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The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Enhanced Edition: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series Book 43)

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The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, 20th Anniversary Edition (J-B Lencioni Series Book 43) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Patrick M. Lencioni (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 13,439 ratings

in Human Resources & Personnel Management

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The New York Times best-selling team leadership handbook for modern executives, managers, and organizations

After her first two weeks observing the problems at DecisionTech, Kathryn Petersen, its new CEO, had more than a few moments when she wondered if she should have taken the job. But Kathryn knew there was little chance she would have turned it down. After all, retirement had made her antsy, and nothing excited her more than a challenge. What she could not have known when she accepted the job, however, was just how dysfunctional her team was, and how team members would challenge her in ways that no one ever had before.

For twenty years, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has been engaging audiences with a page-turning, realistic fable that follows the travails of Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech’s CEO, as she faces the ultimate leadership crisis. She must unite a team in such disarray that it threatens to derail the entire company.

Equal parts leadership fable and business handbook, this definitive source on teamwork by Patrick Lencioni reveals the five behavioral tendencies that go to the heart of why even the best teams struggle. He offers a powerful model and step-by-step guide for overcoming those dysfunctions and getting every one rowing in the same direction.

Today, the lessons in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team are more relevant than ever. This special anniversary edition celebrates one of the best-selling business books of all time with a new foreword from the author that reflects on its legacy and lessons.

From the brand

Patrick Lencioni is the pioneer of the organizational health movement and the author of 13 bestselling books, including, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Advantage, and The Ideal Team Player. For the past 25 years, Pat and his firm, The Table Group, have provided leaders with products and services to make their organizations more effective, their teams more cohesive, and their employees more fulfilled.
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From the Publisher

the five dysfunctions of a team, anniversary edition, patrick lencioni

Jim Collins endorsement quote for The Five Dysfunctions of a Team 20th anniversary

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Model

five dysfunctions of a team book, patrick lencioni, teamwork book, leadership book, leading a team

Like it or not, all teams are potentially dysfunctional. This is inevitable because they are made up of fallible, imperfect human beings. From the basketball coach to the executive suite, politics and confusion are more the rule than the exception. However, facing dysfunction and focusing on teamwork is particularly critical at the top of an organization because the executive team sets the tone for how all employees work with one another. Fortunately, there is hope. Counter to conventional wisdom, the causes of dysfunction are both identifiable and curable. The first step toward reducing politics and confusion within your team is to understand that there are five dysfunctions to contend with, and address each that applies, one by one.

DYSFUNCTION #1: ABSENCE OF TRUST

The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents building of trust within the team.

DYSFUNCTION #2: FEAR OF CONFLICT

The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive, ideological conflict.

DYSFUNCTION #3: LACK OF COMMITMENT

The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

DYSFUNCTION #4: AVOIDANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY

The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable for their behaviors and performance.

DYSFUNCTION #5: INATTENTION TO RESULTS

The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, Patrick Lencioni targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. And like those preceding it, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. Like the author's previous books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, this is highly recommended. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

In keeping with the parable style, Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO) begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team. Story time over, Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results). Succinct yet sympathetic, this guide will be a boon for those struggling with the inherent difficulties of leading a group. 100,000 first printing.

From Library Journal

Building a cohesive team is not complicated, declares Lencioni, president of his own management consulting firm and author of The Five Temptations of a CEO. Departing from the dry, theoretical writing of many management books, he presents his case in the context of a fictional organization, and in doing so succeeds at communicating his ideas. The story is about a female CEO who is hired to bring together a dysfunctional executive staff to work as a team in a company that just two years earlier had looked promising. The scenarios that follow are recognizable and can be applied anywhere teamwork is involved, whether it is a multinational company, a small department within a larger organization, or a sports team. The five dysfunctions discussed are absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. At the end of the story, the main points are summarized, and clearly written suggestions and exercises are offered to help bring about change. Concise and easy to follow, this book is recommended for academic and public libraries with management collections and for anyone who is a member of a team that needs improvement. Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The final installment in a trilogy that includes The Five Temptations of a CEO (1998) and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive (2000), this fictional story demonstrates how a new CEO reforms a dysfunctional executive team with a series of sometimes-painful off-site meetings designed to break them of bad habits. The company has superior tangible and intangible assets yet is behind its competitors in terms of revenue and customer growth. When Kathryn is brought on board to figure out why, she forces her reluctant team to examine their interpersonal behaviors, such as letting individual ego get in the way of team goals. She demands healthy conflict and accountability among the group and vigilantly prevents them from sliding back into old habits. Losing a couple executives in the process, she succeeds in turning the company around. Lencioni demonstrates his points effectively by getting the reader involved in the characters and the tension between them. He wraps up this "leadership fable" with a brief discussion containing additional suggestions on overcoming the five deadly dysfunctions. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"[...] Das Besondere an diesem Buch sind jedoch nicht die Inhalte, sondern es ist die Art der Vermittlung von Know-How und Praxiswissen. Lencioni gelingt dabei das Kunststuck, Sachinformation in ein packendes Fallbeispiel zu verpacken - eine Eigenschaft, die er mit vielen amerikanischen Autoren teilt. Das erleichtert die Identifizierung des Lesers mit den Erkenntnissen und sorgt fu eine ganze Reihe von Aha-Erlebnissen.[...] Dankenswerterweise lasst Lencioni den Leser dabei nicht allein mit einer spannenden Prosa, sondern liefert zudem auch Hinweise zur praktischen Realisierung des Erlernten." (personalmagazin, 07/2007)

Review

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has stood the test of time, because practicing leaders—those who must get things done through the power of teams—find its insights timeless, incisive, and useful.”
—Jim Collins, author, Good to Great, and co-author, Built to Last

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has been my playbook for developing our staff and locker room culture for the last decade. The book is a classic—it covers all the real stuff that drives productive teams that many of us are usually too uncomfortable to address.”
—Erik Spoelstra, Head Coach, Miami Heat

“I have watched this book become the foundational source on teamwork within our company, and in just about every other organization I know. It’s hard to imagine the world of work without The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”
—Elizabeth Bryant, SVP of People, Learning & Development, Southwest Airlines

“Patrick Lencioni’s classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is one of the most helpful organizational leadership books of all time. These principles greatly influenced my personal and foundational leadership strategy. This is a book I’ve revisited many times and learn more each time I read it. Get a copy for yourself and everyone on your team.”
—Craig Groeschel, Founding Pastor of Life.Church and New York Times best-selling author

"Every manager and executive will recognize themselves somewhere in this book. Lencioni distills the problems that keep even the most talented teams from realizing their full potential. Even more important, he shows — in prose that is crisp, clear, and fun to read — how to solve them."
—Geoffrey A. Moore, Chairman Emeritus of The Chasm Institute, The Chasm Group, and TCG Advisors, and author, Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win

From the Inside Flap

After her first two weeks observing the problems at DecisionTech, Kathryn Petersen, its new CEO, had more than a few moments when she wondered if she should have taken the job. But Kathryn knew there was little chance she would have turned it down. After all, retirement had made her antsy, and nothing excited her more than a challenge. What she could not have known when she accepted the job, however, was just how dysfunctional her team was, and how team members would challenge her in ways that no one ever had before.

For twenty years, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has been engaging audiences with a page-turning, realistic fable that follows the travails of Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech’s CEO, as she faces the ultimate leadership crisis. She must unite a team in such disarray that it threatens to derail the entire company.

Equal parts leadership fable and business handbook, this definitive source on teamwork by Patrick Lencioni reveals the five behavioral tendencies that go to the heart of why even the best teams struggle. He offers a powerful model and step-by-step guide for overcoming those dysfunctions and getting everyone rowing in the same direction.

Today, the lessons in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team are more relevant than ever. This special anniversary edition celebrates one of the best-selling business books of all time with a new foreword from the author that reflects on its legacy and lessons.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has been my playbook for developing our staff and locker room culture for the last decade. The book is a classic—it covers all the real stuff that drives productive teams that many of us are usually too uncomfortable to address.”
—Erik Spoelstra, Head Coach, Miami Heat

“I have watched this book become the foundational source on teamwork within our company, and in just about every other organization I know. It’s hard to imagine the world of work without The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”
—Elizabeth Bryant, SVP of People, Learning & Development, Southwest Airlines

“Patrick Lencioni’s classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is one of the most helpful organizational leadership books of all time. These principles greatly influenced my personal and foundational leadership strategy. This is a book I’ve revisited many times and learn more each time I read it. Get a copy for yourself and everyone on your team.”

—Craig Groeschel, Founding Pastor of Life.Church and New York Times best-selling author

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team has stood the test of time, because practicing leaders—those who must get things done through the power of teams—find its insights timeless, incisive, and useful.”
—Jim Collins, author, Good to Great, and co-author, Built to Last

About the Author

Patrick M. Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a management consulting firm specializing in executive team development and organizational health. As a consultant and keynote speaker, he has worked with thousands of senior executives in organizations ranging from Fortune 500s and high-tech start-ups to universities and nonprofits. He is the author of six nationally recognized books, including the New York Times bestseller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Visit his website www.tablegroup.com.

From AudioFile

Using the fable mode, listeners get a fly-on-the-wall perspective of a management team's interactions. Charles Stransky tidily characterizes each of the players at a high-tech company--the newly hired CEO and his highly dysfunctional team of managers, including the former CEO, the CFO, the COO, etc. Each character has his/her own agenda, and the listener can also hear his/her voice, thanks to the skillful Stransky, who delivers a solid narration, along with an inspiring strategy. Business leaders can glean strategy, examples, and determination through this fable. At the end, there are no-nonsense step-by-step directions to follow to create a functional team within any organization. D.L.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B006960LQW
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jossey-Bass; 1st edition (November 17, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 17, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1245 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 242 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0787960756

Best Sellers Rank: #11,323 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1 in Human Resources & Personnel Management (Kindle Store)
- #3 in Business Teams
- #9 in Business Leadership

Customer Reviews:
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Patrick M. Lencioni

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Patrick Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to helping leaders improve their organizations’ health since 1997. His principles have been embraced by leaders around the world and adopted by organizations of virtually every kind including multinational corporations, entrepreneurial ventures, professional sports teams, the military, nonprofits, schools, and churches.

Lencioni is the author of ten business books with over three million copies sold worldwide. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Bloomberg Businessweek, and USA Today.

Prior to founding The Table Group, Lencioni served on the executive team at Sybase, Inc. He started his career at Bain & Company and later worked at Oracle Corporation.

Lencioni lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and their four sons.

To learn more about Patrick and The Table Group, please visit www.tablegroup.com.

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Kyle

Great book... if the boss will listen!

Reviewed in the United States on February 29, 2024

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Very easy to read and/or listen to. It is written and read in a way that is entertaining while still very informational and empowering.

We read this book as a team in our office. My only issue with the book was that when all was said and done, my boss didn't really follow along with the principles taught. Obviously not this book's fault, but it did leave me with a sour taste for the experience.

Given that I really liked this book, and the not-so-great circumstances mentioned above, I look forward to the day when I can read/listen to it again. Hopefully the next time around will be with a leadership team I am a part of and can provide a more positive influence and experience.

3 people found this helpful

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jakem

pretty good guide to team/management pitfalls

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is a novel, not a reference book, but the storytelling works fairly well. Consequently, while it works okay for replicating the success in the story within your own team, if you happen across a situation that falls outside something they addressed in the story, you may be a bit lost in how best to deal with it. That's the nature of dealing with a novel instead of a direct implementation guide. On the plus side, it's a heck of a lot easier to read a story than a dry manual. :)

It does feel just a bit contrived to me. The situations are relate-able, but they feel just a little forced... like the situations are designed to fit the lessons, rather than being strictly based in reality. The company and characters sometimes don't feel *real*... they feel as though they were designed to be generic, so as to be more generally relate-able... but in so doing they lose a dimension of their personality, and it's (paradoxically) harder to relate to them very deeply. It makes the story feel rather "jack of all trades, master of none." Which is okay, it provides a solid all-around basis, but I'd also want something more specific to either my industry or my field, or my particular problems.

The actual 5 dysfunctions seem pretty solid to me. I somewhat disagree on just how bad each one might be and what sorts of behaviors will be better or worse, but it's a reasonably good framework for looking at a team and judging it's overall effectiveness.

I do suspect that the book does not stress the lower dysfunctions (particularly the lowest one, lack of trust) strongly enough. This is based on my own experience- people want to try and talk about failures at all levels of the pyramid, but the reality is it's extremely difficult to effectively solve any problems above trust, until trust is already solved. Therefore, I believe it would be better to focus heavily on trust only until you're sure it's really nailed down, then move up the pyramid. Even the team in the story makes this mistake, and consequently backslides easily. I believe the book does not do enough to dissuade readers from trying to fix problems at every level right off the bat.

To my earlier point of wanting a more focused book, I will add that if you're looking to fix an IT department specifically I'd *highly* recommend "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim, even instead of this one. This is still good (and there's a lot of info that's complementary), but that one is just flat better, for that specific scenario. It is also in novel form, but reads much more naturally to me (as an IT manager). I could certainly relate to things in 5 Dysfunctions, but I could feel the protagonists challenges in my soul in TPP. It's a whole other level of precision and applicability. I imagine there may be books like this for other disciplines.

15 people found this helpful

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PS

informative

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

This book was engaging, helpful and informative. A a leader at work this really opened my eyes into ways I can improve as a leader and as a member of the team.

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Veronica Sander

Easy to read, captivating lessons in story form

Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2024

Verified Purchase

Great book! Appreciate the clarity of each dysfunction and how to overcome them. I was constantly evaluating my teams to find opportunities for growth.

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Shawn D. Callahan

Finally, a business fable that doesn't make you want to vomit

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2012

Verified Purchase

I have an aversion to business fables. The ones I've read give me the irrates. They seem to trivialise business. Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life , Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (Kotter, Our Iceberg is Melting) , Fish! and Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling all left me a little cold. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Fable by Patrick Lencioni.

Five Dysfunctions popped up on my radar a couple of years ago and ever since then a number of people suggested I should read it. It was published back in 2002 and there seems to be quite an industry that's grown around it with addional handbooks and resources available. For me, this wasn't a good sign.

Then a client lent me a copy so I started on a plane trip home from Sydney and finsihed the book in three short sittings. It's a nicely crafted story: short chapters, cliff hangers, good dialogue and believable and messy business situations.

Most of Five Dysfunctions is a business story. About a third of the book, at the end, describes the five dysfunctions model. The story is about Kathryn who joins DecionTech as their new CEO. The executive team is a bit of a mess and they don't welcome her with open arms. Kathryn starts a process of conversations and straight talking at a series offsites and team meetings and engages the Executive in understanding a simple model showing what needs to happen to turn their group into a team.

Like all good models it's nice and simple and can be drawn on a whiteboard.

Each part of the model is interlocked. It's pointless working on one part without addressing the others.

One of the real advantages of learning about the model as a story is that you hear from the characters ask and answer questions. You are a fly on the wall of an executive team and you learn through their experiences. This experiential learning is then reinforced with the didactic chapter at the end of the book.

Here's how Kathryn describes the five dysfunctions.

Absence of Trust: "Great teams do not hold back with one another." "They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal."

Fear of conflict:"If we don't trust each other, then we aren't going to engage in open, constructive, idealogical conflict. And we'll just continue to preserve a sense of artifical harmony."

Lack of commitment: "I'm talking about commitment to a plan or a decision, and getting everyone to buy into it. That's why conflict is so important." "It's as simple as this. When people don't unload their opinions and feel like theyre been listen to, they wont really get on board."

Avoidance of accountability: "Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we have signed up to do, for high standards of performance and behaviour. And as simple as that sounds, most executives hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer's behaviour, because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort."

The last dysfunction, Inattention to Results, is all about putting the team before individual egos. This issue is handled over a number of chapters at the end of the fable but I wont go into detail and spoil the surprise.

What I really liked about this book was just how well written the story was so are immersed in the world of an executive team and see the tensions and compromises, their good itent and judgements, and how conflict arises and can play out. There're plenty of models of good and poor behaviour, and our hero, Kathryn, shows us one way progress can be made.

What struck me most was just how much time is needed for an effective team to spend together planning, discussing, arguing. The perenial push back to spending this time, however, is that tired business phrase, "we just need to get back to the real work." Well, here's the breaking news for any executive who wants their company to excel: it's your first priority to build an effective executive team so it can draw on all its talents to achieve results.

I loved this book and have been recommending it all over the place. Get a copy, read it, then pass it on to another executive who you think really needs to get their team back on track.

22 people found this helpful

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