I finished reading this last week. Insightful and challenging book. The format is simple, just like the One Minute Manager Series if you're familiar with Ken Blanchard's books. It's a leadership fable (a short fictional story with lessons) about Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's new CEO, who faces a typical and dangerous leadership crisis that will bring down the company if it's not treated quickly, namely, a dysfunctional core team. The storyline seems quite realistic to me, and the context of the story helped get the lessons across nicely. "Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology," writes Patrick Lencioni, "it is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare." I've worked in companies and currently, in NGO and volunteer group. I say it's true. Teamwork is powerful and rare, often talk about but lacks examples.
The five (5) dysfunctions of a team model consist of: 1) ABSENCE OF TRUST. This is due to invulnerability. "Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust." 2) FEAR OF CONFLICT. "Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in an unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas." So, team members resort to politics and guarded comments. This will lead to 3) LACK OF COMMITMENT. Why? Because there is no ownership and buy-in to the ideas or decisions. So, this naturally deteriorates to 4) AVOIDANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY and 5) INATTENTION TO RESULTS. Besides invulnerability, the enemies are artificial harmony, ambiguity, low standards, and an unhealthy ego.
Well, being aware and in the know of all of these dysfunctions is not enough. Read the book to get a better picture of why teamwork is crucial today. Plus, the book also includes a team assessment and suggested tools to overcome obstacles and strengthen your team (I also would like to recommend At The Table and The Working Genius podcasts with the author). I wanted to try to apply some of them in my leadership field. But keep Mr. Lencioni's words in mind: "[The Model] is simple, at least in theory. In practice, however, it is extremely difficult because it requires levels of discipline and persistence that few teams can muster."
#ServeToLead #LeadersAreReaders #Teamwork #TheFiveDysfunctions #Leadership #PatrickLencioni #LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain
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THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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