Today, Patrick Lencioni came to Microsoft to talk about The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and Death By Meeting. If you're a Microsoft employee, you can find the video of the lecture streamed from ResNet. I've been a huge fan of Pat's, from the time I read his first book, Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. His company, The Table Group, does executive coaching, and focuses on building strong teams.
About once a year I get jazzed up enough about a book to buy 15 or 20 copies, and I send them to friends, a couple of my brothers that work in management, and everyone I work with that would appreciate its message (I've done that before with 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, Follow This Path, Execution, Five Dysfunctions, and Love is the Killer App). I figure it's worth the few hundred dollars to build my own internal network, and instill some wisdom to my organization--nothing wrong with that.
Pat is one of the most engaging speakers I've heard. I enjoyed the session with him, and I'm hoping to rattle some cages to get him to do some consulting. I have a secret fantasy of ditching Microsoft and working for (or starting) a company like The Table Group.
Pat started the meeting talking about the tone of his books. Since they're written as stories (he calls them business fables), they're easy to get through in a few hours. And the points he makes are fairly simple. To illustrate the fact that the toughest things can have simple solutions, he told the story of him trying to find the secrets of parenting (he has 3 kids under 6, including twin boys). He asked a successful parent of 7 (from Utah!) what the secret of parenting was. I liked the answer:
- Give them boundaries, and hold them accountable for their boundaries - Whatever they do within those boundaries, praise them. - Make sure they know, no matter what happens in life, you will always love them.
Ya, I knew that. But boy, can it be tough to do. Leading is difficult, but not complicated. Sometimes the answers are relatively simple, but very difficult to really implement and do consistently. Ah, such is leadership. Or humanity.
His speech focused on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, then he briefly covered his suggestions for meetings (I wrote about it a few weeks ago). Here are some notes from his company's website:
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Dysfunction #1: Absence of TrustStrategy for Overcoming:
• Identify and discuss individual strengths and weaknesses
• Spend considerable time in face-to-face meetings and working sessions
Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
Strategy for Overcoming:
• Acknowledge that conflict is required for productive meetings
• Understand individual team member’s natural conflict styles, and
establish common ground rules for engaging in conflict
Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
Strategy for Overcoming:
• Review commitments at the end of each meeting to ensure all team
members are aligned
• Adopt a “disagree and commit” mentality—make sure all team
members are committed regardless of initial disagreements
Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
Strategy for Overcoming:
• Explicitly communicate goals and standards of behavior
• Regularly discuss performance versus goals and standards
Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
Strategy for Overcoming:
• Keep the team focused on tangible group goals
• Reward individuals based on team goals and collective success
Stop suggesting all these great books! I keep buying them, reading the first few chapters, and then having them sit on my shelf... aghh! :-) The "Love is the killer app" one looks great though, I'm going to try that next. We'll see how it likes the shelf.
It would be nice if some smart author figured this out and filled the last 3/4 of each book with blank pages, and then I'd end up getting through the whole book.
Posted by: KC Lemson | Wednesday, April 14, 2004 at 05:02 PM