I just wrapped up Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. It’s written as a leadership fable, which usually makes me roll my eyes, but I’ll admit it works. The story format makes the ideas stick. And the ideas themselves are sharp. Lencioni cuts team failure down into five layers of dysfunction, each stacked on top of the next like a nasty Jenga tower that’s bound to collapse.
Here’s the model in its simplest form:
graph TD
A[Absence of Trust] --> B[Fear of Conflict]
B --> C[Lack of Commitment]
C --> D[Avoidance of Accountability]
D --> E[Inattention to Results]At the bottom is trust. Without trust, teams don’t argue well. Without conflict, they don’t commit. Without commitment, no one feels accountable. And without accountability, the results fall apart. It’s both obvious and painfully accurate.
The Five Dysfunctions, in Plain Terms
| Dysfunction | What It Looks Like | Why It Hurts |
|---|---|---|
| Absence of Trust | People hide weaknesses or mistakes | No one takes risks, collaboration stalls |
| Fear of Conflict | Meetings are polite but useless | The real issues never surface |
| Lack of Commitment | Vague alignment, weak buy-in | Decisions get second-guessed |
| Avoidance of Accountability | Nobody calls out poor performance | Standards sink quietly |
| Inattention to Results | Ego or silos take priority | The team goal gets lost |
My Key Takeaways
1. Trust isn’t “being nice.”
It’s being comfortable enough to say “I screwed that up” or “I need help.” Most teams confuse trust with friendliness. Real trust is vulnerability that compounds over time. Without it, everything else is theater.
2. Conflict done right is productive.
If people are holding back in discussions because they don’t want to step on toes, then the real debates happen in the hallway or Slack DMs afterward. I’d rather have a loud room with clashing opinions than a quiet one where nobody says what they think.
3. Commitment isn’t consensus.
Not everyone has to agree, but everyone has to align once the decision is made. Too often, teams leave a meeting thinking, “Well, we’ll see if that sticks.” That’s poison.
4. Accountability is peer to peer.
If accountability only flows from the top, it’s weak. The strongest teams are the ones where teammates hold each other to the bar. That’s uncomfortable at first, but it builds strength.
5. Results matter more than ego.
The book hammers this home: if the scoreboard isn’t front and center, people fall back to chasing individual wins. That’s how silos are born. The shared goal has to be louder than any one person’s need to look good.
Where This Lands for Me
I’ve seen these dysfunctions in the wild, sometimes stacked on top of each other like dominoes. It usually starts with a lack of trust, and once that crack appears, the rest follow. The scary part is how fast a team can slide into this cycle if nobody addresses it.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline. Trust-building takes vulnerability from leaders first. Healthy conflict takes norms and guardrails. Commitment takes clarity. Accountability takes courage. Results take focus. Simple ideas, but hard to sustain.