The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Bussiness Book Rating: 4 of 5

Book Rating: 2.5 of 5

After reading “The Fabric of the Cosmos” reading the Novella that is Five Dysfunctions was a huge relief. With its short chapters, rather large type face and easy to follow soap opera type story. I was just entertained enough to keep reading and finished the book in probably less then three hours of reading time.

That being said it is not a good novel. Its rather formulaic and the characters are all suburban archetypes. You can tell the Patrick Lenciocni mostly deals with upper middle class WASP-Y people who are mostly fairly boring. To often are Basketball and Teacher student metaphors used and it can be a little after school special like. But I digress the point of this book isn’t to create great literature its to teach someone to fix a “team” at a company that’s not working together well. In this regard I think it does ok.

I’ve read a few business books through the years. I would strongly recommend someone reading this book to pair it with American Icon. As American Icon is basically Five Dysfunctions applied to real life. The book reminds me a lot of The Phoenix Project as well. Which makes sense as most teamwork books boil down to the same things.

The end of the book has a workbook type chapter you can use to apply to your own team. I would recommend this as its actually fairly practical advice. You are unlikely to cause much harm at your company by putting its advice into action and will likely get some wins out of it. As as a businesss book I give it a positive review.

For reference here are the five dysfunctions each building on each other

1. Absence of Trust
2. Fear of Conflict
3. Lack of Commitment
4. Avoidance of Accountability
5. Inattention to Results

Good Luck Businessing!