Ebook: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series)

Lencioni was spot on in his identification of the five dysfunctions. All five dysfunctions have been apparent in the worst companies I have worked for. The book and its audience would have been better served delving deeper into the circumstances that allow these dysfunctions to develop and fester. It was both interesting and telling that Decision Tech(the company featured in the leaderhip fable) had only been in existence for two short years. By limiting the latency period of some of the dysfunctions, the writer was able to present the solution in unrealistically simplistic terms. Since most people work for companies that have been around more than two years, dysfunctions, when they exist, are more ingrained into the company culture and harder to rehabilitate than was depicted here.In established companies, correcting dysfunctions/changing the company culture would likely be a long and painful process. I would like to have seen these techniques applied to a more realistic and common set of circumstances. Many dysfunctions originate at the top and eventually become of organizational norm and remain, even if the main perpetrator(the boss) is eventually removed. I think it would have been more benefical and instructional to explore how Kathryn would have addressed the dysfunction in an old company, perhaps acquired in a merger, where the five dysfunctions were the order of the day. I think this would have been more realistic and would have have helped explain the application of the model in more real life terms.