A high-performing team is a great asset to any company. But it takes more than just hiring skilled individuals to get that team. You need to make them work together to achieve excellence in your business.

It doesn't matter how talented you are or how high your expertise is in the business. Getting your business to greater heights is easier with a cohesive team behind you. But here’s the challenge.

With the different personalities, strengths and weaknesses - how can you get a team to work together in harmony?

To answer this question, I’d like us to focus on Patrick Lencioni’s book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team. It explores the common dysfunctions keeping a team from unlocking its true potential.

In this article, I’d like to discuss the 5 pitfalls that can compromise your team’s ability to work cohesively with each other. By understanding these challenges, we can turn them into strengths so you can create a united result-driven team.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni is a known author of several business books focusing on teamwork, leadership, organisational health and employee engagement. He is most known for the book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.

Lencioni proved himself to be quite a storyteller in this book. He used a fable-like approach in discussing the challenges hindering teams from working in harmony. In the book, Lencioni narrates the story of DecisionTech’s CEO, Kathryn Petersen. She was in the midst of a leadership crisis, specifically the huge challenge of uniting her team to keep them from bringing down her company.

As the story progresses, Lencioni introduces 5 dysfunctions that even the best teams struggle with. You’ll recognise these challenges whether it involves a team in a small company or a department in a multinational organisation.

The 5 dysfunctions are as follows:

• The Absence of Trust (lowest level)

• The Fear of Conflict

• The Lack of Commitment

• The Avoidance of Accountability

• The Inattention to Results (highest level)

These 5 are layered in a pyramid with the absence of trust at the bottom and the inattention to results at the top. The idea is to work on the lower layers before moving up to the next dysfunction. This framework has proven to be effective in helping teams overcome issues and develop into high-performing units.

Let’s go through each layer at a time.

Building a Trust as the Cornerstone of the Team

At the lowest level is the trust dysfunction. After all, the foundation of a successful team is trust. You can’t work in unity with someone you don’t trust.

When trust is absent, people tend to conceal mistakes and cover weaknesses. This makes them reluctant to ask for help from others. Without revealing weaknesses, it compromises the whole team and puts projects at risk.

By working on trust issues and treating them as the cornerstone of an effective team, you can create strategies to promote transparency. While it makes the team vulnerable to each other, it also strengthens relationships. It creates a culture of understanding where people are empathetic towards each other. It reduces the fear of judgment and makes people more open to revealing weaknesses in hopes of overcoming them. This is how you get a team that empowers each other.

If you notice your team being guarded and uncomfortable in admitting mistakes, you need to work on their trust issues. Create opportunities for them to know each other through team-building exercises. Lead by example and open up about your weaknesses - thereby encouraging them to own up to their mistakes. Be welcoming of personal thoughts and opinions. Having a culture of open communication creates transparency that eventually leads to trust.

Embracing Conflict as a Catalyst for Innovation

Once you’ve developed trust, it’s time to move up to the next layer of dysfunction - the fear of conflict.

I’ve always believed that healthy conflict is essential because it drives innovation. For some people, it’s easier to sweep conflict under the rug to keep the peace. But I believe that’s not constructive. You want to promote constructive disagreements because it pushes people to be more creative. It forces people to look beyond their prejudices and views.

If you’re worried that this might destroy the camaraderie within the team - it won’t as long as you’ve worked on their trust issues. With trust comes a certain level of respect that can make open debates possible without ending in threats.

Observe team meetings from now on. If they are usually passive and uneventful - that’s not always a good sign. Let your team get used to openly discussing controversial topics and sharing perspectives because it usually leads to growth opportunities. Encourage them to be open about their thoughts and teach them to be welcoming of other’s perceptions, too.

Set rules to ensure that only healthy debates happen. Disagreements are acceptable but once it stops being respectful or constructive - then it’s no longer welcome. Make sure there’s always someone ready to mediate in case discussions become too heated. If someone raises an issue or a controversial topic - appreciate their courage to do so. Then focus on the resolution so it leads to breakthrough solutions.

Committing Towards a Common Purpose

At this point, you have a team who trusts each other and are respectful enough to have difficult discussions. The next dysfunction you need to work on is the lack of commitment to a common purpose. This refers to a team who are detached and not fully on board with the mission of the team. They may even be resentful of the team because they don’t feel valued.

But with the trust foundation and the openness that you’ve worked on so far, this challenge is easier to overcome. If you notice that some of your team can’t fully explain the goals of the team or they fail to understand the role they have to play in the overall business process, then you have a problem with commitment.

You have to communicate the bigger picture that the business is working to achieve. You can also make them feel empowered by involving them in the decision-making process. Get their input and listen to their ideas.

If they do something right, appreciate their efforts. Make it clear how their good works affect the overall growth of the business. You can hold alignment meetings to discuss these and reiterate team goals. This helps maintain focus and keeps everyone invested in the progress of the business.

Encouraging Ownership and Responsibility

Accountability comes after commitment. This is the next dysfunction you have to work on - the avoidance of accountability. This is when your team has no desire to do their best because they feel that it doesn’t affect them. They’re not careful with mistakes and they’re not conscious of the quality of their actions. They don’t hold themselves accountable for how they do their work.

This will lead to subpar results, mediocre work and unmet expectations.

If you can make your team commit to the goals of the business and involve them in the decision-making process, they will feel a sense of accountability. As the leader, this will require you to define clear standards so the team can perform and behave according to the standards expected of them. You need to be consistent in implementing these standards. When you set team targets, create a system to monitor progress. Reward those who hit targets and encourage those who fall short.

Finally, set an example. Make sure the team sees you holding yourself accountable. This will help your team be more reliable in everything they do.

Focusing on Results and Collective Success

The final dysfunctional layer is the inattention to results - specifically collective ones. Team members should work on individual progress but it has to be done in a way that uplifts everyone. When people start to prioritise individual achievements, they start to lose sight of the bigger picture and how they contribute to the overall success of the team. If it goes on, you can lose the progress you’ve made in terms of getting the team to build trust and commit to a common purpose.

You can identify this issue if the team tends to focus on individual targets and not the team goals. If they are more driven by their personal desires than what is good for the whole team, then that is a problem that you need to solve

Correcting this requires you to set team goals. You need to start rewarding collective achievements so the team will pull each other up to hit their targets. Always communicate the importance of team successes over individual accomplishments.

With everyone working together to reach shared results, it will help the business gain significant progress and growth.

Build an Empowered and High-Performing Team

Transforming a team from dysfunction to excellence involves a unique framework. This will take time and effort so you have to be strategic with your approach. By addressing the 5 dysfunctions identified by Lencioni in this book, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, you can create a team that’s not only cohesive but productive as well.

While business leaders should take the lead in the team’s transformation, working with a business coach through the process will prove to be beneficial. They can provide guidance, a fresh perspective and proven strategies to deal with the common dysfunctions of a team.

If you wish to empower your team and take your business to the next level, consider working with a business coach to build a winning culture.

I’m offering a complimentary brainstorming session to help master the challenges of building a high-performing team. If you’re interested, book a call here: https://www.butleradvisory.com.au/time-with-trent.