Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions Of A Team

940 Words2 Pages

The book the “Five Dysfunctions of a Team was a very interesting read. The author Patrick Lencioni focused on how these five dysfunctions could happen to a team. Lencioni used a model of a pyramid, with five different levels displaying each dysfunction. Each level explained how a team can experience a dysfunction, and how that dysfunction can create a downward spiral within the team. I will take a look at each dysfunction and some techniques to improve or prevent these dysfunctions from happening. The first level is “absence of trust”, team members don’t trust each other. Certain members could be afraid to be vulnerable to people that they work with. This could cause for other members to mistrust them because they seem secretive and …show more content…

During this stage it’s hard to see accountability with the team. Individual or group accountability can be absent. The members don’t recognize that they are part of a team anymore. They may only look out for what issues they may encounter at the job. Dysfunction number five is, “inattention to results”. A team member or multiple members of the team only worries about their needs and wants. The team goals are no longer important but individual goals are. In the book this was a major issue with several of the team members. Each level of dysfunction lays a blueprint to the next one. Members of the team that can’t show their vulnerable side can cause major trust issue. If these trust issues are not resolved then the team will enter into dysfunction number 2. Team members don’t feel comfortable enough to engage in healthy conflict, especially during meetings. The lack of trust has caused this break down with team members. Without conflict team members don’t speak up and voice their opinions. Alternatives may not be on the table because the required process of dysfunction number 2 didn’t happen. During the period for dysfunction number 3 the lack of commitment for the team is very apparent. Members are not doing everything they could to make the team effort a …show more content…

It was a very bad situation that we could never pull ourselves out of. Unfortunately we didn’t have anybody like Kathryn Peterson from Decision Tech to help change the team’s overall behavior. We didn’t communicate with each other effectively, or fully trusted each other. Some of the team didn’t hold other members accountable for their actions. Other members didn’t show vulnerability but they did display anger during meetings. Several of the team members only looked out for self. They didn’t want to work on committees because they wanted to complete tasks their way and not by committee decision. We displayed each level of the five dysfunctions. Needless to say the company eventually make several changes to this particular

Open Document