I recently read the five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni for the next few minutes pretend that you got funding to start a business and build a product and you use that funding to hire four smart highly competent and hardworking people to help you bring your vision to life but a year later your teams produced few results and they resist every decision you make and you know they're talking trash about you behind your back what went wrong why is your team so dysfunctional chances are that over the course of the year your team members
and maybe you their leader elevated your individual goals and your egos ahead of the team's goals if members of your team stopped sharing work because they wanted recognition like a selfish basketball player who takes the last shot in a game with two defenders on them instead of passing the ball to wide open player then your team put the needs of their ego ahead of the team and the main reason the people on your team wanted to look good and do what was best for their ego and not the team is because your teammates didn't hold
each other accountable to the team's results maybe you the leader confronted teammates after they didn't do what they said they're going to do but top-down accountability isn't enough for a team to succeed high-performing high functioning teams follow through on what they say they're going to do because they know they're going to be held accountable by everyone on the team author Patrick Lencioni says peer pressure and the distaste for letting down a colleague will motivate a team player more than any fear of authoritative punishment or rebuke so why were your teammates willing to speak up and
hold their teammates accountable for not executing the team's plan well they weren't committed enough to the team's plan to defend it because they weren't involved in the decisions that led to the plan and why weren't they involved in your team's decision-making process well coz they feared that challenging your ideas or the ideas of your teammates would lead to an ugly interpersonal conflict and why did they think that because they couldn't trust that they could be open and honest without you or your teammates getting too and angry the reason you can tell a close friend he's
doing something stupid is because he trusts that you have his best interest in mind and are not trying to manipulate him these are the five reasons that most teams become dysfunctional you can avoid these five dysfunctions the next time you lead a team by first establishing a foundation of trust the trust I'm referring to here is the trust that anyone on your team can offer their honest opinion without the fear of judgment or punishment this vulnerability based trust will naturally grow the more you get to know and relate to your teammates but that can take
a long time one way to quickly establish trust across a team is to openly discuss your strengths and weaknesses hold a meeting where you stand up first and admit one skill that you lack and need help with and another skill that makes you a strong asset to the team you might start by admitting that Mike technical skills aren't very strong and I often ask stupid questions but I believe that my ability to find new customers and sell products will help this team succeed after showing your teammates that it's okay to be vulnerable they're more likely
to admit one of their weaknesses and begin realizing that it's okay to be honest and open with their teammates it also helps team members see that if they're going to succeed they need to work together to balance out each other's strengths and weaknesses this in turn makes everyone on the team more likely to speak up when they think they can correct a mistake but your teammates may still hold back and avoid speaking up because they fear interpersonal conflict author Patrick Lencioni says if team members are not making one another uncomfortable at times if they're not
pushing one another outside their emotional comfort zones during discussions then it's extremely likely they're not making the best decisions for the team to help your teammates find the courage they need to engage in healthy conflict establish new norms for the team one of Lencioni x' teams established a new norm of healthy conflict by creating a team engagement charter that read we will address conflict Laden issues put them on the table and get to the heart of the issues when discussing these issues we will not withhold commentary everyone on the team signed the Charter and the
team members brought copy of that charter to every meeting now that your teammates are willing to speak up and engage in healthy conflict in order to arrive at the best decision you the leader still need to decide what the best decision is for the team and then get all of your teammates including those who don't agree with the decision to commit to the decision if your team members genuinely feel they were heard and valued in the decision making process they will commit to your decision even if they disagree with it Eric Schmidt past CEO of
Google says the fact that you allowed your teammate to participate in the decision feel heard and see the decision being made allows them to overcome their embarrassment or envy or unhappiness that they lost an argument and go back to fight for the team Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says when you can't get agreement it's helpful to say look I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it that offer often gets a quick yes after getting teammates to commit to your action plans by making them feel heard and included in the decision
making process the more they'll be willing to stand up for your plan when their teammates are failing to do their part this peer-to-peer accountability is essential for achieving team goals but your team might resist holding one another accountable for poor performance because they feel they don't have the authority and therefore their permission to hold one another accountable one way to prove to your teammates that they have the power to call one another out for poor performance is to give each member of your team a chance to host lightning round status meetings in a lightning round
status meeting everyone goes around the room and reports their top priority for the week and their status on last week's priority if someone didn't complete their last week's priority the person running the meeting is tasked to ask what went wrong and what they can do better since everyone takes turn hosting these meetings the team quickly learns that people of lower status have the power to question people of higher status and hold those people accountable to what they said they're going to do and when you have a team rich with peer to peer accountability your team
is continuously focused on the team's results but one way to ensure that your team stays focused on team results instead of individual results it's the tie individual rewards to team results for example you all get an extra day off at the end of the month if the team hits its monthly target team rewards remind team members that if the team doesn't win no one wins Lencioni says on strong teams no one is happy until everyone is succeeding because that's the only way to achieve the collective results of the group so in the end if you
want to build a strong high performing high functioning team start with trust so that your teammates feel like they can openly share their ideas and opinions without the fear of being judged so that more teammates feel heard and are willing to commit to the team's plans so that they're more willing to hold one another accountable which ensures everyone stays focused on the team's results and a team's objective that was the core message that I gathered from the five dysfunctions of a team but Patrick Lencioni this book is essential reading for every team I highly recommend
it if you would like a one-page PDF summary of insights that I gathered from this book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game email newsletter this PDF is sitting in your inbox if you like this video please share it and as always thanks for watching and have yourself a productive week
