What Constitutes a Great Team?
Here are my takeaways from the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
The characteristics of a great team are:
- Trusting in one another.
- Engaging in unfiltered conflict around ideas.
- Commit to decisions and plans of action.
- Hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.
- Having a focus on the achievement of collective results.
For building great teams, be aware of the dysfunctions of a team and then work towards removing them. It all starts with trust and connection with the team.
Patrick Lencioni discusses five dysfunctions of a team that are, unusually mistakenly interpreted as, five distinct issues that can be addressed in isolation of the others. But in reality, they are interrelated, and having even one of them is potentially lethal for the success of the team. The five dysfunctions of a team as described by Patrick Lancioni in his book are as follows:
1- Absence Of Trust
Trust is the foundation of teamwork, being able to understand each other and open up to each other is integral. Being afraid to admit one’s mistakes and weaknesses shows an absence of trust. Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. One of the ways to build trust is to connect with each other at a personal level.
The absence of trust stems from the team’s 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.
2- Fear Of Conflict
If a team does not trust each other, they try to preserve a sense of fake harmony, and as a result, they are not able to engage in an open and constructive conflict. Lack of conflict is a problem. If harmony comes only as a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, it is a bad thing.
Consensus is an attempt to please everyone, which can turn into displeasing everyone equally as people want to share their opinions and need the feeling of being listened to, which is necessary to have everyone on board. Most reasonable people do not have to get their way in a discussion. They just need to be heard and to know that their input was considered and responded to.
Teams that lack trust, are incapable of engaging in an unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.
3- Lack Of Commitment
A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it gives birth to 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 show agreement during meetings.
Even if people are generally willing to commit, they are not going to do so without having an open discussion because people need to weigh in before the can really buy in.
4- Avoidance Of Accountability
The lack of commitment and buy-in gives birth to an avoidance of accountability. 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.
If there is buy in from the team members, it is easy for the peers to keep each other accountable. It is harder to point out mistakes in peers, as compared to direct reports, but if all the team members are working for the same goal and are committed to their part towards it, team members should be able to keep each other accountable.
5 – Inattention To Results
Failing to hold each other accountable leads to inattention to results, which gives birth to the tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of the goals of the entire team.
Making the collective ego greater than the individual ego is important. Great team members tie their egos to a clear collective goal, of winning as a team instead of trying to enhance their individual status or ego.
The above mentioned list of dysfunctions of a team, shows that for building a great team, start with building trust in the team and define team goals and results in a way that is simple enough to grasp easily and specific enough to be actionable, for example, profit as a goal is not actionable enough, it needs to be more closely related to what we do on a daily basis.
What is your approach to building great teams?
