Building a Team that Gets Results

In his brilliant book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," Patrick Lencioni identified common problems facing people working together to achieve specific results:

• Absence of Trust

• Fear of Conflict

• Lack of Commitment

• Avoidance of Accountability

• Inattention to Results

According to Lencioni, these dysfunction work like a pyramid, with Trust at the bottom and Results at the top. Failure to overcome any one dysfunction interferes with a team's ability to achieve the work they have come together to perform.

A functioning team must be:

• Built on a foundation of trust, defined as an ability to trust that your peers' intentions are good and that you can be vulnerable without fear of retribution.

• Willing to engage in productive ideological conflict and dialogue in order to produce the best solutions in the shortest time.

• Capable of making clear and timely decisions and moving forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision.

• Able to hold team members accountable, focusing attention on the performance or behaviors of peers that might hurt the team.

• Unrelentingly focused on specific objectives and clearly defined outcomes for the team.

Whenever you are working with a group of people and are not achieving specific results or cooperation that you want, evaluate the group in terms of these five functions and determine where the problem lies:

• Are the team members able to admit mistakes, ask for help, accept questions or input about their areas of responsibility, and take risks in offering feedback?

• Is the team able to have lively meetings where critical topics are discussed, politics is minimized, and real problems are solved quickly?

• Does the team create clarity around direction and priorities, aligning the entire team towards common objectives?

• Do team members identify potential problems quickly by questioning one another's approaches without hesitation, and do poor performers feel pressure to improve?

• Do team members subjugate their own goals/interests for the good of the team?

If you are the leader of a group, you can take steps to undo any dysfunctions and work towards turning a group of people into a high-functioning team. Team leaders set the tone for a team and lead by example. If you are not the leader, you can still make a difference. Leadership occurs at all levels of a team. And we must be willing to take responsibility for helping to improve the team, or we really are not part of the team.