Friday, July 18, 2014
"The ultimate dysfunction of a team is the tendency of members to care about something other than the collective goals of the group. An unrelating focus on specific objectives and clearly defined outcomes is a requirement for any team that judges itself on performance.
Every good organization specifies what it plans to achieve in a given period, and these goals, more than the financial metrics that they drive, make up the majority near-term, controllable results. So, while profit may be the the ultimate measure of results for a corporation, the goals and objectives that executives set for themselves along the way constitute a more representative example of the results it strives for as a team. Ultimately, these goals drive profit.
But what would a team be focused on other than results? Team status and individual status are the prime candidates:
Team status. For members of some teams, merely being a part of the group is enough to keep them satisfied. For them, the achievement of specific results might be desirable but not necessarily worthy of great sacrifice or inconvenience.
Individual status. This refers to the familiar tendency of people to focus on enhancing their own positions at the expense of their team. Though all human beings have an innate tendency towards self preservation, a functional team must make the collective results of the group more important to each individual than individual members' goals.
A team that is not focused on results...
- Stagnates/fails to grow
- Rarely defeats competitors
- Loses achievement-oriented employees
- Encourages team members to focus on their own careers and individual goals
- Is easily distracted
A team that focuses on collective results...
- Retains achievement-oriented team members
- Minimizes individualistic behavior
- Enjoys success and suffers failure acutely
- Benefits from individuals who subjugate their own goals/interests for the good of the team
- Avoids distractions
As much information as is contained here, the reality remains that teamwork ultimately comes down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time. Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence."
Patrick Lencioni-The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
