5 Dysfunctions of A Team

The Five Dysfunctions of
a Team
What do I need to do and to avoid
in order to get the most out of my
team?
Inattention
to results
Avoidance of
accountability
Lack of commitment
Fear of conflict
Absence of trust
Absence of Trust
 We want to be  It is impossible to
invulnerable build trust without
 Therefore, we do not honesty
expose our  In many cases, we
weaknesses are almost
 Thus, we are not conditioned to “keep
honest our guard up”
 In our society
exposing weakness is
frowned upon
What happens when there
is an absence of trust?
Low Morale
How do we go about building trust
in a team setting?
 Personal histories  Personality and
exercise behavioral preference
 Team effectiveness profiles
exercise – Who are we?
– Single most important – Why do we do what
contribution we do?
– One area they must  360 Degree Feedback
change or eliminate  Experiential team
for the good of the
team
exercises
Other ways to build trust on teams
• Share styles, strengths and
personality differences
• Get to know each other
outside of work
What must a leader do
in this situation?
Display vulnerability first and
make sure it is genuine.
Fear of Conflict
 If trust is not present,  Conflict can be good
people will not – If it is ideologically
engage one another based
– Artificial harmony – If it avoids personality-
– Important decisions focused, mean-spirited
will not be made attacks
– People become angry – Teams generally avoid
this to spare one
another’s feelings
Conflict - perceived incompatible differences that result opposition.

This leads to increased tension!
Traditional view of conflict -

the view that all conflict is bad
and must be avoided.
Functional Conflict
• Conflicts that support a
group’s goals and
improve its
performance.
– Task conflict - conflicts over
content and goals of the
work.
– Process conflict - conflict over
how work gets done.
Dysfunctional Conflict
 Dysfunctional conflicts -
conflicts that prevent a
group from achieving its
goals(typically
interpersonal)
So, Is Conflict Always a Bad Thing?
Clearly Not
Relationship Between Level of
Conflict and Level of Performance
Five Conflict-Handling Styles
 Avoiding - “Maybe the problem will go away”
 Accommodating – “Let’s do it your way”
 Forcing – “You have to do it my way”
 Compromising – “Let’s split the difference”
 Collaborating – “Let’s cooperate to reach a win-win
solution that benefits both of us”
Programmed Conflict
 Devil’s advocacy Dialectic method
 process of assigning process of having two
someone to play the role people or groups play
of critic to voice possible opposing roles in a
objections to a proposal debate in order to better
and thereby generate understand a proposal
critical thinking and
reality testing
How do we create good conflict?
 Mining
– Extract buried
disagreements and shed
light on them
– Call out sensitive issues
and force team to work
through them
 Real-time permission
– When people appear to be
uncomfortable, let them
know that what they are
doing is good
Teams that engage in healthy
conflict…
• Have lively interesting meetings
• Put critical topics on the table for discussion
• Tackle issues “head on”
• Solve real problems quickly
• Minimize politics
in this situation?
A leader must allow conflict to take
place. A leader should model
appropriate conflict behavior and allow
resolution to occur naturally.
Lack of Commitment
 People become  Failure to achieve buy
ambiguous -in from the “first
 People will not buy-in team” filters down
if they do not have an  The two greatest
opportunity to weigh- causes are:
in – Desire for consensus
– The need for certainty
Desire for consensus
 Complete agreement is often not possible,

but buy-in is always possible
 Reasonable people do not need to “get
their way” in order to support a decision,
but they do need to have their opinion or
option considered
 You must consider all opinions
 If your group is at an impasse, the leader
makes the call
The need for certainty
 A decision is better than no decision
 Waffling is worse than making a bold
decision that later proves to be wrong
 You can always change course
 Delaying decisions leads to paralysis and
loss of confidence
How do we go about getting people
to commit?
 Cascading messaging  Contingency and
– Review key decisions worse-case scenario
– Agree on what needs analysis
to be communicated – Reduces fears
 Deadlines – Illustrates that bad
– Ensures that decisions are
misalignment is “survivable”
identified and  Low risk exposure
addressed therapy
– Force your team to
make decisions
in this situation?
A leader must be comfortable making a
decision that turns out to be wrong. A leader
must push the group for closure around
issues and adherence to schedule.
Avoidance of Accountability
 People do this to  You need team
avoid uncomfortable members willing to
situations call their peers on
 This is really difficult performance or
in peer-to-peer behaviors that might
situations hurt the team
 No buy-in, no  The closer the team
accountability members, the greater
the danger
Avoidance of Accountability
• Encourages
mediocrity
• Misses deadlines
and key
deliverables
How do we foster accountability?
 Publicize your goals  Team rewards
and standards – This assists in creating
– Provides clarity about a culture of
what is expected accountability
– Eliminates ambiguity – Team members are
more likely to speak
 Simple and regular up
progress reviews
– Are we on the right
track?
– Allows people to get
back on track
in this situation?
A leader must encourage and allow the team
to be the first and primary accountability
mechanism. However, a leader must be
willing to serve as the ultimate arbiter of
discipline when the team fails.
Inattention to Results
 Ego and status get in  Politics
the way – Foster an environment
– Doing “our job” is not where people can say
enough what they think
– Being part of the team  Lack of focus
is not enough – A laser-like focus on
 Goals are not the objectives and
common outcomes is required
or people revert to
 Negative language individual status or a
– Use we and us instead “just happy to be
of you and I here” attitude
How do we get our team’s focus on
results?
 Public declaration of  Results-based
results rewards
– Sometimes saying we – No credit for trying
will do our best is hard
preparing for failure
– What do we intend to
do?
in this situation?
A leader must set the tone for a focus
on results. If the team senses that the
leader values anything other than
results, they will do the same.

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The Five Dysfunctions of

Conflict - perceived incompatible differences that result opposition.

Traditional view of conflict -

 Complete agreement is often not possible,

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