Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
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THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM A Leadership Fable
By Patrick Lencioni
What an interesting read this is - and brief. You can finish this book on one long flight. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a fable, the story of a fictitious executive team with a new CEO, a lot of talent and interesting challenges. There is the talented former CEO who's still on the management team. There's the sassy head of marketing who rolls her eyes at everything everyone says. There's the head of engineering and product development who reads from his laptop during meetings and thinks he's smarter than everyone else. And there's the new CEO who's coming from the car industry to technology, where no one thinks she gets it.
Wow. See any of your team in these characters? For some reason, it was so much easier to learn from the fable format of this book than from other straight non-fiction reads. Plus, in addition to the story, Lencioni shares the theories behind the fiction. The five dysfunctions of a team include absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results. The author even puts some questions to us like - how often are your team members passionate and unguarded in their discussion of issues, how often are team meetings compelling, how often are the most important, and difficult, issues put on the table in meetings?
I learned some things that will help me in the teams I lead and the teams I am a member of. I recommend this quick read - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni, on the Business Bestseller List. On the Book Beat for KSL Newsradio, I'm Amanda Dickson.
