Five Dysfunctions Of A Team Quotes

Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they're doing it because they care about the team.

Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.

Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.

It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like they've been listened to, they won't really get on board.

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.

Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.

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.

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

If we don’t trust one another, then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict.

A team that is not focused on results ... • Stagnates/fails to grow • Rarely defeats competitors • Loses achievement-oriented employees

I don’t think anyone ever gets completely used to conflict. If it’s not a little uncomfortable, then it’s not real. The key is to keep doing it anyway

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 P.37

Ego is the ultimate killer on a team

The enemy of accountability is ambiguity

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.

Teams have to eliminate ambiguity and interpretation when it comes to success

Great teams make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision. They leave meetings confident that no one on the team is quietly harboring doubts about whether to support the actions agreed on.

The ultimate test of a great team is results. And considering that tens of thousands of people escaped from the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., there can be no doubt that the teams who risked, and lost, their lives to save them were extraordinary.

Trust is the foundation of real teamwork.

Commitment is a function of two things: clarity and buy-in

To achieve results. This is the only true measure of a team P.42

I honestly believe that in this day and age of informational ubiquity and nanosecond change, teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped.

Members of teams that tend to avoid conflict must occasionally assume the role of a “miner of conflict”—someone who extracts buried disagreements within the team and sheds the light of day on them. They must have the courage and confidence to call out sensitive issues and force team members to work through them. This requires a degree of objectivity during meetings and a commitment to staying with the conflict until it is resolved. Some

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.

Push with respect, and under the assumption that the other person is probably doing the right thing. But push anyway. And never hold back.

trust is not the same as assuming everyone is on the same page as you, and that they don’t need to be pushed.

Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.

find someone who can demonstrate trust, engage in conflict, commit to group decisions, hold their peers accountable, and focus on the results of the team, not their own ego.

No quality or characteristic is more important than trust

People who don’t like conflict have an amazing ability to avoid it, even when they know it’s theoretically necessary

Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni. He writes that in order to have mutual trust, you need to be vulnerable.

Keep in mind that a real team should be spending considerable time together in meetings and working sessions. In fact, it is not uncommon that as much as 20 percent of each team member’s time is spent working through issues and solving problems with the team as a whole. p. 105

If team members are never pushing one another outside of their emotional comfort zones during discussions, then it is extremely likely that they’re not making the best decisions for the organization.

A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings.

Because when a team recovers from an incident of destructive conflict, it builds confidence that it can survive such an event, which in turn builds trust. This is not unlike a husband and wife recovering from a big argument and developing closer ties and greater confidence in their relationship as a result.

How many of you would rather go to a meeting than a movie?” No hands went up. “Why not?” After a pause, Jeff realized that her question was not a rhetorical one. “Because movies are more interesting. Even the bad ones.” His peers chuckled. Kathryn smiled. “Right. But if you really think about it, meetings should be at least as interesting as movies.

The fundamental attribution error is simply this: human beings tend to falsely attribute the negative behaviors of others to their character (an internal attribution), while they attribute their own negative behaviors to their environment (an external attribution).

momentum.

That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes.

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.” It

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 room was silent.

Well, some teams get paralyzed by their need for complete agreement, and their inability to move beyond debate.” JR spoke up. “Disagree and commit.

If you really think about it, meetings should be at least as interesting as movies.

راهزن زمان "نه" نگفتن به خواسته هایی هست که از ما وقت میگیره و انجامش نه ضرورت داره و نه اهمیت

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.

Ironically, for peer-to-peer accountability to become a part of a team’s culture, it has to be modeled by the leader. That’s right. Even though I said earlier that the best kind of accountability is peer-to-peer, the key to making it stick is the willingness of the team leader to do something I call “enter the danger” whenever someone needs to be called on their behavior or performance. That means being willing to step right into the middle of a difficult issue and remind individual team members of their responsibility, both in terms of behavior and results. But most leaders I know have a far easier time holding people accountable for their results than they do for behavioral issues. This is a problem because behavioral problems almost always precede results. That means team members have to be willing to call each other on behavioral issues, as uncomfortable as that might be, and if they see their leader balk at doing this, then they aren’t going to do it themselves.

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, ” which she wrote next to it. Nick was reengaging now.

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.” “Which usually

That being said, experiential team exercises can be valuable tools for enhancing teamwork as long as they are layered upon more fundamental and relevant processes. While each of these tools and exercises can have a significant short-term impact on a team’s ability to build trust,

Therefore, it is key that leaders demonstrate restraint when their people engage in conflict, and allow resolution to occur naturally, as messy as it can sometimes be. This can be a challenge because many leaders feel that they are somehow failing in their jobs by losing control of their teams during conflict. Finally, as trite as it may sound, a leader’s ability to personally model appropriate conflict behavior is essential. By avoiding conflict when it is necessary and productive—something many executives do—a team leader will encourage this dysfunction to thrive.

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. And if that sounds touchy-feely, let me explain, because there is nothing soft about it. It is an absolutely critical part of building a team. In fact, it’s probably the most critical.

She explained. “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. And as simple as that sounds, most executives hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer’s behavior, because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort.

The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust. This failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments. A lack of healthy conflict is a problem because it ensures the third dysfunction of a team: lack of commitment. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings. Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of accountability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on actions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team. Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career development, or recognition) or even the needs of their divisions above the collective goals of the team.

the only thing that really matters is this: are they holding back their opinions? Members of great teams do not.

When people self-identify and publicly declare their outlook on conflict, they become much more open to adjusting it to whatever team norms need to be established.

When it comes to establishing a norm for a team, a measure of judgment is required of a leader. While there is no doubt that the person in charge must set the tone based on a personal belief about what will lead to the best results for the organization, the leader also needs to take into account the capabilities and attitudes of the staff members. This is something of a balancing act.

The leader is going to have to be ready to not only light the fuse of good conflict but to gently fan the flames for a while too.

The lack of conflict is precisely the cause of one of the biggest problems that meetings have: they are boring.

Team leaders must give members a reason to care at the beginning of a meeting or discussion. They must raise the anxiety of the team about why the issues about to be discussed matter, and what could go wrong if bad decisions are made. By doing so, they immediately get everyone engaged

Teams that commit to decisions and standards do so because they know how to embrace two separate but related concepts: buy-in and clarity. Buy-in is the achievement of honest emotional support. Clarity is the removal of assumptions and ambiguity from a situation.

Commitment is about a group of intelligent, driven individuals buying in to a decision precisely when they don’t naturally agree. In other words, it’s the ability to defy a lack of consensus.

commitment is not consensus. Waiting for everyone on a team to agree intellectually on a decision is a good recipe for mediocrity, delay, and frustration, which is why it amazes me that so many of the teams I work with still seem determined to achieve consensus.

commitment cannot occur if people are unclear about exactly what is being committed to.

I define accountability as the willingness of team members to remind one another when they are not living up to the performance standards of the group.

Peer pressure and the distaste for letting down a colleague will motivate a team player more than any fear of authoritative punishment or rebuke.

The most important challenge of building a team where people hold one another accountable is overcoming the understandable hesitance of human beings to give one another critical feedback.

we always have team members go back to their direct reports and share their profile information. This serves three purposes. First, it provides a great opportunity for demonstrating vulnerability with their subordinates. Second, it gives those subordinates real insights into their leaders, so that they’ll feel more comfortable providing feedback and interpreting behavior correctly. Third, it helps the executives develop a better understanding of their own profiles, because teaching is one of the best ways of learning.

Trust is the foundation of teamwork. • On a team, trust is all about vulnerability, which is difficult for most people. • Building trust takes time, but the process can be greatly accelerated. • Like a good marriage, trust on a team is never complete; it must be maintained over time.

When people who don’t trust one another engage in passionate debate, they are trying to win the argument. They aren’t usually listening to the other person’s ideas and then reconsidering their point of view; they’re figuring out how to manipulate the conversation to get what they want.

Because when a team recovers from an incident of destructive conflict, it builds confidence that it can survive such an event, which in turn builds trust.

Building an effective, cohesive team is extremely hard. But it’s also simple.

Teamwork remains the one sustainable competitive advantage that has been largely untapped.

When people come together and set aside their individual needs for the good of the whole, they can accomplish what might have looked impossible on paper. They do this by eliminating the politics and confusion that plague most organizations. As a result, they get more done in less time and with less cost.

Good to Great and Built to Last, both by Jim Collins, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish, and a bunch of books by Patrick Lencioni: The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, Death by Meeting, and Five Dysfunctions of the Team: A Leadership Fable.

No quality or characteristic is more important than trust.

When it comes to teams, trust is all about vulnerability. Team members who trust one another learn to be comfortable being open, even exposed, to one another around their failures, weaknesses, even fears.

The key ingredient to building trust is not time. It is courage.

The key to all of this, then, is to teach team members to get comfortable being exposed to one another, unafraid to honestly say things like “I was wrong” and “I made a mistake” and “I need help” and “I’m not sure” and “you’re better than I am at that” and yes, even “I’m sorry.

when team members reveal aspects of their personal lives to their peers, they learn to get comfortable being open with them about other things. They begin to let down their guard about their strengths, weaknesses, opinions, and ideas.

Adrenaline addiction The unwillingness or inability of busy people to slow down and review, reflect, assess, and discuss their business and their team. An adrenaline addiction is marked by anxiety among people who always have a need to keep moving, keep spinning, even in the midst of obvious confusion and declining productivity

• Team Effectiveness Exercise. This exercise requires team members to identify the single most important contribution that each of their peers makes to the team, as well as the one area that they must either improve upon or eliminate for the good of the team.

The most important action that a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first. This requires that a leader risk losing face in front of the team, so that subordinates will take the same risk themselves. What is more, team leaders must create an environment that does not punish vulnerability.

We have a strong and natural tendency to look out for ourselves before others, even when those others are part of our families and our teams.

Teams have to eliminate ambiguity and interpretation when it comes to success.

When players on a team stop caring about the scoreboard, they inevitably start caring about something else.

There is always that little voice in your head saying, “What about me?” Sometimes that little voice drowns out the cry of the team, and the collective results of the group get left behind.

Employees know that they ultimately pay the price when their manager doesn’t get along with or cooperate with managers of other departments, leaving the staff to navigate the treacherous and bloody waters of organizational politics.

Rather than coming together to make the best possible decision for the entire organization, they become lobbyers for their own constituents

KEY POINTS—FOCUSING ON RESULTS • The true measure of a great team is that it accomplishes the results it sets out to achieve. • To avoid distractions, team members must prioritize the results of the team over their individual or departmental needs. • To stay focused, teams must publicly clarify their desired results and keep them visible.

What is the single most important behavioral characteristic or quality demonstrated by this person that contributes to the strength of our team?

What is the single most important behavioral characteristic or quality demonstrated by this person that can sometimes derail the team?

Help people realize that when they fail to provide peers with constructive feedback they are letting them down personally. By holding back, we are hurting not only the team, but also our teammates themselves.

What’s critical is that team members know that the areas that were identified will not go away, and that they will have to answer for their progress in the not-too-distant future.

KEY POINTS—EMBRACING ACCOUNTABILITY • Accountability on a strong team occurs directly among peers. • For a culture of accountability to thrive, a leader must demonstrate a willingness to confront difficult issues. • The best opportunity for holding one another accountable occurs during meetings, and the regular review of a team scoreboard provides a clear context for doing so.

we like to believe that we do bad things because of the situations we are in, but somehow we easily come to the conclusion that others do bad things because they are predisposed to being bad. (Similarly,

Results-oriented teams establish their own measurements for success. They don’t allow themselves the wiggle room of subjectivity. But this is not easy, because subjectivity is attractive.

All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict in order to grow. This

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

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.

Every great movie has conflict.