Back
Patrick Lencioni: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Hardcover, 2002, Jossey-Bass) 4 stars

After her first two weeks observing the problems at DecisionTech, Kathryn Petersen, its new CEO, …

Must read for managers, leaders, and those who aim to do so

4 stars

A short business fable (love 'em!) in which a newly appointed CEO is tasked with fixing a toxic leadership team at a mid-sized tech company. This is a not a tech company book. This is a leadership book. The fable goes over a fictional situation inside a for-profit company's execute team, but the learnings are entirely applicable to other places as well, be it a smaller team inside a company, a non-profit, a hobby club, a political party, or whatever. And by being realatively short (under 200 pages) the book is quite accessible.

Lencioni goes over five interlinked dysfunctions that they've seen in teams, and by power of story gives the reader an approachable overview of how they manifest and what can be done to fix things. At the end of the book Lencioni describes the five dysfunctions model in a practical way with actionables and questionnaires in addition to the fable.

The dysfunctions can be obvious to some people (especially if you're already familiar with things like psychological safety, continuous collaboration, and so on), but based on my personal experience, many more leaders should know about them and how to fix them. Lencioni describes how the dysfunctions feed into each other and for instance how lack of trust between team members can undermine any attempts of making positive outcomes no matter how hard you try.