The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni Flashcards
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“If your concern is about this Napa off-site thing, then I think we may have our priorities confused. We need to be out there selling.” Kathryn took a breath and smiled to conceal her frustrations. “First of all, I only have one priority at this point: we need to get our act together as a team, or we’re not going to be selling anything.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
a fractured team is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you have to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And the rebreak hurts a lot more than the initial break, because you have to do it on purpose.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Trust is the foundation of real teamwork. And so the first dysfunction is a failure on the part of team members to understand and open up to one another.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“The fact is, if we don’t trust one another—and it seems to me that we don’t—then we cannot be the kind of team that ultimately achieves results.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
I’d have to say that every effective team I’ve ever observed had a substantial level of debate. Even the most trusting teams mixed it up a lot.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
I want you all to do two things: be present and participate.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
It was really quite amazing. After just forty-five minutes of extremely mild personal disclosure, the team seemed tighter and more at ease with each other than at any time during the past year. But Kathryn had been through this enough to know that the euphoria would diminish as soon as the conversation shifted to work.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
the ultimate dysfunction: the tendency of team members to seek out individual recognition and attention at the expense of results. And I’m referring to collective results—the goals of the entire team.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
when everyone is focused on results and using those to define success, it is difficult for ego to get out of hand. No matter how good an individual on the team might be feeling about his or her situation, if the team loses, everyone loses.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“The key, of course, is to define our goals, our results, in a way that is simple enough to grasp easily, and specific enough to be actionable. Profit is not actionable enough. It needs to be more closely related to what we do on a daily basis.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
they narrowed them to seven: revenue, expenses, new customer acquisition, current customer satisfaction, employee retention, market awareness, and product quality. They also decided that these should be measured monthly, because waiting a full quarter to track results didn’t give them enough opportunities to detect problems and alter activities sufficiently.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“All of you, every one of you, are responsible for sales. Not just JR. All of you are responsible for marketing. Not just Mikey. All of you are responsible for product development, customer service, and finance.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict. And we’ll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“The next dysfunction of a team is the lack of commitment and the failure to buy in to decisions.” She wrote the dysfunction above the previous one. “And the evidence of this one is ambiguity,”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“I’m talking about committing to a plan or a decision, and getting everyone to clearly buy in to it. That’s why conflict is so important.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“So this isn’t a consensus thing.” Jan’s statement was really a question. “Heavens no,” insisted Kathryn, sounding like a school teacher again. “Consensus is horrible. I mean, if everyone really agrees on something and consensus comes about quickly and naturally, well that’s terrific. But that isn’t how it usually works, and so consensus becomes an attempt to please everyone.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
The point here is that most reasonable people don’t have to get their way in a discussion. They just need to be heard, and to know that their input was considered and responded to.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Yeah, in my last company we called it ‘disagree and commit.’ You can argue about something and disagree, but still commit to it as though everyone originally bought into the decision completely.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do, for high standards of performance and behavior.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“No buy-in. People aren’t going to hold each other accountable if they haven’t clearly bought in to the same plan. Otherwise, it seems pointless because they’re just going to say, ‘I never agreed to that anyway.’”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Yes. Meetings. If we cannot learn to engage in productive, ideological conflict during meetings, we are through.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“And I’m not joking when I say that. Our ability to engage in passionate, unfiltered debate about what we need to do to succeed will determine our future as much as any products we develop or partnerships we sign.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
But if you really think about it, meetings should be at least as interesting as movies.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Let me assure you that from now on, every staff meeting we have will be loaded with conflict. And they won’t be boring. And if there is nothing worth debating, then we won’t have a meeting.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“Can’t we have more than one overarching goal?” Kathryn shook her head. “If everything is important, then nothing is.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
“During the next two weeks I am going to be pretty intolerant of behavior that demonstrates an absence of trust, or a focus on individual ego. I will be encouraging conflict, driving for clear commitments, and expecting all of you to hold each other accountable. I will be calling out bad behavior when I see it, and I’d like to see you doing the same. We don’t have time to waste.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
You have to decide what is more important: helping the team win or advancing your career.” Even Kathryn thought she sounded a little harsh, but she knew what she was doing. “I don’t see why those have to be mutually exclusive,” Nick argued. “They’re not. It’s just that one has to be more important than the other.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
when a company has a collection of good managers who don’t act like a team, it can create a dilemma for them, and for the company. You see, it leads to confusion about who their first team is.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
all of this relates to the last dysfunction—putting team results ahead of individual issues. Your first team has to be this one.” She looked around the room to make it clear that she was referring to the executive staff.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
let’s not pretend we’re doing anything wrong. We owe it to our shareholders, and our employees, to figure out the right way to use our money. This is not a religious battle. It’s about strategy.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don’t think it’s easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni
Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.”
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick M. Lencioni