Archimedes’ Lever A collection of Ideas that could move the world

Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

My rating:
Read from July 11 to 12, 2011

I forgot I had read this book once before. This is not a good omen for any book. Worse yet, it took me a full chapter before I recognized that the parable was familiar.

Lencioni does present 5 valid dysfunctions of the team. I'm not sure I would go as far as concluding with a definite article that these are THE 5 dysfunctions. In short they are:
1. Abesent of trust
2. Fear of conflict
3. Lack of commitment
4. Avoidance of accountability
5. Inattention to result

The story is a bit of a straw man that once you get past the functional dialogue you can ponder the basic principles. For example, I would add personality conflicts as a critical one to the list. If you build your own team from scratch you are likely to build it with people who are compatible with yourself. If you are dropped into a pre-existing team you also need to get beyond any personality conflicts/clashes before you can be a functional team.

Five Dysfunctions is an easy sunday afternoon read where the amount of 'meat' in the book is directly proportional to the length of the book.