“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” by Patrick Lencioni

Reviewed by Erin Burry

 

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” written by Patrick Lencioni, focuses on how teamwork is the most effective way to lead a company to success. It does this by presenting a story in a fable-format of a struggling start-up company that is turned around when the new CEO, Karen, transforms ineffective, nonconfrontational meetings into arenas of discussion and conflict. The story goes as follows.

It was her first day on the job, and Karen knew she had her work cut out for her. She was coming in as the CEO to DecisionTech, a rapidly-deteriorating start-up technology company. Employee morale was low. Investors weren’t buying in, and the cofounder and CEO, Jeff Shanely, had just been asked to step down to head of business development.

Just two years earlier, DecisionTech was the most talked-about technology start-up company in Silicon Valley. It had a seemingly-unbreakable business model, influential investors, and the most experienced executive team in the Valley. The company was on hiatus, as it only seemed they could get better, when everything started to go downhill.

Now Jeff was demoted, and Karen was asked to step in. She had no previous experience with technology, but she was an expert at building teams. For the first week in her new role, she did nothing. The Board of Directors was beginning to question their decision in giving her the job.

Karen made no major changes to the company. She didn’t take over executive staff meetings. She didn’t introduce herself. She just sat and observed the current operations of the company. The one thing she did do, however, was schedule three off-site meetings in Napa for two days each over the course of the next month.

The executive team was not impressed with their new CEO for scheduling these off-site meetings when they believed they should be out making sales, but Karen had a plan that she intended to stick to.

At the first meeting, she sat everyone down to talk about themselves in an unobtrusive way. The team talked about things such as their favorite memory as a child and sports they played growing up. Before they knew it, they were learning about each other more in a few hours than they had in the past two years. This new-found trust for each other was only the beginning of Karen’s plan to make this executive team functional.

Within a few hours, Karen began to take the team through her five step process on how to work together to get things done and turn the company around. Her plan to building a successful team consisted of five interrelated concepts --- trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and attention to results.

After the team began to trust one another, Karen tested the waters by promoting conflict amongst the group. She brought up global and unresolved disagreements the team had in the past and forced them to argue until everyone could agree on something. From there, the team made a decision that incorporated everyone’s thoughts, ideas and expertise. Healthy conflict is the key to a successful company in this model because without it, decisions are not made and everyone continues to work towards their own individual and/or departmental goals.

This helped them along to the next step, which is commitment. Once the team could find a topic to agree on, they were able to commit to one plan of action the company can take to reach that goal. Accountability and attention to results, the next two steps in the team-building model, feed off of commitment. Because everyone was on the same page as to what the goal was, they could hold each other accountable for what they were supposed to be doing and what they needed their team members to do. Everyone began to work as a unit instead of by department. This also allowed them to focus their attention on the results of the goal. Previously, the team was confused as to what their goal was and instead, worked to further their departmental goals. Now that they had engaged in healthy conflict to reach a solution, each department could focus on the results for the company.

This book does an exceptional job in explaining how to effectively lead and/or work as a team in the business realm. Its approach to management theory revolves solely around communication, theorizing that the ability to communicate and engage in healthy conflict will produce results in a faster and high-quality manner. The management style used in this book is a blend of TQM and MBO. By communicating with each other and reaching an agreement, the team is able to come to a common goal and make higher-quality products. However, list-making is essential after reaching the common goal in order to keep everyone on track.

I would definitely recommend this book to other public relations students because I think it teaches a lot about the art of communication, as well as teamwork and leadership. One of the main points it drives home is that conflict is not something that should be feared, but rather an opportunity to hear an array of ideas to help make the best decision. Without conflict, you are only hearing half of the truth. This book is also helpful to public relations students because it drives home that we should be held accountable for what we do in the company. Our role is essential to helping everyone else perform their role, and we should work collectively with other departments to portray the company in the most truthful light. Sometimes, I think public relations practitioners live in their own little “bubble” and do not pay much attention to the other departments. Finally, the focus on attention to results is important to public relations practitioners because we are the face and voice of the company. We need to be informed about what exactly the company’s goals are so that we can send out one, cohesive message to the public.