Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Know in advance if you're getting into a job with a great team dynamic!
Comment: `The Five Dysfunctions of a Team' highlights the difference between an effective team and one that just isn't working. Patrick Lencioni explains that the five dysfunctions include an absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention. He uses an example of a collapsing firm to demonstrate these problems.
After reading this book, recognizing whether or not any group you are involved or will be involved in is a functional one will be a fast realization.
On an individual level, knowing what you can do to make a team function more effectively can be a valuable skill to bring to the table. Knowing how to recognize a team you want to be involved in or not is also a must when seeking a new workplace.
Danny Iny
Author of the free eBook "Forget Everything You Know About Looking For a Job... And Actually Find One!"
HuntingToHired, www.HuntingToHired.com
Customer Rating: Summary: A Great Tale
Comment: I was skeptical when I bought this book as it was for a teamwork course I had in B-school, and I was not too thrilled with the course itself to begin with. However, I finished reading this book within 48 hours of having recieved it.
Lencioni presents his theory on the five dysfunctions in a compelling story that takes us through the experiences of a new chief executive aiming to turnaround a company.
Written clearly, the book helped me understand the concepts described much better as I could easily relate to my own experiences at work and school. A great book!
Customer Rating: Summary: Great lessons woven into a short story
Comment: I really enjoyed listening to this on the CD edition. The author makes the plot interesting without too much unnecessary fluff. Almost everything in the story has some bearing on the lesson point being conveyed.
The characters are very contemporary - one uses his laptop during meetings, another is very judgmental, another one too quiet, etc. The protaganist, Kathryn is a team building leader - very reflective and results oriented. She knows she needs to do the leg work to make a team before the real results start tallying up. This is more important than her trying to be just one more product expert or financial wizard. She gets pressure from the board of directors, her direct reports and other sources. She is not perfect but she is terrific. Great model of how an executive should be.
The team goes through the usual roller coaster ride of present day corporate life - opportunities to acquire competitors, opportunities to be acquired, pressing sales calls that could theoretically change the whole game, employee distractions, etc.
My favorite lesson from the book is the cascading messages. Meetings are usually about decisions, but those decisions are not firm enough until the message to communicate the decision is concrete. This usually invokes more debate since it crystalizes the decision in a way that the team must agree upon since they will deliver it. This one thing would substantially improve many of the meetings I attend. And I intend to start using it.
There is a good summary of the five dysfunctions given as regular discourse, outside the story, at the end of the book.
This book is new generation business management writing at its best.
