Five Dysfunctions of a Team

What?

In our class, “Elements of Team Leadership”, we are required to complete a service learning project within our teams. My team decided to help promote a new non-profit organization called Feed by Seed. The goals of this organization include providing agriculture sponsorship to countries worldwide, fundraising for food, and providing countries with education they need regarding agriculture. The organization is also planning a trip to Nicaragua in July of this year. In order to promote the organization, we spread the word around campus. We set up booths, passed out fliers, and answered questions regarding the missions and goals of the organization.

So What?

Our team had to demonstrate effective teamwork to make our project a success. We spent hours planning the event and organizing the tasks we needed to accomplish. For our project to be successful, it was important for our team to overcome the five dysfunctions that teams frequently encounter. According to Patrick Lencioni, the five dysfunctions teams must conquer include absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

My team and I have spent the whole semester working to overcome these five dysfunctions. Our increasing connections between each other have helped build a foundation of trust. For example, we were able to rely on other team members to read their respective sections for the RAT’s to ensure a good grade as a group. Fear of conflict is another dysfunction that causes many problems within teams. Successful communication and our choice to agree to disagree on certain issues helped our team make progress toward conquering the fear of conflict. Learning to use constructive criticism and being able to discuss conflicts is a key component of teamwork. Lack of commitment is something that our team has struggled to overcome this semester. When one person isn’t committed to the team it makes it hard for the whole team to be fully committed.

Now What?

For the rest of the semester our team needs to focus on motivating everyone to be committed. When one person doesn’t show up to class for a team RAT or does not communicate that they cannot make it to meetings, it causes issues for the team as a whole. In our group, we do not have confidence in the one member who is not committed. One way to overcome this dysfunction is to clarify the team goals and obligations. If all team members have clarity on their expectations, it will help the team in the long run. According to Lencioni, this suggestion is known as cascading messaging. At the end of meetings we need to specifically point out the duties of each person to make sure everyone is on the same page. Clarity on deadlines is also an important step in order to achieve commitment. If the team can commit to deadlines, it will help us be more effective. Avoidance of accountability and inattention to results cannot be overcome until the team no longer lacks commitment.