OVERCOMING THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM
By Patrick Lencioni
Jossey-Bass, 2005, 155 pages
This book is a companion to one I commented on earlier. The original was about the author’s definition of the dysfunctions and how to identify them. This book is full of specific tools to help teams improve in problem areas once identified. The subtitle is A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators.
Most of the tools assume the team take part first in an assessment tool such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. Though that specific approach is not required, the author often suggests a team could use another tool, yet it is clear the exercises lined out are designed with the Myers-Briggs approach in mind. There are tools and activities that can be used without taking any such assessments, but these are limited.
The book offers exercises that can be done within a team and require no outside facilitator. After reading through them, it seems best to use someone external to the team with the experience to run the activities. Over the years I’ve sat through a number of similar approaches and tend to agree with the author on use of a facilitator. At the same time, I wonder how useful these sort of activities can be. As noted in many places, success requires full buy-in by the leader and all participants. That’s difficult to achieve. The other obstacle is the need to revisit regularly on the topic or it can be one of those things discussed in the past and not fully implemented. The ideas have to become how the group thinks, not just something the group does.
Despite the challenges to making these practically apply, the book gives some good insights to how we think individually and as a group. Teams would do well to consider using this approach with the earlier caveats in mind. I’ve used a few of the tools with my team at work in a less-overt way and have seen some positive results.
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