The Sixth Dysfunction of a Team

1 comments | Jan 16, 01:09 PM | best-of-earl | by Earl Creps

Good teams are where you find them. And these days they are everywhere—at least in name.

I’ve witnessed many churches transition to “team-based” ministry simply by applying the word as a suffix to their existing groups (e.g., “The Ushers” become “The Ushering Team”). In the long-term this move usually accomplishes only one thing: convincing everyone that the whole “team” thing has no merit—which it doesn’t when handled that way.

This trend is indicative of just how easy it is to get a really important idea really wrong. In his classic book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni outlines the primary ways in which good intentions turn into bad teams. The five include:

1. absence of trust
2. fear of conflict
3. lack of commitment
4. avoidance of accountability
5. inattention to results,

As our church plant in Berkeley transitions from the resource-development phase to the team-building phase I am in the process of reconsidering all of these issues.

My conclusion is that Lencioni basically has it right, even if some of his conclusions are a bit more complicated to apply in the non-profit sector with its volunteer staffing.

However, at least one potential issue could be added to his list of five dysfunctions: the misplaced belief that my next team must be like (or unlike) my last team. This is the sixth dysfunction.

An effective pastor friend, for example, recently voiced frustration with his inability to replicate a very positive 1980s staff experience in the groups he led in later decades, despite repeated attempts. I suspect he speaks for many others.

Looking back over my own experience, I feel very fortunate to have worked with some really great people in team settings, but only recently began to think about how radically different all of these groups were from each other.

My training taught me to beware of looking for teammates who were too much like me. And that’s good advice. But no one ever warned me about two other temptations: (1) if my last team experience was positive, I may attempt to recreate it even if it does not fir well, or; (2) if the preceding team environment turned out poorly I may overlook assets I need in my new situation just because they resemble some bad memories.

At first it seems easy to see why a new team should be quite distinct from the last. After all, the new task likely has requirements, goals, resources, and infrastructure that are unlike what I’ve experienced in the past. So putting together a completely new kind of team seems like the logical thing to do.

Until you try it. Then my last team easily becomes the standard of measurement by which I evaluate prospects and procedures for the new group.

Consequently, I can be blinded to the very people and practices I need while bringing in those that remind me of my last positive experience. Working in this way can lure me into a pattern of substituting a sequel of my last leadership role for the fresh ways of working that are necessary to succeed in a new context.

The first step in forming a new team, then, is a “funeral” for the last one. Not that the relationships or the fruitfulness or the good memories are lost, but those things must be deprived of excessive influence. Being informed by experience is fine. Being controlled by it is not.

A new team’s life depends on a fresh start in which it is not compared to a group that no longer exists. Our memories of the past can be as much mythology as history so their navigational value is questionable anyway.

So to build the next group, let the last one go. Pray for the laborers to be thrust into the harvest field. And ask the Holy Spirit for the discernment to see who they are and how to work with them in new ways.