The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team #1 – The Absence of Trust

Build a resilient, effective team — and give your firm the ultimate marketplace advantage. In principle, teamwork is simple. Most of us already know what it requires. But in practice, teamwork is difficult. Building a team is a process, one that requires significant levels of discipline, bravery, and tenacity.
 
For a team to be truly effective, it must overcome the five dysfunctions outlined by Patrick Lencioni in his best-selling book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”

Since its publication in 2002, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” has become the world’s definitive source of practical information for developing teams. Building on Lencioni’s principles, the Five Dysfunctions program helps team members and leaders function more effectively so their teams can achieve their full potential.

Let’s define the ways a team can be dysfunctional. The below pyramid illustrates when you start to feel that things are out of whack, and serves as a barometer and a foundation/north star for your team. This is your eternal, internal growth track – at many points you will find your team on one of the layers of the pyramid, and identifying where you stand can help you avoid personal, emotional or drama issues in many situations.

This Five Dysfunctions of a Team Assessment provides leaders with an opportunity to explore and overcome the pitfalls that sidetrack teams. The assessment gives the team members a sense of their team’s unique strengths and areas for improvement in each of five key fundamentals for developing a cohesive and productive team: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results.

The assessment also gives team members a sense of their team’s unique strengths and areas for improvement, based on the Five Dysfunctions model. It’s a tool that evaluates the team’s current rank based on the five fundamentals so members can decide what improvements are necessary for becoming a higher-performing team.
 
The assessment can also be used as a benchmark by taking a team through the program, allowing them time to practice the skills, and then having them take a post-assessment to evaluate the change.

Dysfunction #1 – The Absence of TRUST
Members of great teams trust one another on a fundamental, emotional level, and they are comfortable being vulnerable with each other about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviors.

The late Stephen Covey of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” says: “It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success.”

What is Trust?

In the context of team building, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be careful around the group. Think of two people: one that you trust and the other that you don’t. If ONE team member has a problem trusting another, the ENTIRE team is affected. Whatever “she said,” people don’t comment on, because if someone did, “she” would defend herself and it would become very confrontational and create office “drama.” But the health of any organization is the willingness to have the healthy debates.

Members of teams with an absence of trust…

1. Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another
2. Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive feedback
3. Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibility
4. Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without attempting to clarify them
5. Fail to recognize and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
6. Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect
7. Hold grudges
8. Dread meetings

This can show up in these ways:

1. Team is worried about being honest because you will tell the boss
2. Team won’t answer honestly because another team member will hear and talk about them
3. Team doesn’t believe another team member has the best of the firm at heart

Members of trusting teams . . .

1. Admit weakness and mistakes
2. Ask for help
3. Accept questions and input about their areas of responsibility
4. Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving to a negative conclusion
5. Take risks in offering feedback and assistance
6. Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
7. Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics
8. Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
9. Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group

In my next blog I will be talking about Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict. Follow along and make sure you’re subscribed to our blog (using the yellow box on the right).

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