Abstract
Efficient teamwork is an important prerequisite of a company’s productivity (Maddux, 1994, p.8). This statement can be substantiated by the fact that synergistic effects arise, when several individuals and entities start to work together. However, as it was emphasized by P.Lencioni (2010), the team-building and subsequent effective functioning of the team requires meeting two criteria (pp.9-10).
Firstly, the group of people shall constitute a team by sharing goals, as well as rewards and responsibilities, stemming from the achievement of these goals (Lencioni, 2006, p.9). Secondly, the members to a team shall be ready to invest significant time and emotional efforts into the process, rather than take half measures (Lencioni, 2006, p.10). If the team meets the above criteria, it is time to transfer to the “meat” of the book, providing an insight into five most common dysfunctions of a team and the ways to overcome them through specific team-building exercises and tools.
The first crucial dysfunction of a team is an absence of trust. Interestingly, P.Lencioni connects the notion of trust to the one of vulnerability, understood as one’s ability to admit the truth about himself/ herself and be not afraid of sharing concerns and fears with other team members. Passivity and the desire for self-preservation are singled out as the major reasons for the emergence of trust-related dysfunctions (Lencioni, 2006, pp.16-18). Personal stories-based exercises and behavioural profiling are seen as major ways to overcome the lack of trust.
The second dysfunction to address is a fear of conflict. In this regard, it is underlined that the lack of conflict is an important obstacle of effective meetings and brainstorming issues (Lencioni, 2006, p. 45). Thus, there is a need for a leader to be able to both fuse conflicts and manage the outcomes of such fusion. In this regard, the notions of “conflict norming” and “conflict culture” are considered by Lencioni (2010). The major tools of overcoming the lack of conflicts deal with emphasizing and mastering them.
The third dysfunction, addressed in the book, is the lack of commitment. This dysfunction is tightly linked to the lack of trust and fear of conflict (Lencioni, 2006, p.3). Teams that do not engage into a genuine conflict are prevented from putting all the ideas on a table and deliberating them. Not trusting other members of a team and fearing conflicts, team members tend to be not enough committed to the shared goals. The major way to prevent commitment-related challenges is concerned with promoting clarity by combating ambiguities and assumptions as soon as they arise.
The fourth addressed dysfunction is the avoidance of accountability. In this regard, it is crucial that the team members are aware about their areas of responsibility and the fact that they will once have to report their progress (Lencioni, 2006, p.3). Thus, it is important that team members promote one another’s accountability during meetings and through a regular review of the team’s scoreboard.
The fifth important dysfunction a team may suffer is an inattention to results. This dysfunction is tightly related to those, mentioned above. It is claimed that teams that trust one another, get engaged into genuine conflicts, facilitate decision-making and promote accountability tend to focus on their possible contribution into the achievement of common goals.
Following the description of most common dysfunctions in teams’ functioning Lencioni (2010) mentions most common obstacles to avoid. They include the lack of leaders’ commitment to team-building, one’s dominating the sessions, geographical dispersion and so on (Lencioni, 2006, pp.98-99).
Concrete response
My experience of volunteering at the NGO of young journalists shows that all the dysfunctions, critically addressed by Lencioni (2010) tend to go along with one another. The major practical obstacle to an effective work of the NGO was that everybody studied and worked at different universities, and the engagement into the activities of the NGO was of secondary importance for all the group members.
Furthermore, we barely knew each other at the interpersonal level and, therefore, evidently lacked trust and, consequently, did not want to engage into conflicts. The reason behind the lack of conflicts was two-fold. Firstly, nobody wanted to spend too much time at the office. Secondly, there was an unspoken consensus of imitating successful activities without deciding what the best option will be.
Thus, lacking trust and avoiding conflicts, the members of our team evidently could not develop commitment to common goals. This statement can be substantiated by the fact that we even did not have enough time and willingness to reconsider the outdated vision and mission statements, formulated by the previous team of journalists.
The lack of accountability was manifested by the fact that everybody was okay with competing small specific tasks, but did not want to get engaged into a large-scale discussion of what has to be done in order to convert the NGO into a more successful structure. As team members tended to lack time to meet up, it was also rather hard to report and estimate the progress of an organization as a whole. In this regard, it is also worth mentioning that the leader of the NGO preferred a rather formal approach to executing his tasks.
My experience with journalists’ NGO testifies to the fact that all the dimensions of teams’ dysfunctions tend to be tightly interconnected and mutually feeding. Thus, overcoming dysfunctions requires multifaceted team-building activities.
Reflection
Most commonly distinguished attributes of successful teamwork are to include commitment to team success, open communication and functioning feedback, as well as interpersonal skills (Tarricone& Luca, 2002, p.1). The above attributes tend to reflect the ones, underlined by Lencioni (2010) in his book. However, Lencioni (2010) tends to underestimate the importance of the proper distribution of roles inside a team that is emphasized by Tarricone& Luca (2002). An insight into the importance of the proper composition of a group is provided by Belbin (2012).
Having studied the practice of teamwork in a range of varied teams, Belbin (2012) singled out nine typical roles, met across teams. For instance, a plant is an idea generator, whose major qualities include innovative thinking and problem orientation. At the same time, a coordinator is a good candidate for a team leader, because he is capable of seeing the big picture and recognizing the capabilities of others.
Useful contributions to the teamwork are also made by specialists, teamworker(s)/implementer(s), completer(s) etc. The failure to consider team composition needs to be further addressed in the works by Lencioni in order to develop a more critical understanding of possible reasons behind an unsuccessful functioning of a team.
Another important aspect that needs to be addressed along with the commitment-related dysfunction deals with the issue of motivation and the way to retain it. In this regard, it is to be noted that motivation is related to individuals’ wellbeing and satisfaction at work. In turn, work satisfaction and wellbeing at the workplace stem from a broad range of factors, ranging from physical environment to the scale of employee benefits and relations with colleagues (Roos, 2005). The lack of motivation needs to be addressed separately from commitment-related issues due to the multitude of factors, underlying it.
Action plan
As I currently study at university, I usually encounter teamwork-related issues, when working in groups with my friends on study or experiment projects. However, as these projects are quite similar to the ones that are implemented at the real-life workplace, I the work by Lencioni (2010) can be applied to improve the functioning of teams. Furthermore, as I am frequently selected as a team leader (coordinator), it is of significant importance for me to be able to distinguish the dysfunctions, happening inside a team, and successfully master them, facilitating team-building.
The first aspect I would like to emphasize is a genuine need to ensure that team members trust each other. In the past I tended not to pay significant attention to the interpersonal relations inside a team (apart from cases, when explicit conflicts started to happen). Therefore, I never managed to create a situation, where team members were ready to tell about their vulnerabilities, concerns and fears that could potentially influence the implementation of the project. After having got acquainted with the work by Lencioni (2010) I understood an extent to which mutual trust inside a team constitutes a foundation for its successful functioning.
Therefore, I use specific team-building techniques in order to promote trust inside a team and participants’ readiness to share their fears and concerns. In this regard, I employ more general and also more specific methods. In general terms I try to create situations, where team members can communicate informally, so that they get used to each other and are not afraid to build interpersonal relations. Such situations may include doing sports together or taking part in social activities (e.g., clubbing). In more specific terms, I use techniques, suggested by Lencioni (2010) in his book. First of all, I use the method of personal histories. During such team-building sessions students are encouraged to talk about their university experiences, whereby they felt themselves vulnerable or not confident enough
. In this regard, special attention is paid to talking about the way one used to counter such situation. Students are encouraged to comment at each others’ experiences and recall similar ones. As the majority of personal histories are funny and amazing, they tend to help session participants to be open and sympathizing.
Secondly, I use the method of behavioural profiling to build up vulnerability-based trust, as well as facilitate team members’ communication. This method is quite simple. Students are given an objective and the reliable means of describing each other. The use of this method increases the likelihood that team members will reveal their strengths and weaknesses, while commenting on descriptions, complied by one another. Furthermore, behavioural profiling is crucial for helping team members to develop a common way of speaking about strengths and weaknesses, fears and concerns, as well as similarities and differences.
References
Belbin, R.M. (2012). Team roles at work. London: Routledge
Lencioni, P. (2010). Overcoming the five dysfunctions of a team. London: John Wiley&Sons
Maddux, R.T. (1994). Team-building: an exercise in leadership. London: Kogan Page
Roos, W. (2005). The relationship between employee motivation, job satisfaction and corporate culture. Capetown: University of South Africa
Tarricone, P., Luca, J. (2002). Successful teamwork: a case study. Retrieved 11 February 2016 from http://www.unice.fr/crookall-cours/teams/docs/team%20Successful%20teamwork.pdf
