Foundation of a highly effective team - TRUST

Patrick Lencioni describes five ways a team becomes dysfunctional in the form of a pyramid.

The five functions in order of causality are:

1. Absence of Trust: People do not trust the intention of their team mates. They feel the need to protect themselves from each other and tread carefully around others on the team. This leads to the next dysfunction.
2. Fear of conflict: Without trust, people are unwilling to involve themselves in productive debates and conflicts, the type of good conflict that focuses entirely on resolving issues without involving character attacks or hidden personal agendas. Without such healthy conflicts, issues stay unresolved or are unsatisfactorily resolved. People feel they have not been properly involved in decisions. This leads to the next dysfunction.
3. Lack of commitment: When people feel their input has not been properly considered and that they have not been properly involved in decisions, they have no buy in. They do not commit to the final decision. Ambiguity about priorities and directions festers and uncertainties linger. This leads to the next dysfunction.
4. Avoidance of accountability: When people have no buy in about decisions, they avoid accepting accountability. Worse still, they do not hold their teammates accountable to high standards. Resentment festers and mediocrity spreads. This leads to the final dysfunction.
5. Inattention to results: The ultimate dysfunction of a team. People care about something other than the collective goals of the team. Goals are not met, results are not achieved and you lose your best people to your competition.

The best teams are those where team members trust the intentions of each other enough that they are willing to expose their vulnerabilities because they are confident that it will not be used against them. Hence they are willing to admit deficiencies and ask for help.

In other words, they are able to concentrate their energies on achieving the team's goals rather than wasting time trying to defend their egos and look good to their team-mates