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Add clarity to your meetings with our Meeting Advantage online tool. Related Products Online Team Assessment. And for many of you, that might very well feel like abandonment. Jeff tried to lighten the mood. You guys were my first team. As much as Jeff was joking, they could see that there was a kernel of truth to what he said, and they felt sorry for him. Kathryn felt the need to drive a point home. Kathryn could see doubt on their faces. Kathryn always preferred that kind of doubt.

I mean, if you would have told me that JR would quit and that we would already have someone like Nick in his place, I would have accused you of engineering the whole thing from the beginning. But I think we may be in pretty good shape. Still, we have a long way to go to make our numbers. We seem to be moving in the right direction and definitely having more productive conflict.

Except that it came from Carlos. Carlos frowned. And he was right. I guess we have a pretty big engineering organization. Almost a third of the company, I think. And, well, we could probably use more resources in sales, marketing, and consulting.

He preferred what he liked to call a Sarcratic approach— a sarcastic version of the Socratic method. And I salivate over the thought of using our money for better marketing and advertising.

His disgust was not lost on anyone in the room. Kathryn set the tone for what was about to happen. We owe it to our shareholders, and our employees, to figure out the right way to use our money. This is not a religious battle. She directed her statement at Martin. We are a product company. Listen, I go on as many sales calls as anyone else around here. And I speak to analysts.

Mikey piled on, but more gently than usual. It was as though he could easily deflect the insecure rants of Mikey, but was being trapped by the fairness and logic of Jan and Kathryn. Jan bailed him out. Kath- ryn put the conversation back on topic and directed her leading question toward Martin. After Martin had finished, Kathryn gave the group two hours to discuss the relative merits of expanding or reduc- ing the resources allocated to engineering and how to use them in other areas.

During that time, the team argued ve- hemently at times, changed their minds, retrenched on their original opinions, and then decided that the right answer was not so apparent after all. Perhaps most important of all, every member of the team, including Kathryn, at one time picked up the marker and went to the white board to explain a point.

If anyone yawned, it was because they were exhausted, not bored. Finally, it was Jeff who offered a solution. Nick then suggested rede- ploying the engineers from those projects and training them to assist sales reps with product demonstrations. Within minutes, the group had agreed, laid out an ag- gressive time line for implementing the change, and stared in amazement at the complex but workable solution on the white board in front of them.

So she asked Nick to lead the team in a review of their progress around their eighteen-deal goal. He went to the board and wrote the four key drivers that the group had agreed to focus on during the previous off-site: product demonstrations, competitive analysis, sales training, and product brochures.

Nick went right down the list. It turns out to be a little eas- ier than we thought, so we should be done a week or two early. Carlos has been a big help. How about com- petitor analysis? Nick decided to be constructive. Just tell me who needs to be more responsive. And Ken. For the moment, he seemed to be considering it objectively.

Martin jumped in. The fact is, Carlos is a vice president of the company, and he needs to prioritize better according to what we agreed to do, and he needs to chal- lenge people in the organization who are not responding to his requests. But this could apply to anyone. Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others be- cause they get defensive. Others because they are intimi- dating. Push with respect, and under the as- sumption that the other person is probably doing the right thing.

But push anyway. And never hold back. Then she asked Nick to continue. He gladly obliged. Especially if closing those eighteen deals is really our top priority. Mikey still seemed peeved. Go ahead. Containing any frustration that he might have felt, he pushed on. Unfortunately, the next five min- utes would make that harder than she would have liked. Nick was a little surprised. Kathryn could sense that most of them were pleased by the quality of the material.

But Nick seemed uncomfortable. But if you want to have some- one in your department add their two cents, that would be fine. Nick seemed torn between being impressed by what he was looking at and insulted by the way it was being presented to him.

Jeff tried to make the awkward situation better. In a rare moment of impulsiveness, Kathryn decided that she could not wait any longer. Except Mikey. How can I get out of this? Mikey seemed to have no idea what was about to hap- pen.

She would find out soon enough. She had to see this coming, Kathryn moaned to herself. Of all the people on this team, you think that I. She had dealt with enough obliviously difficult executives in her ca- reer to stand firm in the midst of their shock.

But Mikey was cleverer than the average executive. Calmly, Kathryn explained. During meetings, you have an extremely distract- ing and demotivating impact on all of them.

Including me. Slightly frazzled, she tried to clarify. Or my experience. My job is to build an exec- utive team that can make this company work. And I honestly believe it will be better for you too. Kathryn sensed that she was coming to terms with the situation, even ac- cepting it. When she re- turned a few minutes later, she seemed more emotional and determined than ever. But with complete sincerity and sympathy, she responded.

Kathryn clarified the situation. And it would have to change fast. But she defended herself nonetheless. In either case, she would have to come clean with her, but calmly. I would say all of those are pretty out of line.

Confronted with such stark evidence, she suddenly seemed to realize the weight of her dilemma. Still, she had a few rounds of ammunition left before she would cede defeat. This is about principle. She just looked at Kathryn coldly, shaking her head. Almost a full minute passed.

Kathryn resisted break- ing the silence, wanting Mikey to sit with herself and see the emptiness of her arguments. But she knew better than to say so right there. I mean, should I not even stay for dinner? And meet with HR to work out your exit package, assuming I can get you what you want. Still, she felt it would be best to demonstrate some degree of concern. And then she picked up her computer bag and left. When the meeting resumed, she was re- freshed—but completely unprepared for what was about to happen.

They appeared to be surprised. Kathryn was direct. And it was hurting the team. So I asked her to leave the company. They just looked at one another and at the brochures still sitting on the table in front of them. Finally, Carlos spoke. How did she take it? What are we going to do about mar- keting? To the press? She was a little surprised, a little angry, neither of which is rare in situations like this.

I have no concerns about that. If we get our act together and make progress, em- ployees and analysts alike are going to be fine.

Kathryn knew she would have to push them hard to focus on real work. She decided to enter the danger. When lunch was over, Kathryn addressed the group. I want to know how everyone is feel- ing about Mikey leaving. Because we need to make sure that we deal with this as a team before I stand in front of the company and explain it to them next week. Team members looked around at one another to see who would go first.

It was Nick. And marketing is critical right now. Maybe we should have just tolerated her. It was my first real man- agement position, and I was hoping to land a permanent job with the company after graduation. They all worked hard, but one guy in par- ticular cranked out more reports, and better ones, than any- one else. Fred took any assignment I gave him and became my most reliable employee.

No one else in the department could stand Fred. And to be honest, he annoyed the heck out of me too. Anyway, my staff came to me a number of times com- plaining about Fred. I listened carefully and even spoke to Fred half-heartedly about adjusting his behavior. But I mostly ignored them because I could tell that they resented his skills. More importantly, I was not about to come down on my top performer.

In my mind, he was carrying the department. Pretty soon, morale in the department began to deteriorate more rapidly than ever, and our performance slid further. Again, a num- ber of analysts came to me to complain about Fred, and it was becoming clear that he was indeed contributing to the problems of the group more than I had thought.

After a tough night of thinking and losing sleep, I made my first big decision. I pro- moted him. Fred was my first promotion as a manager. Two weeks later, three of my seven analysts quit, and the department fell into chaos. We dropped way behind in our work, and my manager called me in to talk about what was going on. I explained the Fred situation, and why I had lost the other analysts. The next day, he made a big decision.

He fired me. Jan wanted to make her feel better. Kathryn completed their thoughts. Performance improved dramatically within a month of his departure, even though the department now had three fewer analysts than before. Listen, they fired the right person. After a few moments, Kathryn brought her lesson home.

In spite of her typically tactful and gracious demeanor, the news pro- voked more concern among employees than the executives had expected. And though they agreed that the reaction had more to do with its symbolic meaning than with losing Mikey in particular, it dampened the enthusiasm of the team.

So during the next staff meeting, Kathryn had the group spend more than an hour discussing how they were going to replace their head of marketing. Does anyone have anything else to add? That means everyone here will be interviewing candidates and pushing to find someone who can demon- strate trust, engage in conflict, commit to group decisions, hold their peers accountable, and focus on the results of the team, not their own ego.

After asking Jeff to organize the search for the new VP, she shifted the topic to sales. Nick reported that progress had been made with a few key prospects, and that some regions of the country were still struggling.

Before anyone knew what was going on, Nick and Jan were pounding on the table trying to convince one another, and the rest of the group, that their approach was right. Kathryn jumped in, smiling. Hold on. But about issues. They want you to hash this stuff out so they can get clear direction from us. It will be worth it in more ways than you know. She chided Martin for eroding trust by appearing smug during meetings. She forced Carlos to confront the team about their lack of responsiveness to customer issues.

And she spent more than one late night with Jan and Nick, working through budget battles that had to be fought. More important than what Kathryn did, however, was the reaction she received. As resistant as they might have seemed in the moment, no one questioned whether they should be doing the things that Kathryn made them do. There seemed to be a genuine sense of collective purpose. And we have a more connected board of di- rectors. And I think we all know why that is.

But no one seemed to be alarmed at all. Nick frowned, trying to think of the right words. We are still behind two of our competitors. And we are still not where we need to be as a team. Jan added. The key is to keep doing it anyway. Nick jumped in. But the next one, accountability, worries me the most. He explained. She decided she needed to rattle them one more time. And for the next two days, the team experienced that weather. Ironically, they rarely discussed the notion of teamwork directly, which Kathryn interpreted as a sign that they were making progress.

First, the team seemed to stay together, choosing not to go off on their own as they had at previous off-sites. Sec- ond, they were noisier than they had ever been, and one of the most prevalent sounds that could be heard among them was laughter.

By the end of the session, though they were clearly exhausted, everyone seemed eager to sched- ule follow-up meetings with one another when they re- turned to the office. The new vice president of marketing, Joseph Charles, had joined DecisionTech a week earlier and was attending his first meeting with the group. Kathryn kicked off the session by making an announce- ment that no one was prepared for.

The company that we considered buying last quarter? They want to buy us. No one more so than Nick. We would all make decent money. It was as if they were all calculating their potential payouts and trying to put the offer into some sort of context. Finally, an almost angry voice with a British accent broke the silence. He spoke with more passion than anyone had ever heard from him. Jan brought them back down to earth. This is real money. And to each other.

As did Kathryn and Joseph. Martin looked at Jan. Are you kidding? Kathryn quickly refocused the meeting, wanting to cap- ture the momentum and direct it toward real business. Nick explained the impor- tance of trust. Jan and Jeff together covered conflict and commitment.

Carlos described accountability within the context of the team, and Martin finished off results. Most importantly, for the rest of the day they launched into some of the most passionate debates Joseph had ever heard and ended those debates with crystal-clear agree- ments and no sense of lingering bitterness.

The company moved into a virtual tie for the number one position in the industry, but had yet to sepa- rate itself from its chief rival. With the substantial improvement in performance, the company saw turnover among employees subside and morale rise steadily, with the exception of a slight and tem- porary dip when the company missed its numbers.

Interestingly, when that happened, even the Chairman called to encourage Kathryn not to get too disappointed in light of the undeniable progress she had made. With more than employees, Kathryn decided it was time to trim down the number of executives who reported directly to her. She believed that the larger the company, the smaller the team should be at the top. And with the ad- dition of a new head of sales and a human resources di- rector, her staff had grown to a barely manageable eight.

Even with the new collective atti- tude of the members of the team, it would be only a mat- ter of time before problems began to surface. So more than a year after the final Napa off-site had ended, Kathryn decided to make a few organizational changes, which she delicately but confidently explained to each of her staff members.

Nick would again assume the role of chief operating officer, a title he finally felt he had earned. Both at what Kathryn had said, and that she said it with so little emotion. Finally, Jan asked the question that everyone was thinking. Why would I fire Jeff? Given his new role, he and I both agree that it makes a lot of sense.

Did you really consider what this means to him? I actually gave him a chance to change his mind, and he insisted it was the right thing to do for the company, and for the team. And then she continued. In fact, keeping it simple is critical, whether you run the executive staff at a multi- national company, a small department within a larger organization, or even if you are merely a member of a team that needs improvement. In that spirit, this section is designed to provide a clear, concise, and practical guide to using the Five Dys- functions Model to improve your team.

Good luck. First, genuine teamwork in most organizations remains as elusive as it has ever been. Second, organizations fail to achieve teamwork because they unknowingly fall prey to five nat- ural but dangerous pitfalls, which I call the five dysfunc- tions of a team.

These dysfunctions can be mistakenly interpreted as five distinct issues that can be addressed in isolation of the others. But in reality they form an interrelated model, mak- ing susceptibility to even one of them potentially lethal for the success of a team. A cursory overview of each dys- function, and the model they comprise, should make this clearer.

The first dysfunction is an absence of trust among team members. Essentially, this stems from their unwilling- ness to be vulnerable within the group. Team members who are not genuinely open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust. This failure to build trust is damaging because it sets the tone for the second dysfunction: fear of conflict.

Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in un- filtered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments. Without having aired their opinions in the course of passionate and open debate, team members rarely, if ever, buy in and commit to decisions, though they may feign agreement during meetings.

Because of this lack of real commitment and buy-in, team members develop an avoidance of account- ability, the fourth dysfunction. Without committing to a clear plan of action, even the most focused and driven people often hesitate to call their peers on ac- tions and behaviors that seem counterproductive to the good of the team. Failure to hold one another accountable creates an en- vironment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive.

Inat- tention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs such as ego, career develop- ment, or recognition or even the needs of their divi- sions above the collective goals of the team. And so, like a chain with just one link broken, team- work deteriorates if even a single dysfunction is allowed to flourish.

Another way to understand this model is to take the opposite approach—a positive one—and imagine how members of truly cohesive teams behave: 1. They trust one another. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.

They commit to decisions and plans of action. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans. They focus on the achievement of collective results.

Team leaders can take a step back from the team as individual members take greater responsibility. The Team may also participate in fun and social activities.

The risk during this stage is that the team becomes complacent and loses either their creative edge or the drive that brought them to this stage. Performing;the team is more strategically aware, the team knows clearly why it is doing what it is doing. The team has a shared vision and is able to stand on its own two feet with no interference or participation from the leader.

There is a focus on over-achieving goals, and the team has a high degree of autonomy. Disagreements occur but now they are resolved within the team positively, and necessary changes to process and structure are made by the team.

The team is able to work towards achieving the goal, and also to attend to relationship, style and process issues along the way. Team members look after each other. The team requires delegated tasks and projects from the leader. The team does not need to be instructed or assisted. Team members might ask for assistance from the leader with personal and interpersonal development, and with this the leader delegates and oversees. Beginning with a directing style, moving through coaching, then participating, finishing delegating and almost detached.

At this point the team may produce a successor leader and the previous leader can move on to direct a new team. This progression of team behaviour can be seen clearly in the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum — the authority and freedom extended by the leader to the team increases, while the control of the leader reduces. Within Connected Health we are still building a strong team, everyone is clear on their own personal role, yet ready to step into the shoes of a colleague should assistance be required.

Teamwork undoubtedly produces extraordinary results, without teamwork it would be difficult to achieve productive results. Effective teamwork involves identifying the characteristics necessary to build an efficient team and coherence of various factors working seamlessly. Some of the challenges that can be experienced by both developing and established teams are communication, conflict, inattention to results, and lack of commitment.

Grappling with and sorting out the complexities involved is one of the challenges of developing and sustaining an effective and efficient group of individuals. In cases of poor communication measures should be taken to work around this aspect and make way for effective communication between the team members.

Tuckman later added a fifth phase; adjourning and transforming to cover the finishing of a task. Whereby upon completion of the task, the team can be broken up to start various other tasks with different people, but the challenge to effective team performance lies in good strong confident leadership, and the team getting fully behind the leader.

This will give individuals who perhaps lacked confidence and motivation within themselves in actually achieving performance they never thought was in them.