Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Case Study Example

Five Dysfunctions of a Team Question one Trust among team members plays a great role in having an effective team (pg 44); this is because it is the absence of trust among members of a team that gives rise to the other four dysfunction of a team namely, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, Avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results (Lencioni 200). The lack of trust contributed to the ineffectiveness seen at Decision Tech. The leadership also had a problem. The former CEO, Jeff adopted a form of leadership that was so structured and textbook like. His form of leadership didn’t make things better for Decision Tech. All the meetings had a detailed agenda given to each member before the meeting (Nick at some point even jokes that he had not been given an agenda beforehand), the meeting would normally begin and end at the precise time (pg 20) they had been planned to end, and members of the executive at Decision Tech felt there was simply no enough time for engaging in meaningful debates as the time available was not enough (pg 47). Question Two Some of the behavioral norms established at Decision Tech by the executive team before Kathryn took over include: dependence, self-consciousness, superficiality, ignoring disagreements, not talking about misgivings, avoiding the consideration of what is considered a disturbing idea, feeling invulnerable, rationalizing threats away, discrediting of disconfirming information etc. Kathryn had noted that the meetings at decision Tech were characterized by silence, no member of the executive tem argued, and there was an undeniable tension during the meetings (pg 19). Silence in the meetings was not good. This is because it meant that members of the team preferred to keep silent and instead of engaging in meaningful arguments and developing conflicts that are highly valuable to the company’s management decisions. Question Three The executive team at Decision Tech experienced the four stages of team development. The core purpose of the forming stage is essentially to enable members of the team to become acquainted with one another and start seeing themselves as one integrated and cohesive unit. During the first off-site meeting Kathryn requested each member of the team to give personal histories. This meant that each would answer five nonintrusive personal questions that were related to their backgrounds (pg 52). After the brief personal history giving session by the members of the team, it was evident that the team was more at ease with each other than any time during the previous year. The goals of the Norming stage are to make members feel like a team, develop a framework for getting tasks completed, and developing a good culture of members relating to each other. Kathryn divided the team members into groups of three and two and assigned then specific tasks that they were to accomplish. They then narrowed down the outcomes to seven results that would then be used as the team’s scoreboard (pg 79). This action assisted the team develop and acquire a framework for getting tasks/work done and in the process develop their ability to relate to one another. The aims of the storming stage include conflict management, recognizing productive expressions of individuals, fostering the process of consensus building, and converting counter-dependence into independence. On page 118 Nick has a suggestion that the company acquires another company by the name Green Banana. Nick is convinced that it’s a good idea and that they should take. Other members were skeptical Martin felt that the technology may not be good enough and Kathryn felt that they had far too many challenges on going and that the time to take a new venture wasn’t right. And by saying this she was focusing on the common objectives and vision that they had set and at the same time reinforced the commitment and values. Question Four Of the seven tools for developing credibility, Kathryn was able to engage members of the team for solution development and in the process they own the process. They feel like they are making a difference and developed innovative and proactive solutions as was the case when they were coming to the end of their first off-site meeting and were setting goals for the team to achieve. Kathryn asked one question which was actually if they had to do anything between that time and the end of the year what would that be and the members unanimously agreed that it was to increase their market share. The members worked out the details of how they were going to achieve this and ended up with a realistic course of action which they accomplished by their and of the book. Question 5 a) Task facilitating role Nick: An example is when he inquires about the progress that had been made by the team on their four key drivers that they all had agreed to focus on (pg 146). He also gives direction on what he was going to do when it became apparent that members of his team were responsible for Carlos’s delay and inability to deliver on the agreement they had. Martin: On the other hand played a task facilitating role by simply giving relevant information (pg 147) that Nick had requested when they were analyzing their progress as regards the four key drivers. Mikey just like Martin gave information relating to the sales training program. She stated that she had scheduled a two-day training session for the sales people (pg 149). b) Relationship building role Nick: He played a relationship building role when he confronted Carlos as to why he had not finished his task as the team had agreed (pg 147). Nick wanted to know which specific people of his team were not available to and promised to act on it. Carlos was a consensus builder in many instances. For instance when Kathryn asked why their meetings lacked passion and energy; Carlos thought it was because they did not trust each other a point of view widely accepted by the other members of the group. Martin on the other hand empathized with Carlos and noted that no one would want to come down on someone who was always offering assistance (pitching in). c) Blocking role Martin: When the team was discussing on how to redirect their resources in a manner that it was better spent, Martin resisted and felt that they lacked the understanding of what transpired within the engineering section which he led. Carlos: On page 146 while Nick requested for report on how far he had gone in his task, he didn’t have the report and again said that certain members were missing and mentioned names e.g. Ken and jack (pg 147). He shifted blame and stalled the process. Mikey on the other hand was dominating a fact that made other members dislike her. When Nick requested to know why she had gone ahead and produced brochures while there were sales people doing research on the ground and that they would be unhappy to realize that their input was not factored in, Mikey cared less. She believed that she and her team were good at what they did and this was worsened by Jeff’s comment that the brochures were good. The members were unhappy with her lack of humility. Work Cited Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. New Jersey: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Print Read More