The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 20th Anniversary Edition

I belong to a LinkedIn group whose members are all applicants for employment at a large company. One candidate told us that the company recommended this book to him in an interview, so I purchased it. It is well written, easy to read and understand, and really gets to the heart of how companies can form good leadership teams. It starts with a "story" that describes how one leader put these practices into play to "save" a struggling leadership team at a tech company. The story part is entertaining and effectively demonstrates the steps to team effectiveness. I think it's interesting that the author couched the title in negative terms, a better title for this book would have been Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. But maybe that was too long. The second half of the book deals in more direct, technical terms with the dysfunctions identified and how much time should be spent on overcoming each along with suggestions for steps to do so. The one thing I missed in this book was that there wasn't just a list of the Five Dysfunctions so that I could refer to it to refresh my memory. The ideas were all ones I thought were obvious after decades as a team leader, but they were well-distilled into one place here, and this book would be a valuable addition to any leadership library. The big bonus was that I purchased it for Kindle, so my Echo Dot at home could read it aloud to me. I listened while I did my household tasks on a weekend, then I sat down with my mobile device and Kindle app, to review the more in depth portions of the book. Overall, I found this book well-written and well worth an afternoon's time to read it.

The five dysfunctions of a team is a business novel about a small company in silicon valley. The company is not getting the results they expect, so therefore Katerine is hired as a new CEO. After two weeks of observation, she concludes the management does not work as a team and she starts to try to create a team out of the executive group. She introduces the five dysfunctions of a team to the group. These are: - Lack of trust - Lack of conflict - Lack of commitment - Lack of accountability - Lack of focus on results Going over these one by one and using team building exercises, Katerine builds a team and gets the results she wants. At the end of the book, the five dysfunctions are summarized and the tools used by Katerine are clarified and explained. The five dysfunctions is a well written and useful book. The five dysfunctions are clearly visible in teams I worked with myself. Making the book a story makes it very easy to read. I considered the book to have two major drawbacks. The first one is that is has a strong focus on executive teams. I'd rather hear a story about an operational team. Especially considering that executive teams are rare. The second is the focus on tools for building teams. Several other excellent team literature has strong criticism on these tools. It gives the impression that if you just take the tools, they will solve the dysfunction and voila, a well working team. Of course, it's not that simple (nor does the author day that, but the book does seem to suggest it because of it's focus on tools). Conclusion. A well written book on teams, fun to read, useful, though not the best.

I have an aversion to business fables. The ones I've read give me the irrates. They seem to trivialise business. Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life , Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (Kotter, Our Iceberg is Melting) , Fish! and Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling all left me a little cold. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Fable by Patrick Lencioni. Five Dysfunctions popped up on my radar a couple of years ago and ever since then a number of people suggested I should read it. It was published back in 2002 and there seems to be quite an industry that's grown around it with addional handbooks and resources available. For me, this wasn't a good sign. Then a client lent me a copy so I started on a plane trip home from Sydney and finsihed the book in three short sittings. It's a nicely crafted story: short chapters, cliff hangers, good dialogue and believable and messy business situations. Most of Five Dysfunctions is a business story. About a third of the book, at the end, describes the five dysfunctions model. The story is about Kathryn who joins DecionTech as their new CEO. The executive team is a bit of a mess and they don't welcome her with open arms. Kathryn starts a process of conversations and straight talking at a series offsites and team meetings and engages the Executive in understanding a simple model showing what needs to happen to turn their group into a team. Like all good models it's nice and simple and can be drawn on a whiteboard. Each part of the model is interlocked. It's pointless working on one part without addressing the others. One of the real advantages of learning about the model as a story is that you hear from the characters ask and answer questions. You are a fly on the wall of an executive team and you learn through their experiences. This experiential learning is then reinforced with the didactic chapter at the end of the book. Here's how Kathryn describes the five dysfunctions. Absence of Trust: "Great teams do not hold back with one another." "They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal." Fear of conflict:"If we don't trust each other, then we aren't going to engage in open, constructive, idealogical conflict. And we'll just continue to preserve a sense of artifical harmony." Lack of commitment: "I'm talking about commitment to a plan or a decision, and getting everyone to buy into it. That's why conflict is so important." "It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like theyre been listen to, they wont really get on board." Avoidance of accountability: "Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we have signed up to do, for high standards of performance and behaviour. And as simple as that sounds, most executives hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer's behaviour, because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort." The last dysfunction, Inattention to Results, is all about putting the team before individual egos. This issue is handled over a number of chapters at the end of the fable but I wont go into detail and spoil the surprise. What I really liked about this book was just how well written the story was so are immersed in the world of an executive team and see the tensions and compromises, their good itent and judgements, and how conflict arises and can play out. There're plenty of models of good and poor behaviour, and our hero, Kathryn, shows us one way progress can be made. What struck me most was just how much time is needed for an effective team to spend together planning, discussing, arguing. The perenial push back to spending this time, however, is that tired business phrase, "we just need to get back to the real work." Well, here's the breaking news for any executive who wants their company to excel: it's your first priority to build an effective executive team so it can draw on all its talents to achieve results. I loved this book and have been recommending it all over the place. Get a copy, read it, then pass it on to another executive who you think really needs to get their team back on track.

As a learning and talent development leader who designs team effectiveness and leadership experiences, I am constantly coming back to this book for ideas and how to frame the design of a workshop. Easy to read, engaging, and the story style makes it engaging and elevates your thinking. I have every single book of his.

5 stars! Great book to read when working with a team! Highly reccomend!

Simple but very powerful concepts and principles- I have now included these into my top guides in managing a company/team. It’s also great that there is a made-up story (that is actually very realistic). I couldn’t stop reading because of the story, and I can really remember the concepts because of it. Thanks for this book.

Perfect book to move forward in my own development

Patrick Lencioni nutzt sein brillantes Storytelling um dem Leser langsam und in nachvollziehbarer Weise die Schwierigkeiten von Teams im Detail näher zu bringen. Sein Modell ist einfach und passt. Egal, welche Gruppe oder welches Team in meinem Umfeld ich durch diese Brille betrachte - es zeigt, die Problemfelder auf. Und noch wichtiger, es zeigt Lösungsmöglichkeiten. Das Buch ist bisher leider nur in englischer Sprache verfügbar, aber das Buch ist flüssig und gut verständlich geschrieben. Es ist nie langatmig oder belehrend, sondern lädt zum mitdenken ein. Gönnen Sie sich dieses ausgezeichnete Lernerlebnis verbunden mit dem Spaß einer guten Geschichte.

This book explores the common pitfalls that teams face, leading to inefficiency and failure. Through a compelling fable. Gives an amazing overview of what is important in order to create better teams, not only management teams, but any team. It is super important information if you want to improve your agile teams!

A great read that captivated my full attention as it is written as the story of an executive team in a company. The team members characteristics and styles seem so realistic and can be found in many organizations today. The process of identifying and dealing with the team's dysfunction seemed easy and practical. I look forward to reading the other books specially those focused on Leadership without which Kathryn would not have been able to bring her team around in this book. I would recommend it to anyone looking to building, consulting or coaching teams.