Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Essay Example

Teamwork is building collaborative actions and activities by bringing together diversified knowledge and experiences to function effectively as an entity for a common purpose. The effectiveness of a team arises from good leadership, commitment, visions, communication, and coordinated efforts. It benefits both individuals and the teams by improving their confidence and attitudes, promotes better understanding through interactions and also fosters adaptability to varying circumstances. According to Lencioni (2002), there are attributes in a team which promote effectiveness and coordinates teamwork yielding good results. They include interdepence among team members, teamwork and affiliation, varied leadership, motivation and trust among members. The decision Tech’s ineffectiveness was as a result of ignorance to the above basic attributes. The dominant aspect which contributed to failure in the company was a poor organizational structure. An organizational culture is a framework of set norms or values which dictate behavior in a particular organization. Individuals are guided by unspoken rules which they must adhere to as members of team. There was lack of effective communication among the executives in the company which created enormous blocks to effective decision making. Members hesitated to give their views, and simultaneously failed to regard other’s opinions. This brought about friction and lack of cohesion in the team where individuals concealed their mistakes and solely blamed the participating decision makers. Issues of diversity were not dealt with since there was minimal or conceited interaction. Consequently, lack of transparency crept in and trust was no more in the team. Decisions made lack foundation as the executive members refrained from responsibility. They evaded meetings and dreaded participating in any activities that demanded collective effort. This weakened the implantation of policies in the Decision Tech and slowly extinguished the morale’s fire in teamwork. In establishment of team norms in the norming stage, members don’t give in to the vulnerable illusions. They build faith in themselves independently and shun external influences regardless of their origin or the nature of assistance they bring in. They’ve got confidence in the decisions they make and don’t agree to the fact they make mistakes as human beings. Members concede less to pressure and tend to avoid distracting ideas or delayed gestures in making conclusions In Decision Tech, there are behavioral norms which had cropped up before Kathryn’s reign. One of them was pride, they boasted as the most sophisticated company with the highest paid executive team and the top investors (Lencioni, 2002).The board members could not swallow the fact that Kathryn was their upcoming leader. They looked down upon her since she was a lady, a coach retiree and regarded her as a mismatch since she had no Tech’s experience. However, after two years, the euphoria disappeared and the place was mentioned to the most depressing avenue of work. The executive also had a tendency of ‘lighting the fire’, a slogan which meant cultivating towards success with no interference. The board would make major critical decisions without consultations and would expect member’s conformation . This is evident where Martin, the marketing executive prepared a deal for the company to sell a quarter of the entity to another manufacturing company (Lencioni, 2002).The executive had not consulted and was not ready to amend the dealings when requested to. Such decisions impacted no good but drawbacks to the company since there was no unity and cohesion in the team. Decision Tech went through all the stages of development with the leadership of Kathryn who had an amazing gift for building teams. To begin with the forming stage where the team needs to become acquainted with its members, she was ready to build relationships with the executives. She attended the first meeting with great anticipation of knowing the board members and she even let Jeff chair the meeting as she sat back and took notes (Lencioni, 2002).She accepted a lunch invitation on same day from Jeff, whom they chatted over in the event (p.11).This was a great model of encouraging affiliation among the team members who initially thought that she was not leading by example, but were later assimilated into her objective. Kathryn also put great efforts to promote cohesion and unity in the company. She knew how well to manage conflicts which is demonstrated on Martin’s scandal. She calmed down the rage in other members who were ready to withdraw from the team. She called for a conference in Nappa town where the team resolved the issue with emphasis on absence of trust (p.22). In storming Kathryn assisted the team in managing their conflicts and disagreements. She was composed to handle complaints by members that the meeting was boring and overstuffed with agendas (p.25).She was wise enough to diplomatically reprimand notorious characters like Martin who intentionally arrived late for meetings and always had ways of distracting the meetings. She motivated the members to focus on their achievements, and improve on their weaknesses with a winning attitude. The efforts progressively elevated the team to the performance level. She assisted the members to lay more enlightened strategic plans with achievable goals. This gave the team a shared vision which motivated every party’s participation regardless of the obstacles. She delegated tasks and projects and worked together in team as a coach and a motivator. Kathryn demonstrates all the given tools of developing credibility but of all she possessed an outstanding character of building relationships. They way she managed agreements and disagreements chained to success as trust developed among the team members. She gave room to the opinions of other members and motivated them to air out their views without fear or anticipated respect....”You don’t have to raise your hands, just speak out” (p.23).This liberation made the members regard themselves as useful parts of the team and that their solely contributions mattered. She discouraged mistrust in the team and regarded it as vulnerability. She reckoned that every individual is capable of committing mistakes and that should not have given members room for raging against each other. She trained executives to engage in integrity and avoid games of pretending to know what they did not. In the long run, she was capable of building a strong foundation of relationships with structural avenues where members openly discuss and make consensus decisions. The text identifies various positive and negative roles which can be attributed to specific characters in the Decision Tech as follows; A blocking role- Martin: Though he was the inventor and the founder of the company, he claimed to know much more than anyone else in the executive. He occasionally had conflicts with the rest of the team by devising and implementing plans without consultation. More over, he would be deliberately absent or late for meetings with no apologies. He would dominate in the meetings mostly by making complaints and regularly interrupting others. ’ Tap, tap…..Martin had started banging away on his keyboard, which was killing the conversational momentum’ (p.25). Task facilitating role- Jan: She was the chief financial officer. She had professional skills of managing and distributing the company’s money wisely ensuring that there was no interruption of tasks. The board had confidence in her for they knew she could not let things out of control (Lencioni, 2002). A relationship building role- Nick: He was the chief operating officer. He had been employed for the company’s growth with most of his responsibilities pending. He therefore had more free time with less to do. However he never complained but utilized most of the time building relationships with his colleagues, including the ones he deemed inferior (Lencioni, 2002). References Lencioni, P. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Singapore: John Willey & Sons, 2002. Lencioni, P. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: a leadership fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Read More