Uncover the Secrets to Building a Highly Effective Team with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

C. Van De Riet: Great book for teams liking to transform

United States on Aug 12, 2023

Rajith: A book that makes you to think about a lot it’s very interesting educative a really good book read it you will be definitely satisfied

Italy on Jul 01, 2023

Bonnie: This seminal text on leadership is very readable, being presented as a short fable, simply written and broken down into easily digestible chunks.

Unlike so many other books of advice, the recommendations in Five Dysfunctions really work, with improvements in my team's performance becoming visible and consistent with a few weeks of our kick-off meeting.

If you work in any kind of management, you should absolutely read this book and implement its recommendations - especially the ones regarding the way that YOU, personally, lead your team. It will be the best move you ever made.

United Kingdom on Jun 23, 2023

Kindle Customer: According to the book, the five dysfunctions are: Absence of trust—unwilling to be vulnerable within the group. Fear of conflict—seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate. Lack of commitment—feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organization. Avoidance of accountability—ducking the responsibility to call peers, superiors on counterproductive behavior which sets low standards. Inattention to results—focusing on personal success, status and ego before team success

India on Oct 25, 2022

Bart P: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team tells the tale of a new CEO at a dysfunctioning tech company. Our CEO joins the existing executive team and is tasked to get the company back on its high-expectancy track. After an initial period where she analyzes the team, she explains Lencioni's theory to the team and uses that model to "create a real team".

Lencioni explains his theory through a fictional story which makes his theory easily accessible. Next to that he uses clear and plain English which makes the story easy to read and understand. The way the content is presented is clear and structured and is closesly connected with how these situations happen in real life as well. Maybe a small point of critique here is that the layout of the chapters is not completely to my liking. There are a lot of small chapters which break the flow of the story a little bit. However, this was a minor inconvenience and does not take away any of the value of the book.

After the initial fictional story, Lencioni explains his theory further in a non-fictional manner. In this part of the book he also gives examples of how things can go wrong and how to possible fix them. This part is also clear...

Netherlands on Jul 11, 2021

J. S. Wilson: This book has been sitting by my bedside for almost two years and on my must read list. So when I finally sat down over the Easter Weekend and read this book - followed by Lencioni’s follow-up book (written 14 years later I believe) I was blown away!

I strongly recommend that you read “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable“ and the follow-up book “The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues” one after the other.

Patrick Lencioni’s fables are fabulously crafted and help to bring the reader directly into the mindset of two leaders facing conundrums - how do I turn a company’s culture around to recognize the power of effective teams.

The fables are easily to visualize within your imagination., and you will likely find many of Patrick’s characters familiar from your own career!

Patrick’s first book highlights why teams often fail - and then shows how through strong but loving leadership Kathryn, the CEO starts to move her executive team into one powerful unit. All team members are absolutely focused on a common goal; with no time for “look at me - I am more important” or “my project...

Canada on Apr 22, 2019

jakem: This is a novel, not a reference book, but the storytelling works fairly well. Consequently, while it works okay for replicating the success in the story within your own team, if you happen across a situation that falls outside something they addressed in the story, you may be a bit lost in how best to deal with it. That's the nature of dealing with a novel instead of a direct implementation guide. On the plus side, it's a heck of a lot easier to read a story than a dry manual. :)

It does feel just a bit contrived to me. The situations are relate-able, but they feel just a little forced... like the situations are designed to fit the lessons, rather than being strictly based in reality. The company and characters sometimes don't feel *real*... they feel as though they were designed to be generic, so as to be more generally relate-able... but in so doing they lose a dimension of their personality, and it's (paradoxically) harder to relate to them very deeply. It makes the story feel rather "jack of all trades, master of none." Which is okay, it provides a solid all-around basis, but I'd also want something more specific to either my industry or my field, or my particular...

United States on May 10, 2014

Shawn D. Callahan: I have an aversion to business fables. The ones I've read give me the irrates. They seem to trivialise business.  Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life  , Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (Kotter, Our Iceberg is Melting)  , Fish!  and  Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling  all left me a little cold. So it was with some trepidation that I picked up The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Fable by Patrick Lencioni.

Five Dysfunctions popped up on my radar a couple of years ago and ever since then a number of people suggested I should read it. It was published back in 2002 and there seems to be quite an industry that's grown around it with addional handbooks and resources available. For me, this wasn't a good sign.

Then a client lent me a copy so I started on a plane trip home from Sydney and finsihed the book in three short sittings. It's a nicely crafted story: short chapters, cliff hangers, good dialogue and believable and messy business situations.

Most of Five Dysfunctions is a business story. About a third of the book, at the...

United States on Sep 25, 2012