Customer Reviews

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am an avid reader, especially of books in the self-help and management classification. I must honestly say that in the last 10 years, this book ranks as the WORST book I have read in the area of management and leadership.

To be fair, it is well written, and an easy read. In fact I was able to read it in just two sittings during travel. Moreover, the overall concepts that the author presents are clear and seem reasonable. So why the bad review?

The fact is the author takes a far too simplistic approach to dealing with the frailties and motivations of individuals. The fictional case study is far too perfect. It is like watching a re-run of "Father Knows Best" and using that as the typical American Family. It is nice to think it, but in practice the world is not that way.

The book does not do justice to some of the real world issues in team leadership: backstabbing employees, co-dependent relationships, substance abuse, neurosis, and overall un-manageable people.

While the book presents some general principals which might work in a "laboratory setting" the leader who trys to follow this verbatim may be in for a shock at the results.

Fantastic read! A great story that reveals the challenges of teams! A great learning tool, great tempo, one of those books you just don't want to put down!

Patrick Lencioni has written an exceptionally interesting fable on optimal team performance. He has prescribed guidelines for team success and applied them in an interesting, easy to read story with a twist. He has defined easy to follow principles that with practice can lead any group or team, large or small to be great.
The book begins with a story of a potentially great company with a dysfunctional executive staff. Even though this company assembled some of the best executives and attracted top tier investors (compared to their closest competitors), the company was on a downslide. Morale was slipping and key employees were leaving. The CEO (and co-founder) was relieved of his title by the board and the search for his successor began.
This company, Decision Tech, was a high profile, two years old company with much at stake. The chairman of the board pushed for hiring Kathryn, an ancient fifty-seven years old by Silicon Valley standards. Employees and the executive staff were stunned with the news of the new hire.
The story develops by weaving Lencioni's team dysfunctions into its web. The fable is enticing and not typical of your "how to produce" guidelines book. The author keeps your interest while at the same time introducing and teaching his methods.
At the end of the story, Mr. Lencioni reviews all levels of team dysfunctions and summarizes and reiterates each. Therefore reinforcing his principles and eliminating confusion.
This is the first book I have read by this author. I found it entertaining, yet very informative. I enjoyed the novel format while receiving important informational steps for success in a team or group.
I would highly recommend this book to any person or group seeking to improve or turn around the team in which they belong. It would be a great tool for corporate teams or even the local high school basketball team. All teams would greatly benefit from Mr. Lencioni's advice.

The fictitious story used to expand on the five dysfunctions was very entertaining at the least. Ultimately, the principles outlined in the book are the utopia of teamwork. However, they are not really practical. I find myself after reading through the book still waiting for the true message on team work that I could really apply in the real world. The author does attempt to expand on his view at the end of the book but falls really short in my opinion of adding any real value.

By dedicating 90% of his book to a so-called leadership fable, Patrick Lencioni very effectively conveys the very essence of the model he proposes in order to deal with dysfunctional teams. Though the story he presents is that of a hypothetical newly appointed CEO of a distressed start-up and (in the beginning of the story) her highly dysfunctional executive team, the model is perfectly applicable to any team throughout most organizations.

The model consists of a pyramid with the five dysfunctions of a team (from the bottom, up):
1) Absence of trust: stemming from an unwillingness in the team members to be vulnerable and genuinely open up with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses.
2) Fear of conflict: inability to engage in unfiltered, passionate (yet constructive, though it may strike you as odd) debate.
3) Lack of commitment: no buy in and commitment can be expected when ideas and opinions have not been aired and genuinely taken into consideration prior to a decision.
4) Avoidance of accountability: without commitment to a clearly defined set of goals, team members will hesitate to call their colleagues on their actions and behaviors that are counterproductive for the team.
5) Inattention to results: Lencioni brings it all home through the realization that avoidance of accountability leads to a state where team members tend to put their individual needs above the team's collective goals.

Throughout the last leg of his book, Lencioni contrasts how dysfunctional teams behave by comparing them to a cohesive team in the case of each of the five dysfunctions. He also provides suggestions on overcoming each of the dysfunctions and insights into the role of the leader in this process, all in a very structured and to-the-point way. Complementing this, he provides a Team Assessment tool to help determine where your team is at in terms of each of the five elements of the model.

As much as the book can be digested without too much trouble in 2-3 straight hours, it is inevitable (unless you are fooling yourself or you operate in a very healthy team) to have your managerial wheels in your mind turning at full speed by the time you are done with it. As a manager and an avid reader, I welcomed this book with open arms because I found it to be very useful and readily applicable. Now comes my challenge in putting it to use.

First of all I like listen to Cd's rather than reading, saves me a lot of time. This Cd gives some great insight how to improve and unify a team. I like especially the summary on cd 3, so I can listen to it once a while to remember the main ideas.

I work for a Vice President of a large corporation. My VP asked me to order a copy for each of his Directors as he had read this book and found it very educational. When I recieved his order I gave him the books to personally hand to his directors. He then said I should read the book as it would be helpful for my team of administration assistants. He was right. I am glad my boss had realized that this book is good for all levels of teams. I read the book enthusiastically and plan to have my team read it as well to get a better understanding on the types of personalities we work with and how best to work with them to have a positive working environment. Both my boss and I enjoyed the easy read in a story-telling version versus a documental style.

A fantastic book that gets to the heart of what makes a team successful by telling a fable of a team that is failing. If you lead teams, chances are you'll recognize one or more of the characters in the book.

One of my favorite things about Lencioni's books is that his writing style is very accessible and each book is focused on one aspect of being a manager/leader.

This is now a classic book for leaders in every walk of life. Don't presume you need to have a DYSFUNCTIONAL team to benefit; the principles apply to every team and offer immediate help to raise the bar, wherever you're at. Read it and improve your team.

This is one in a series of "leadership fables" in which Patrick Lencioni shares his thoughts about the contemporary business world. His characters are fictitious human beings rather than anthropomorphic animals, such as a tortoise that wins a race against a hare or pigs that lead a revolution to overthrow a tyrant and seize control of his farm.

In this instance, Lencioni focuses on "the rarity" of effective teamwork, noting that "teams, because they are made up of imperfect human beings, are inherently dysfunctional." Is teamwork therefore doomed to failure? No. According to Lencioni, productive collaboration can be achieved by certain behaviors that are "at once theoretically uncomplicated, but extremely difficult to put into practice day after day." Moreover, the principles that guide and inform these behaviors "apply to more than just teamwork. I fact, I stumbled upon them somewhat by accident in pursuit of a theory about leadership" that he discusses in an earlier work, The Five Temptations of the CEO (1998).

Here's the fictional situation. A new CEO, 57 year-old Kathryn Petersen, has been hired by the board of DecisionTech to replace its co-founder and former CEO, 37-year-old Jeff Shanley, who continues to head the firm's business development. He was (in effect) forced to step down primarily because, although DecisionTech's 150 employees "seemed to like him well enough personally, they couldn't deny that under his leadership the atmosphere within the company had become increasingly troubling. Backstabbing among the executives had become increasingly troubling."

Almost immediately, it becomes obvious that Kathryn "just didn't seem to fit the DecisionTech culture" and that is a key point for reasons best revealed within Lencioni's narrative. She initiates a series of off-site meetings with her senior managers. Their discussions - and what does (and does not) happen between the off-site meetings - allow Lencioni to dramatize both the five "dysfunctions of a team" to which the title of his book refers and the solutions to each that he recommends. He is a brilliant business thinker but he also possesses the skills of a master raconteur, introducing a cast of characters, conflicts between and among them, and then allowing "rising action" build to a climax (i.e. resolution) also best revealed within the narrative.

As is his custom in each of the other volumes in the series of "leadership fables," Lencioni then provides a "Model" section and supplementary material (Pages 185-224) whose value-added benefits will help his reader to make effective application of the lessons learned from the experiences shared by Kathryn and her DecisionTech associates.

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Patrick Lencioni's other books (especially his Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team) as well as these sources in which their authors share their insights about writing an effective business narrative: Stephen Denning's The Springboard, and his soon-to-be-published The Secret Language of Leadership, Doug Lipman's Improving Your Storytelling, Annette Simmons' The Story Factor and Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, and Storytelling in Organizations co-authored by John Seely Brown, Denning, Katarina Groh, and Laurence Prusak.