What Are The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team Essay

Lack of communication (mutual interaction) and dearth of reciprocal influence becomes evident as we go through the case. Also, Team members shared limited information which

There are many problems that hinder good group dynamics. We don’t usually have the luxury of picking who we are going to work with on a team; dealing with different personalities and personal agendas are common challenges in working within a team. Other commons challenges like, poor leadership, bad communications, and lack of focus can be helped or eliminated by establishing team roles.

Conflict arises from various sources in the team setting (Capozzoli, 1995). The most common causes of conflict are values, attitudes, needs, expectations, perceptions, resources, and personalities. As we are all raised with different values, morals come into play when the team issue deals directly or indirectly with ones values, morals, or ethics. Conflicting attitudes can bring about problems as two or more team members prove to have differing goals in mind. Individual needs can cause rifts within a team when they are not satisfied. The expectations of team members are not the same on how the goal will be met. We all have different perceptions of life situation and interpret them differently. The lack of resources needed to complete a task can cause conflict. Differing personalities play a major role in team conflict.

In chapter 7 of the textbook Diversity Consciousness, Butcher reports there are some barriers to teamwork. Some of these obstacles can stem from the individual member or members way of acting or thinking outside of the team or group setting. The obstacles that teams may occur could potentially detract the team from having cohesion, and hinders its productivity. Butcher give 's eight examples these obstacles. Examples: Unequal distribution of power- not having the ability to make decisions or to be heard. Having this imbalance of power creates an atmosphere that group members are subordinated, causing them not to feel comfortable or not to participate fully in the achieving of the team 's goals; stereotypes- the inability to see the individual for who they are, giving into stereotypical ideas, which can cloud your judgement of the person and/ or group; lack of outside support- to work in a box cut off from other people; Social values- difficulty working with a team, a member that is use to completion or individualism, and unwilling to share the credit; lack of trust- hesitant to share or to feel vulnerable to others; lack of communication or miscommunication- unable to exchange information with clarity, and lost the information in the context of delivery; and finally, disagreements over the roles of members or the team 's mission- unclear of the responsibilities or role of member or the dynamics of the group. Once these obstacles

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a leadership fable centered on a fictitious up and coming technology firm called DecisionTech. DecisionTech located outside of Silicon Valley. Patrick Lencioni used this fictitious technology firm and its executive team, also known as “The Staff,” with very diverse characteristics to explain his five dysfunctions of a team. In addition to how each of the dysfunctions can hurt not only the team but also the company.

Throughout the beginning of the book ‘The Five Dysfunction of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni it was apparent that the DecisionTech, Inc. executive team was not a team at all. This group of individuals lacked some of the key attributes that make great teams. One of the most important attributes that was being neglected was that the executive group did not have interdependent members. This attribute was highlighted in the beginning of the book when the author said “Backstabbing among the executives had become an art. There was no sense of unity or camaraderie on the team, which translated into a muted level of commitment” (7). Due to the executive teams lack of interdependence, critical deadlines began to slip and morale deteriorated.

This type of dysfunctional operation of an organization has many ways and opportunities for failure. The basic fundamentals of this process are the beginnings of failure as groups seek conformity and unity they sacrifice everything in order to maintain peace within the group. Many times this will take the individuals creative thoughts and ability to voice the creative edge thinking away. In many organizations this is a process that is continually used. It is perceived that management wants the organizations operation or process to run without any type of question or waves. Below are listed eight of the main symptoms of group think as detailed by Janis, I. L & Manns book “Decision making”

She is expected to build a system that demonstrates trust, understands conflict, commits to collective decision making, and have the ability to hold one another accountable for the betterment of the company. Furthermore, Lencioni incorporates his real life theory the five dysfunctions of a team, into the fable in hopes to persuade the reader to use his methods in real world scenarios. Moreover, Lencioni then describes the five levels of dysfunctions in depth supporting his stance that teamwork is the most important aspect of any successful business. “Teamwork comes down to the mastering of set behaviors that are once theoretically uncomplicated, trust.” (Lencioni, 2002, pg. 21) Furthermore, inspiring the first team dysfunction in absences of trust. The absence of trust ultimately stems from a team being unable to open up to one another about their strengths and weaknesses. “Trust is the foundation of real teamwork and failure also referring the failure on the part of the team members to open up to one another.” (Lencioni, 2002, pg. 42) Furthermore, supporting the authors purpose of the fable, in which is, success depends being committed to enforcing

| The key features of an effective team performance are: * Leaders who are hands-on, who unite their staff behind a shared purpose, and who are transparent and open in their expectations and pursuit of excellence. * Clarity of vision, which is absolutely focused on the experience

Team members must understand the nature of team discussion and decision making---Differences in discussion habits can paralyzed a team. All team members have an approximately model in mind for how and how long a topic should be discussed.

The fourth aspect of a dysfunctional group is lack of communication. I believe that this is by far the most important aspect of a good team. Without good communication it is hard to maintain accountability, trust, and to express opinions. The key to success in all the ice breaker games was being able to communicate with your team effectively in a manner that everybody you were working with understood the point you were trying to make. We have learned that communication is more than just verbal it is also nonverbal, such as the body language and hand gestures that you use. In my group’s ice breaker game and presentation we tried to demonstrate that non verbal communication was important through the use of video as well as when we required our groups of to use charades type gestures to explain to the person assigned to draw what they were supposed to be drawing.

The following are eight characteristics of effective teams the were identified by Larson and LaFasto in their book titled Teamwork: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong (Sage Publications 1989).

Conflict is inevitable and at times stimulates beneficial or creative thinking. Often conflict is a signal that people are miscommunicating and making different assumptions about what has gone unspoken. The conflict in itself is not the problem. It is the team’s reactions to it that determines the impact, thus causing it to be a negative experience. Conflict or divergence can be destructive or it can be constructive. It is up to the people involved in the conflict to manage the outcome. This gives them an opportunity to articulate their assumptions and figure out a way to come to agreement. In a learning team situation, conflict can arise when the original agreement to work together does not address

A further disadvantage of teamwork may be that the team has existed too long and inspiration of new ideas has expired. This idea is discussed in Fincham and Rhodes (2005). There is a risk of team members becoming too friendly with each other and that friendships and professional relationships may be difficult to distinguish. If this occurs, team work is affected as it may be easy for team members to become distracted by personal issues rather than focussing on the task set. In this way team work may become less effective. It is important that team members remain professional when working in

Despite the advantages associated with a shared leadership approach, some disadvantages also exist. One disadvantage originates from individual interpretations of teamwork (Baghai & Quigley, 2012). In other words, not all people in a work environment view working together the same, posing a leadership challenge to clearly delineate the organization’s concept of team. Other disadvantages arise when workers chose to bypass or overlook some team members, or when an individual lacks the confidence to exhibit leadership skills resulting in organizational loss of leadership potential (Pearce, Wassenaar, & Manz, 2014).