The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

An Overview of the Model

Organisations fail to achieve teamwork because they fall prey to five dysfunctions that are often treated in isolation from each other, but they are actually interrelated.

1. Absence of Trust

The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. This stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

Trust is the confidence among team members that their peers; intentions are good and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. These team members are comfortable being vulnerable with each other. These vulnerabilities include weaknesses, skill deficiencies, interpersonal shortcomings, mistakes and requests for help.

Members of teams with an absence of trust

1 Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another

2 Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback

3 Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility

4 Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without trying to clarify them

5 Fail to recognize and tap into one another's skills and experiences

6 Waste time and energy managing their behaviours for effect

7 Hold grudges

8 Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Members of trusting teams

1 Admit weaknesses and mistakes

2 Ask for help

3 Accept questions and input about their areas of responsibility

4 Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving at a negative conclusion

5 Take risks in offering feedback and assistance

6 Appreciate and tap into one another's skills and experiences

7 Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics

8 Offer and accept apologies without hesitation

9 Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group

Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 1

While trust cannot be achieved overnight it requires shared experiences over time, multiple instances of follow-through and credibility and an in-depth understanding of the unique attributes of team members. The following tools are helpful to deal with a lack of trust:

1 Personal Histories Exercise - Sharing of life stories including backgrounds, hometown, number of siblings, childhood hobbies, biggest challenge growing up, their first job, etc.

2 Team Effectiveness Exercise - Team members identify their single most important contribution to the team and one area that they need to improve or eliminate for the good of the team.

3 Personality and Behavioural Preference Profile - Personality analysis tools (like the Myers-Briggs Type indicator) help team members better understand and empathize with each other.

4 360 Degree Feedback -This involves team members making specific judgments and formal performance evaluation of each other.

5 Experimental Team Exercises - These almost outdated team building methods (like ropes courses) still have a place when used in conjunction with other methods.

The Role of the Leader

The most important thing for leaders is to demonstrate vulnerability first. They must risk losing face in front of the team before team members will do so themselves! They must also create an environment that does not punish vulnerability. But displays of vulnerability by the leaders must be genuine and not staged,

Connection to Dysfunction 2

By building trust, a team makes conflict possible because team members do not hesitate to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate, knowing that they will not be punished for saying something that might otherwise be interpreted as destructive or critical.

2. Fear of Conflict

The failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: the fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.

Teams that fear conflict

1 Have boring meetings

2 Create environments where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive

3 Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success

4 Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members

5 Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management

Teams that engage in conflict

6 Have lively, interesting meetings

7 Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members

8 Solve real problems quickly

9 Minimize politics

10 Put critical topics on the table for discussion


The first step is acknowledging that conflict is productive and that many teams have a tendency to avoid it. The following tools are helpful to deal with the fear of conflict:

11 Mining - a miner of conflict is needed - someone who extracts buried disagreements within the team and to raise them in the group. They must call out sensitive issues and force team members to work through them. This requires a degree of objectivity and a commitment to stay with the conflict until it is resolved.

12 Real-time Permission - team members must be encouraged to not retreat from healthy debate. One way to do this is to recognise when people are becoming uncomfortable with conflict and remind them that what they are doing is necessary. This will give participants the confidence to continue.

13 Other Tools - there are a variety of personality style and behavioural tools that help members understand each other and particularly to know how they deal with conflict.


Leaders often try to protect team members from harm which leads to premature interruption of disagreements and prevents team members from developing coping skills to deal with conflict themselves. Rather leaders must demonstrate restraint when their people engage in conflict and allow resolution to occur naturally. Also, leaders must demonstrate by example that conflict is healthy and productive.


By engaging in productive conflict and tapping into team member's perspectives and opinions, a team can confidently commit and buy into a decision knowing that they have benefited from everyone's ideas.

3. Lack of Commitment

A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions. Though they may feign agreement during meetings. The two greatest causes of the lack of commitment are the desire for consensus and the need for certainty.

A team that fails to commit

14 Creates ambiguity among the team about direction and priorities

15 Watches windows of opportunity close due to excessive analysis and unnecessary delay

16 Breeds lack of confidence and fear of failure

17 Revisits discussions and decisions again and again

18 Encourages second-guessing amount team members

A team that commits

19 Creates clarity around direction and priorities

20 Aligns the entire team around common objectives

21 Develops an ability to learn from mistakes

22 Takes advantage of opportunities before competitors do

23 Moves forward without hesitation

24 Changes direction without hesitation or guilt


A team must take specific steps to maximise clarity and achieve buy-in, and resisting the lure of consensus or certainty. The following tools are helpful to deal lack of commitment:

25 Cascading Messaging - At the end of a meeting, the team must review the key decision made during the meeting and agree on what needs to be communicated to employees or other constituencies about those decision.

26 Deadlines - Clear deadlines must be set for when decision will be made and honouring those dates with discipline and rigidity. The worst enemy of a team is ambiguity and timing is critical.

27 Contingency and Worst-Case Scenario Analysis - Contingency plans must be discussed up front and worst-case scenarios clarified. This helps the team understand that the costs of incorrect decisions are survivable and far less damaging that they had imagined.

28 Low-Risk Exposure Therapy - Teams that are commitment-phobic need to experience decisiveness in relatively low-risk situations.


The leader must be comfortable with the prospect of making a decision that ultimately turns out to be wrong. They must also constantly push the group for closure around issues and make sure the teams keeps to schedules they have set. They must also avoid placing too much emphasis on certainty or consensus.


In order for teams to call each other on their beliefs and actions, they must have a clear sense of what is expected. Most people avoid keeping people accountable for something that was never brought in to or made clear in the first place.

4. Avoidance of Accountability

Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviours that seem counterproductive to the good of the team. Accountability is the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviour that might hurt the team.

A team that avoids accountability

29 Creates resentment among team members who have different standards of performance

30 Encourages mediocrity

31 Misses deadlines and key deliverables

32 Paces an undue burden on the team leader as the sole source of discipline

A team that holds one another accountable

33 Ensures that poor performers feel pressure to improve

34 Identifies potential problems quickly by questioning one another's approaches without hesitation

35 Establishes respect among team members who are held to the same high standards

36 Avoids excessive bureaucracy around performance management and corrective action


The key to overcoming the avoidance of accountability is to practise a few classic management tools that are as effective as they are simple:

37 Publication of Goals and Standards - it is critical to clarify publicly exactly what the team needs to achieve, who needs to deliver what ad how everyone must behave in order to succeed. The enemy of accountability is ambiguity.

38 Simple and Regular Progress Reviews - Team members should regularly communicate with one another, either verbally or in written form, how they feel their team mates are doing against stated objectives and standards.

39 Team Rewards - When rewards are shifted from individual performance to team achievement the team will create a culture of accountability. This happens because a team is not willing to stand by quietly an fail because a peer is not pulling their weight.


The leader must serve as the first and primary accountability mechanism in the group. Strong leaders made team members feel that they are handling all the accountability needs in the group. The leader must also serve as the arbiter of discipline when the team fails. While accountability is a shared team responsibility, the leader must not hesitate to step in when necessary.


If team mates are not help accountable for their contributions, they will be more likely to turn their attention to their own needs, and to the advancement of themselves or their departments, An absence of accountability is an invitation to team members to shift their attention to areas other than collective results.

5. Inattention To Results

Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (ego, career development or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.

A team that is not focused on results

40 Stagnates/fails to grow

41 Rarely defeats competitors

42 Loses achievement-oriented employees

43 Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals

44 Is easily distracted

A team that focuses on collective results

45 Retains achievement-oriented employees

46 Minimizes individualistic behaviour

47 Enjoys success and suffers failure acutely

48 Benefits from individuals who subjugate their own goals/interests for the good of the team

49 Avoids distractions


How does a team go about ensuring that its attention is focussed on results? There are two keys -making results clear and rewarding behaviours and actions that contribute to those results.

50 Public Declaration of Results - It is helpful to make public pronouncement about intended success. When this happens, teams are more likely to work with a passionate desire to achieve those results.

51 Results-Based Rewards - Rewards should be tied into the achievement of specific outcomes that relate to the goals that the team is seeking to achieve.


The leader must set the tone for a focus on results. They must be selfless and objective and reserve rewards and recognition for those who make real contributions to the achievement of group goals.

Summary

Ironically, teams succeed because they are exceedingly human. By acknowledging the imperfections of their humanity, members of functional teams overcome the natural tendencies that make trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and a focus on results so elusive.

We can explore the model by referring to five positive characteristics of effective teams:

1. They trust one another.

2. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.

3. They commit to decisions and plans of action.

4. They hold one another accountable fore delivering against those plans.

5. They focus on the achievement of collective results.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

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