Panellists explore Patrick Lencioni’s book ‘The Five Dysfunction of a Team: A Leadership Fable.’ Sreenivassan Ramaprasad, Director, CADD Centre Training Services led the conversation with A S Venkatesh, Managing Director, Popular Foundations Pvt Ltd and Reshma Budhia, Co-founder & CEO, TOSS the COIN Ltd.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: Recently, we all celebrated the Indian cricket team’s victory in the T20 World Cup after 17 years. This win demonstrated how a team can come together to achieve something significant, like winning a championship.
During our time in school and college, there is rarely any emphasis on teamwork. It’s mostly about individual performance—who scores the highest, who finishes first. Teamwork is often overlooked. But today, to survive and thrive in this competitive world, a functional and effective team is essential. Patrick Lencioni, the author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, offers valuable insights. He identifies five dysfunctions of a team:
- Absence of trust
- Fear of conflict
- Lack of commitment
- Avoidance of accountability
- Inattention to results
In his book, he gives specific examples, such as when a new CEO joins an organisation and attempts to transform the team. One of the main reasons trust is built is through a willingness to share weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Without this openness, trust can’t develop, and we all know that many people hesitate to share these personal aspects. In the book, Catherine, the new CEO, asks employees to share about themselves, and there is noticeable hesitation and resistance, clearly showing that the team members don’t trust one another. This absence of trust is the first dysfunction and leads to the second—fear of conflict.
In organisations, we often have many meetings with team members, yet differing views or conflicts are rarely debated with passion. People typically agree with the leader’s point of view, and few speak up, feigning harmony. There is no real debate due to a fear of conflict.
As a society, we tend to avoid conflict, and this avoidance carries over into teams. However, the best outcomes often arise from healthy disagreements and an agreement to disagree. When diverse perspectives are considered, the team can arrive at the best possible decision. Without conflict, decisions are mediocre at best, which is the second dysfunction.
The third dysfunction stems from this fear of conflict—lack of commitment. When meetings end without clear roles and responsibilities, tasks are not completed effectively. This lack of commitment hampers progress.
The fourth dysfunction is avoidance of accountability. Every team member has responsibilities, but when it comes to delivering results, accountability often falls short. Team members hesitate to confront someone who isn’t holding up their end, for example, if a person is consistently late on a project. This lack of accountability prevents the team from functioning properly.
Finally, the fifth dysfunction is inattention to results. At the end of the day, what are we striving for as a team? If team members focus more on their personal goals than on the organisation’s goals, the team loses its cohesiveness and fails to achieve its desired results. Lencioni also offers suggestions on how to overcome them.
A S Venkatesh: One thing I’ve realised as a leader in my organisation is that I was mistaking goodness for performance. Being nice, helpful, or pleasant does not guarantee that someone should keep their job, yet I was making this mistake with my employees. If someone was sweet and helpful, even if they weren’t delivering on their responsibilities, I hesitated to take action. This mindset is something we grow up with, but I’ve come to understand that it’s a big problem. I need to separate niceness from performance and make decisions based on results.
Focusing on results should be the guiding principle. This is something I’ve learned personally and want to emphasise throughout my organisation. If you ask me for one key takeaway, it would be that: focus on results. We need to drill this into the team consistently. We can’t be carried away by nice or helpful behaviour alone.
I’m reminded of that moment in the book when Catherine says, “I was fired at one of my earlier jobs because I tolerated Fred.” That line really struck me. She said, “I tolerated Fred. I should have fired him, but because I didn’t, I got fired.” That’s a powerful lesson. If there’s one thing I’ll always remember, it’s that tolerance of poor performance can have serious consequences.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: You handle two different organisations. One, a profitable organisation and the other one—the Rotary, a not-for-profit organisation. If one thing which is applicable in the team functioning or dysfunction in both, what would that be?
A S Venkatesh: There are a lot of similarities in team performance whether you’re for profit or not for profit. Where it differs is in decision making at the top level. In a for-profit organization, you can tell down the line, ‘Do this.’ In a not-for-profit organization where there are volunteers, you cannot command them to do what you want to do. In one, you’re dealing with hierarchy. In a not-for-profit voluntary body, you are not dealing with hierarchy but with peers. The way decisions are taken and conflicts are managed are very different.
Reshma Budhia: As the founder of a small company, when you first start hiring, it’s an intense and personal experience. You hire your first employee, then your fifth, seventh, and eventually your tenth. At that stage, you’re deeply invested in their individual success. You find yourself thinking, “Don’t worry, I will make sure you succeed. I’ll walk this journey with you and help you reach your next step.” These early hires are all individual contributors reporting directly to you, and you feel a strong sense of responsibility for guiding their careers.
However, as your organization grows to 35, 40, or 50 people, it becomes impossible to maintain that same level of personal investment in every individual’s career. At this stage, it’s essential to create layers within the organisation—not to build a hierarchy, but to establish focus groups. The shift in focus moves from individual performance to team performance.
Lately, I’ve been asking myself: Am I investing enough in my immediate leadership team? To address this, we recently launched a leadership program two weeks ago. It’s a weekly program specifically designed for my seven direct reportees. The goal is to invest in team performance, as previously, we were too focussed on individual contributors. This realisation wasn’t just a takeaway; it drove immediate action. I tend to be aggressive and action-oriented, so I quickly turned this insight into a concrete program, which we have already implemented.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: I recall a situation at CADD Center where one of our leaders in the West was supporting a customer who hadn’t been paying on time. Despite this, the customer had an urgent service requirement. My instruction to the leader was, “Don’t provide the service until they clear the payments.” However, he responded, “At this point, we need to support the customer. I’ll take responsibility and be accountable for collecting the payment, but I will ensure the customer’s happiness.”
Though there was a conflict, I chose to support his decision. He went ahead and provided the service, making the customer extremely happy, and the payment was eventually made. As a leader, you sometimes need to give your team members the flexibility to make decisions, even when it involves some risk. Of course, if the payment hadn’t been collected, I would have been accountable for that. But if we want our team members to take ownership of their decisions, we must empower them. True empowerment comes when team members are also held accountable.
A S Venkatesh: In the example you narrated, you acknowledged that you were wrong. As a leader, you were willing to admit that your decision wasn’t the right one, and your team member’s approach was better. This is something that stood out to me.
The key takeaway here is: As leaders, are we ready to accept when we are wrong? Doing so can set the tone for the rest of the team, showing them that there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable. Everyone is human, and that vulnerability helps build the trust that is so essential in a team. Trust emerges when team members see that their leader is also vulnerable and open to learning, just like they are. In this case, when you said, “Okay, I’ll go with your judgment,” you were essentially admitting that your initial judgment wasn’t correct.
That kind of vulnerability is crucial in creating an environment where others feel safe and aligned. They understand that the boss is also human, just like them. This makes it easier for everyone to open up, collaborate, and contribute.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: Many people hesitate to admit when they don’t know something. They try to protect themselves, and in doing so, they often fail to achieve their goals. They view seeking help as a sign of weakness. Among the five dysfunctions explained in the book, Venkatesh, which one do you see most often in your work environment?
A S Venkatesh: Lack of accountability is something that concerns me as the head of the company because I encounter it frequently. As a group, we often tend to settle for the least common denominator. If there are 10 different skill sets within the group, everyone tends to align with the lowest level of skill. Anything beyond that can lead to conflict, discord, and disharmony. As a result, the accountability for what we set out to achieve at the beginning is lost.
This afternoon, I sent out a circular to my core group to initiate a brainstorming session on defining our goals. Everyone has responded. Getting the team’s buy-in is crucial for ensuring accountability.
Reshma Budhia: In my organisation, I would say the second dysfunction—fear of conflict—is quite prevalent. Conflict is often associated with fear, making it seem negative. However, conflict is actually an important part of team building. As experts in your respective fields, you bring different perspectives, opinions, and disagreements, which may be perceived as conflict. Unfortunately, many people think conflict is something to avoid or run away from.
I once took on a project to translate the holy book of the Jains, called Bhaktamar Stotra, from Hindi to English. They specifically wanted someone who wasn’t Jain, so I could approach the translation with objectivity. It was a year-long exercise, and one beautiful sentence from the book stayed with me: ‘Fear is an emotion. Fearlessness is an action.’ When you take fearless action, the emotion you feel is fear. It’s simple—you can’t escape it.
This insight made me realise why people freeze in meetings. When faced with conflict, they freeze because they don’t understand that they need to act, even in the presence of fear. It’s okay to disagree—have the conflict, bring it to the table, and work through it. But don’t avoid it.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: Among the five dysfunctions presented by Patrick Lencioni, which one do you find the most challenging to address?
A S Venkatesh: The most challenging dysfunction for me is the lack of commitment. In meetings, discussions often remain vague and non-specific. Everyone talks a lot, but nothing concrete is said. This goes back to the idea that errors of omission often go unnoticed, while errors of commission are highly visible. Not doing something may never be noticed, but doing something wrong will be. As a result, people tend to take the path of least resistance by avoiding action altogether, which is a common issue in dysfunctional teams where no one commits to anything.
An alternative would be to issue directives from the top, but that’s not true teamwork. Every team member should feel like they contributed and that decisions were made collectively. It’s important to shift the focus from my goals to our goals. We need to ensure that the team subscribes to collective goals rather than just individual ones. That’s an area I would prioritise.
Reshma Budhia: Commitment and accountability are most challenging for the team when they don’t share a common vision or have genuine buy-in. We often start by providing them with a vision, hoping they will embrace it as if it were their own. In today’s startup world, we need to build teams with an entrepreneurial mindset—teams where each member has skin in the game. In large corporations, it’s often just about processes, workflows, and KRAs (Key Result Areas).
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: Do you have any mechanisms or practices in place to share the vision, ensuring that all team members are aligned and speak the same language?
Reshma Budhia: Often, vision statements are too company-centered. For the vision to truly resonate, it needs to be person- or employee-centered. As a design thinking practitioner, I believe the first step is empathy. Use empathy to build your entire company. It’s not just a buzzword; it means that every person who walks into the company should feel that the vision statement was written for them.
For example, our company’s vision isn’t anything grand—it’s simply about being the happiest workplace. “Happy” is a significant word for us. We strive to create a workplace that enables happy employees. Ultimately, we aim to be a place of abundance.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: Which of the five dysfunctions is the most crucial to overcome for a team to be effective?
A.S. Venkatesh: It’s really a combination of all of them. In the Indian context, the most critical factor is empowering everyone in the team to speak their mind—not to hurt anyone, but in the interest of the common good. If we can create an environment where people have the courage and desire to speak up, that will be the biggest catalyst for a functioning team.
From my experience, I’ve noticed that in meetings, no one comes forward with creative or innovative ideas. But afterward, they’ll approach me individually with suggestions, worried that their ideas might be stolen by others. This lack of trust is a recipe for disaster. If we can foster a culture where everyone feels safe to speak up without fear and distrust of their colleagues, we’ll have a well-functioning team.
When everyone agrees within the first five minutes of a meeting, I sense something is wrong. It’s essential to encourage people to speak up and share their thoughts.
Sreenivassan Ramaprasad: How is your tolerance for mistakes in your organisation?
A.S. Venkatesh: Tolerance for a repeated mistake depends on how the first one was handled. It’s almost instinctual, like Pavlov’s response. We need to build a culture where reactions are directed at thoughts and ideas, rather than at individuals. As CEO, it’s my job to ensure that this culture permeates throughout the team, so that in group discussions, people feel encouraged to engage with ideas, not personalities.
Reshma Budhia: What resonates most with me is the fear of conflict. Conflict often arises from differing points of view and perspectives, which are valuable and come from each person’s experience and expertise. We need to teach our teams how to share their perspectives without emotional baggage. We discuss the urgent vs important quadrant in our office and I ask everyone, including the quietest person to put up their post and express their views. This approach helps everyone feel heard and valued, ensuring that each person has a voice.
It’s unfair to assume that if someone is an introvert, they lack opinions. We provide alternative ways for them to share their thoughts, creating an environment where they feel comfortable expressing themselves. Additionally, for meetings longer than 30 minutes, it’s a good practice to serve food. Providing snacks like popcorn, chocolates, or other treats can help overcome mental fatigue and encourage participation. When people are munching on something, they’re more likely to engage and contribute.
Sreenivasan Ramaprasad: One last question. What is your message to leaders on team dysfunctions?
Reshma Budhia: A team goes through four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing. There is no shortcut. In the book, Catherine outlines these stages as a year-long journey, which demonstrates the patience required. In our fast-paced environment with constant client deliverables, it’s easy to overlook this process. However, when building a team, it’s crucial to invest in training and find a method to manage the madness. Patience and intention are essential to guide a team through these stages effectively.
A S Venkatesh: My message to leaders is simple: Embrace vulnerability. Make mistakes, but own up to them. Don’t try to create an image that you won’t fail. Being human and acknowledging your mistakes will lead to greater success and create a more genuine and effective team environment.
