From the course: Project Management Foundations: Teams

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Teams

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

- Have you ever been part of a team that actually didn't work very well? Where people couldn't agree on decisions, and morale just seemed really low. It happens all the time, and these are called dysfunctional teams. Understanding what causes teams to be dysfunctional and what you can do to fix it, is a really useful skill for project managers, and that's what the Lencioni model is all about. Patrick Lencioni describes five problems or dysfunctions that keep teams from working together. The first one is an absence of trust. In order for a team to work together, people need to know that we mean what we say, and we don't have hidden agendas. Second is a fear of conflict. When people are afraid to raise concerns, then the team can end up making bad decisions. Third is a lack of commitment. If the team members aren't committed to getting the work done, then well the work doesn't get done. Fourth, avoidance of accountability. That's when folks are reluctant to accept deadlines and try to shift the blame for everything to someone else. And the fifth dysfunction is an inattention to results, when people get things but don't bother to do them well, or when they don't use their judgment to identify changes and improvements. When you turn those five dysfunctions around, you have a pretty good description of how a high-forming team actually behaves. They trust each other. They aren't afraid of conflict. They're committed to the project. They accept accountability, and they pay close attention to the results. If you're interested in learning more about this approach, Lencioni wrote a best-selling book, called "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team." It tells the story of an imaginary group of executives and how they gradually learned to overcome these problems. When you're managing a project, you're managing a team, so knowing how to identify and correct dysfunctional behaviors can help you be much more successful as a project manager.

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