Ray Hefner, Executive Director The Voice Newsletter November 2023

Back in April of 2023, I wrote a brief article about “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” focusing on the first dysfunction, Absence of Trust. This article focuses on the next fur dysfunctions with some simple solutions to avoid them. It is important to understand that each builds off the next. Listed below are the issues associated with a dysfunctional team:

• Absence of Trust
• Fear of Conflict
• Lack of Commitment
• Avoidance of Accountability
• Inattention to Results

Fear of Conflict

• Team members who do not trust each other do not engage in truthful debate.
• Team members who have a fear of conflict typically have very guarded conversations and are careful with their comments for fear of reprisal.

Overcoming the Fear of Conflict

• Try mining! Have a team member assume the role of the “miner of conflict” – someone who extracts the “buried” disagreements and sheds light on them for the team.
• The miner will call out the sensitive issues and force the team to work through them explaining conflict is health and leads solving problems quickly.

Lack of Commitment

• Without having aired their opinions during teamplay, team members rarely buy into and commit to decisions.

Overcoming the Lack of Commitment

• By taking specific steps to maximize clarity and gaining buy-in, not consensus, we can overcome the fear of commitment.
• Try and have your team play cascading messages. Have the team review the activities agreed to in a planning session or team meeting with each team member providing their synopsis of key points of the meeting. You might find your team is not on the same page and they need to clarify key points before putting them into action.
• Team members will find they need clarity before implementing specific actions that would otherwise embarrass the team. Once this is established fear of commitment is no longer a dysfunction.

Avoidance of Accountability

• Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people hesitate to call out their peers even when their actions are not good for the team.

Eliminating the Fear of Accountability

• Want to get rid of the fear of accountability? Make the teams goals and objectives public! Clarify each team member’s role so every team member know who is responsible for each task. Once everyone knows who is accountable, team members will thrive for being responsible for their task(s).

Inattention to Results

• Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (ego, status or career patch) above the goal(s) of the team.

Overcoming Inattention to Results

• Want your team to pay attention to results? Simple, incentivize outcomes. Nothing speaks to a team and team members like a reward for a job well done. Do you think the accounting department would make sure there is an error-free budget if each received a day off. You bet!

Success is around the Corner

• Getting past the five dysfunctions comes down to performing simple principles and repeating them over time. It does not have to be sophisticated theories. Simply embrace common sense and be persistent. Teams succeed because they are human! By acknowledging their imperfections, members of a functional team overcome the natural tendencies that make trust, conflict, commitment accountability and results so hard to achieve.
• “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” Vince Lombardi

If you want to learn more, pick up a copy of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, A Leadership Fable. Click here to purchase. You won’t be sorry!