Book Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni

My good friend Sasha Cherry recommended this book to me, because she knows I love a good business book, and she knows that I do a lot of work training leaders and managers.

I am glad that she did.

This book is an easy read, because it takes the form of a story – its strapline is “A Leadership Fable”. It tells the story of a leader who is new to a business, new to a sector, and inherits an existing executive team.

Any manager or leader will recognise the character types in this fictional team, and empathise with the challenges they present.

The story is used to illustrate five inter-related dysfunctions of teams (and how to overcome them):

·        Absence of trust (encourage open and honest conversations)

·        Fear of conflict (disagree openly and respectfully so that well informed decisions can be made)

·        Lack of commitment (once people have been heard, you can seek buy-in)

·        Avoidance of accountability (being prepared to call each other out when plans are not delivered on)

·        Inattention to results (make sure the team’s goals are more important than individual egos)

At the end of the story, there is a kind of toolkit to help the reader apply their learning in their own teams.

What I particularly like about this book is that where most books tell you how to address issues ‘in theory’, because this book is in the form of a story, you actually hear examples of HOW to phrase things… real words and phrases you can use in real life.

So – a relatively short book review, but I’d definitely recommend the book to anyone who may ever have to take on a new team.

Disclaimer: I write book reviews of books I have read and found useful in some way. 

I do not get paid for endorsing any author/service/product, because I believe that would impact on my ability to be completely objective.

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