Product Description

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech's CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni's utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight.

Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-19
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.com
Once again using an astutely written fictional tale to unambiguously but painlessly deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures, Patrick Lencioni targets group behavior in the final entry of his trilogy of corporate fables. And like those preceding it, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an entertaining, quick read filled with useful information that will prove easy to digest and implement. This time, Lencioni weaves his lessons around the story of a troubled Silicon Valley firm and its unexpected choice for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had retired from a traditional manufacturing company two years earlier at age 55. Showing exactly how existing personnel failed to function as a unit, and precisely how the new boss worked to reestablish that essential conduct, the book's first part colorfully illustrates the ways that teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals--and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on Lencioni's "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings. Like the author's previous books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, this is highly recommended. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly
In keeping with the parable style, Lencioni (The Five Temptations of a CEO) begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team. Story time over, Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results). Succinct yet sympathetic, this guide will be a boon for those struggling with the inherent difficulties of leading a group. 100,000 first printing.

From Library Journal
Building a cohesive team is not complicated, declares Lencioni, president of his own management consulting firm and author of The Five Temptations of a CEO. Departing from the dry, theoretical writing of many management books, he presents his case in the context of a fictional organization, and in doing so succeeds at communicating his ideas. The story is about a female CEO who is hired to bring together a dysfunctional executive staff to work as a team in a company that just two years earlier had looked promising. The scenarios that follow are recognizable and can be applied anywhere teamwork is involved, whether it is a multinational company, a small department within a larger organization, or a sports team. The five dysfunctions discussed are absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. At the end of the story, the main points are summarized, and clearly written suggestions and exercises are offered to help bring about change. Concise and easy to follow, this book is recommended for academic and public libraries with management collections and for anyone who is a member of a team that needs improvement. Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great resource
This book was an excellent reasource for team building. We used it on a couple off site meetings and it really helped get us moving towards working out our issues. It helps put everyone on the same page and eliminates finger pointing. I've loved all of his books so far.

Awesome book for teams
this was one of the best books I've read for teams and it was such an easy read.

A Great Book to Improving Teamwork
If you are in search of a book on teamwork, then I highly recommend The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. I started out reading this book because of a class assignment and turned out really enjoying it. I found the book to be a very easy and interesting read that I could relate to. Patrick Lencioni wrote this book as a fictional story that illustrates the reality of teamwork and the issues teams' experience. In this book, Patrick explains the five dysfunctions of a team and also briefly explains how to overcome the dysfunctions. The suggestions to overcome the dysfunctions are brief, but he did write a book called Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team that goes explains them in more depth. The Five Dysfunctions explained through out this book are set up like a pyramid. They include: Absence of Trust, Fear of Conflict, Lack of Commitment, Avoidance of Accountability and Inattention to Results.
I recently transferred departments at my place of employment and in just the past month and a half I have witnessed a department spiraling out of control. We are without a full-time supervisor and director and I could not pinpoint the exact problem until I read this book. Our team is experiencing every dysfunction that Lencioni explains in his book. I wish I could buy a copy if this book for each of my co-workers because I feel they would benefit just as much as I did from this book and I believe it would open up their eyes to what are department is experiencing and solve many of the issues.
I will be graduating in December with my degree in Health Administration and I already have more confidence that I will be a better team leader because of Lencioni's book. I will keep this book and use it as a tool to help teach my future co-workers about the dysfunctions and the importance of being a team player rather than an individual player out to better their own career and goals. I plan on reading more books written by Patrick Lencioni and highly recommend his work to anyone interested in learning more on teamwork and leadership.