How to make your team great again!
"Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal"
This is a quote from the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which has become the world’s most definitive source on practical information for building teams. It is a classic books on the topics of Leadership and Organizational Development.
The author, Patrick Lencioni, identifies five problems with executive teams and presents them through a story and then analyzes.
The 5 dysfunctions and how to deal with them.
1. Absence of trust: trust is comfort with showing vulnerability and admitting mistakes to teammates.
As a leader, you can prevent this dysfunction by encouraging open dialogue in meetings. Then, work with your managers to identify situations where employees demonstrate lack of trust and bring it out in the open through discussions that focus on the strength of each team member, and address behaviors that lead to mistrust engaging in frequent 1-on-1 feedback sessions, or a group SWOT analysis.
2. Fear of conflict: teams need to be able to have passionate debate and walk away with no collateral damage. Lencioni describes a “false harmony” that is a sign of this.
What is important here is to focus on discussion and resolving issues quickly without resorting to personal attacks. That being said, healthy conflict saves time and results in better decisions. Practice restraint and allow conflicts to resolve naturally. But as the company leader you must set the expectation that personal attacks will not be tolerated. Wipe out this dysfunction by looking for passive-aggressive behavior behind the scenes or back-channel attacks and calling it out.
3. Lack of commitment: the key here is while not everyone gets their way, they should all be heard and their opinions considered and valued.
Productive conflict taps into everyone’s perspectives, which allows everyone to confidently buy in and commit to decisions. Build commitment in your company by demonstrating decisiveness, and communicating awareness and acceptance of the fact that some decisions may turn out wrong. Then, cascade messaging to key people in your organization to support follow-through on decisions and ensure that everyone is aligned.
4. Avoidance of accountability: accountability is a team effort. Team members need to hold each other accountable when behaviors and actions do not support team goals.
Peer pressure is the most effective means of producing performance. Foster accountability by creating clear standards with defined indicators that enable each team member to know that they are doing their part. The more detailed the action plans and the more specific the performance metrics are, the easier it will be to hold people accountable.
5. Inattention to results: putting personal goals above team goals.
If teammates are not being held accountable for their contributions to the collective results, they will likely look to their own personal interests. You can avoid this trap by having good measures in place that align an individual’s incentives with that of their team. Set the tone to focus on results and make sure your conversations with individuals are consistent with focusing on organizational results and not encouraging selfish behaviors.
And what about your team, are you all in the same boat?