. Team leaders can foster trust by setting an example, encouraging transparent communication, and providing opportunities for team members to get to know one another personally.

Fear of Conflict

Healthy conflict is an essential component of effective teamwork. It allows team members to challenge ideas, explore perspectives, and arrive at innovative solutions. However, the fear of conflict can lead to artificial harmony, where important issues go unaddressed, and decisions are made hastily or based on incomplete information. To overcome this dysfunction, teams must create a culture that values constructive debate and encourages dissenting opinions. Establishing ground rules for conflict resolution and facilitating open discussions can help teams harness the power of productive conflict.

Lack of Commitment

Even the most well-conceived plans will fail without commitment. Team members must fully invest in collective goals and decisions; progress stalls, and initiatives falter. Building commitment requires clarity of purpose, alignment around common goals, and clear expectations regarding individual roles and responsibilities. Team leaders should ensure that everyone understands the team’s objectives, actively seek input from all members, and foster a sense of ownership and accountability.

Avoidance of Accountability

In high-performing teams, members hold themselves and others accountable for their actions and performance. However, in dysfunctional teams, accountability is often viewed as punitive rather than empowering, leading to a culture of finger-pointing and excuses. To cultivate accountability, teams must establish clear performance metrics, regularly review progress toward goals, and hold each other to high standards of excellence. By fostering a mutual accountability and support culture, teams can drive continuous improvement and achieve collective success.

Inattention to Results

Ultimately, any team’s purpose is to achieve results. Yet in dysfunctional teams, individual goals and ego often precede the collective good, leading to siloed efforts and missed opportunities. To combat this dysfunction, teams must prioritize collective goals over individual interests, celebrate achievements, and learn from setbacks. By aligning individual actions with the team’s objectives and emphasizing the importance of shared success, teams can maximize their impact and realize their full potential.

How We Can Help

I have mentioned in recent weeks that we continue to do a great deal of work with organizations looking to either unlock the potential of a team or to do a course correction on a team clearly in need of help.

We focus on these five elements through group discussions and activities, all designed to build trust, create an atmosphere of learning about how to resolve conflict healthily, build commitment to the team’s purpose, hold each other and themselves accountable in the team, and finally, focus on the team’s goals.

The results have been awesome, if I do say so myself. We are happy to talk to you if you need help or just ideas to pour rocket fuel on your team.

As leaders and team members, we are responsible for cultivating a culture of excellence and collaboration where every member feels valued, empowered, and inspired to contribute their best. Only then can we truly harness the transformative power of teamwork and realize our collective vision for the future.