The ultimate competitive advantage of successful organisations? Teamwork. A leader who can get their entire team rowing in the same direction can dominate any market in any industry.
However, teamwork is as elusive as ever. Human beings are inherently dysfunctional. By acknowledging the imperfections of humans, members of functional teams can overcome our natural tendencies and work together toward success. According to author Patrick Lencioni, there are 5 dysfunctional elements within a team.

Dysfunction 1: The Absence Of Trust

Trust lies at the heart of a functioning team. Without it, teamwork is impossible. In the context of building a team, ‘trust’ means you have the confidence that the intentions of all colleagues are good. With trust, you don’t need to be political, protective or careful around the group. The team can be vulnerable and share openly without the fear that any information they reveal will be used against them later.

We’re not talking about the basic ‘trust’ that someone will pull through on the deadlines they promised. We’re talking about a deeper level of trust. This means openly discussing weaknesses, skill deficiencies, interpersonal short comings, mistakes and requests for help. This may sound obvious in some regard, but it is surprisingly rare. Most of the time, team members are competitive with peers and protective of their personal reputation. This level of competitive rivalry can’t coexist with trust.

Trust can’t be achieved overnight. But as a leader, it’s your responsibility to foster this kind of team environment. The most important action of the leader is to demonstrate vulnerability first. In doing so, you risk losing face. But by setting the bar, it lets your team members know that it’s ok to take these same risks themselves. You’re creating an environment that rewards vulnerability, instead of punishing it.

Dysfunction 2: Fear Of Conflict

All great relationships have productive conflict as the fuel for growth. It is true in marriage, parenthood, friendship and certainly in the business context. Conflict is very uncomfortable, but resistance is vital for growth. There’s a big difference between productive conflict to destructive petty fighting. Teams engaging in productive conflict know that the only purpose of the engagement is to reach the best possible solution in the shortest period of time. They’ll discuss and resolve issues quickly. And if there is trust within the team, everyone walks away satisfied.

Ironically, avoiding conflict actually makes the interpersonal damage much worse. Rather than releasing it all out and getting it into the open, it manifests itself as a tension between the team. The occasional passive-aggressive attacks will be much nastier and cause damage.
From time to time, we’ve had our own internal conflict. The way to release the tension is to have a “Willy” session. A Willy session, named after one of out mates, involves voicing any concerns we have before the become a big problem. The opposite of a Willy session is letting things bubble away and fester beneath the surface, until one day they explode like a volcano. So by having regular Willy sessions, we are out any problems before they get too big. We quite often realise that as soon as we bring it up, what previously seemed like a massive problem was actually something quite insignificant. It just needed to have the light shone on it and it was quickly resolved.

The role of the leader is to ‘mine out’ all of the tension that is lurking beneath the surface. You’ll need to extract the buried disagreements within the team to shed the light of day on them. This will require courage and confidence to call out the sensitive issues and force the team members to work through them.

I (Jonesy) recently had a manager who was a true miner. A colleague and I had brewing tension for months, which manifested as passive aggressive attacks within meetings. However, the new manager called out any passive aggression to get everything out in the open. All disagreements were brought to the surface, worked out and then the team moved forward, all the better for the moment of conflict.
One of the most difficult challenges the leader faces in promoting healthy conflict is the desire to protect team members from harm. At first, the team won’t be very comfortable at dealing with the conflict as it arises. But this is analogous to parenting. By not letting your children play in the playground, fail in sport, or get dirty in the mud, you’re making them much more fragile than resilient. In the business context, the conflict is an opportunity for the team to grow as individuals.
Finally, the leader must model the appropriate level of conflict. You’re setting the standard for how team members should be dealing with each other in search for the optimal solution.

Dysfunction 3: The Lack Of Commitment

Naturally, when you mine out all of the disagreements within the team, you may be worried about not reaching consensus. Without consensus, how can you possibly expect team members to buy into decisions?

Sometimes consensus seems to come quickly and naturally. That’s terrific. But if consensus is just an attempt for team members to please each other, then it is horrible. If everyone just says yes as a way of getting out of the meeting early, you’ll hit some snags in the road ahead. Great teams are able to make clear and timely decisions, moving forward with the complete buy in from everyone from the team. This includes those who voted against this initial decision. And they leave meetings with no lurking doubts whether to support the actions they agreed upon.

The major hurdle to commitment is the need for consensus. When you ‘mine out’ the disagreements within the team, you might be worried that consensus will be more difficult. In fact, having all opinions on the table is the only way to achieve consensus from everyone. Typically, people just want their ideas to be surfaced, heard and considered. And if everyone agrees that a different idea has more merit, then they’ll be more likely to buy into the alternative direction. Great teams ensure that everyone’s ideas are genuinely considered.

Dysfunction 4: Avoidance Of Accountability

Once the team has bought into a decision, the next step is to hold each other accountable to high standards of performance and behaviour. In high performing teams, the accountability comes not from bosses but from within the team. They are willing to call out their peers’ performance or behaviours that might hurt them. They’re happy to go into the danger zone with each other.

It might seem politically incorrect, but the best way to maintain high standards within the team is to build a culture with peer pressure. It will reduce the need for excessive bureaucracy around performance management. It might be difficult for the leader to allow the team to be the primary accountability mechanism. Strong leaders will actually leave the accountability vacuum within the team, leaving it up to others to be the source of discipline. However, she must be willing to revert to discipline when the team fails.

Dysfunction 5: The Inattention To Results

The ultimate dysfunction is the tendency of the team to seek out individual recognition at the expense of the team’s results. Sports teams are very effective in getting individuals to put the team ahead of themselves. Whenever the post-match reporter asks the star player what they thought of the game, they’ll always talk about how well the team worked together.

In the workplace, the leader needs to make the collective results as important as the score at a football game. No matter how good an individual performs on the team, if the team loses, everyone loses. The leader must set the tone for a focus on results. If the team thinks that the leader values anything other than results, they’ll take it as granted permission for them to do the same. The team leader must be selfless and objective, reserving rewards for group goals.