Transcription
Today we're talking about the five dysfunctions of a team, a team of any kind. And I'm going to go through these fairly quickly. And I call them dysfunctions because I think there's lots of ways to go about building a team, but there's actually five things that can screw up a team. And I think it's important to understand what they are. But I'm going to list the functional, good things. We're going to talk about how to overcome them.
The first dysfunction of a team is the absence of trust. So trust is what is required on a team. Now, that seems obvious, I know. But when I talk about trust on a team, I'm not talking about predictive trust, which is what a lot of people think about, which means I've known somebody for a long time and I I can predict how they're going to behave. I can trust how they're going to act. Trust on a team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. That means when people can be completely open and honest about who they are, and they'll say things like, "I don't know the answer," "I need help," "I think I messed up and I need you to bail me out here," or "You're smarter than I am and I want to learn from you," or even, "I'm really sorry, I was kind of a jerk yesterday." Vulnerability-based trust gives you the confidence to know that when you sit down with a teammate, they're always going to tell you the truth and be completely frank with you. And that is at the base of this pyramid because it's the most important part of building a team.
Now, trust is important because it allows us to engage in healthy conflict. You see, the fear of conflict is a problem, and it exists on so many teams. It's not only okay to engage in conflict on a team, it's required. But if we don't trust each other, then conflict is not good because without trust, conflict is manipulation and politics. But with trust, when people are vulnerable and open with one another, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth or the best possible answer. And we need our teams to do that. Now, conflict is going to look a little different from culture to culture, company to company, family to family. What's most important is that people don't hold back their opinions. If something important is being discussed, people weigh in with one another, and they debate things with one another. And it can be a little uncomfortable, but it's always in service of the greater good.
Now, why is conflict so important? Because without it, we can't overcome the next dysfunction, which is the lack of commitment. Commitment, active buy-in, is critical on a team. But if we don't weigh in, which is conflict, we don't buy in, which is commit. And so many teams, when they don't have a good argument or when people don't share their opinions, at the end of that conversation, they don't really commit to the decision that's being made. As a result, they walk away. They tend to be passively committed. They don't really support the idea. And when they see a problem, they sit back and they say, "I never really liked this idea in the first place." That's why conflict begets commitment. What we want to know is, when we leave a meeting, that everybody is on the same page. Even if they originally disagreed with the idea, intellectually, at the end of that conversation, the leader can say, "We're going to have to commit to something." And based on everything we've heard, let's choose this. 99 out of a 100 times, people will commit to a decision that they disagreed with if they know they've been heard and they know that their opinion was considered. Commitment is that important.
Now, why is commitment so important? It leads to our ability to hold each other accountable. Accountability, which is the hardest of all five of the functions to overcome, is when people on a team can turn to one another and say, "Hey, we committed to that, but it seems to me like you're not doing it anymore. Is there something going on that I can help you with? Or is there something you're not aware of? Because we all need to do what we agreed to do." And notice what I talked about there: peer-to-peer accountability. People have to turn to one another and say, "I think you can do better." The best teams in the world do this. But they can't do it if they haven't truly committed. And they can't commit to something if they never had good conflict. And they can't have good conflict if they don't trust each other at a vulnerability-based level.
Now, when we do hold each other accountable, when we enter the danger to call each other on things, which is a sign of love on a good team, that leads us to overcome the last dysfunction, which is the inattention to results. Results is the ultimate sign of a great team. They accomplish what they set out to accomplish most of the time. Now, if they're not holding each other accountable for doing what's in the best interest of the team, those results aren't going to happen. Now, the thing about results, which is a little tricky, is that we're talking about the collective results of the team. We're not talking about the individual results of a person on the team, or a department, or a division. We're saying that everybody on a team is collectively interested in the good of the whole. That means they're going to trade off their benefit for the good of the team, even if it means their individual silo might suffer. They know that's worth it because they're all collectively interested in the greater good of the company or the organization.
Okay, now here's the thing I want to say. Teamwork, the five dysfunctions of a team, isn't for everyone. If a team is not really committed to teamwork, they're not really a team at all. They would be what I would call a golf team: a group of people from different departments or divisions that separately goes out and performs and comes together every once in a while to add up their scores to see how they did. That's not a team. It's what we call a working group. A real team is like a basketball team, where people are trading off their benefits to one another, doing different jobs to make the team work, even if it doesn't feel like it's in their best interest. They know it's what's right for everyone. So, what I like to say is, teamwork is not a virtue necessarily, it's a choice, a strategic one. And if we're going to make that choice, we need to invest in building trust, engaging in conflict, committing to decisions, holding each other accountable, and emphasizing the collective results of the team. [Music]