Yesterday, I was shopping at the local Salvation Army store to find a few rare gems. At least, this is what I call it when people have donated amazing books, and the store sells them for such a cheap price that I feel practically obligated to buy them!
I saw a book with a red cover called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The price was $1.95, and it was a white tag too, so on this particular night I was able to enjoy an additional 25% off! Sure, why not!?
When I arrived home, I cracked open the book to see just how valuable of a gem I purchased on this particular evening. In twenty minutes, I had read over a quarter of the book. Fast-forward to 24 hours later and I just finished the book in its entirety and am absolutely filled with excitement about work that I haven’t experienced in many years.
If you’re unfamiliar with author Patrick Lencioni’s books like I was, let me summarize it for you. Lencioni takes big thoughts – like what makes teams dysfunctional – and then writes about a fictitious group of people that experience these big thoughts in everyday ways that we can each experience. Many of us have either seen, experienced, or performed the same actions that most of the characters in this story performed. This makes it extremely easy to relate to the message and consider how things may have gone haywire with your own teams.
For me personally, I felt a strong connection to Kathryn, the newly hired CEO brought on to turn a start-up company around that started hot and had fizzled over the last two years. My connection wasn’t one where I related to her as much as wishing that I had the same maturity to think quickly and respond calmly when challenged by her executive team members. She dances perfectly between direct communication and bluntness but accompanies that with a series of compliments and emotional intelligence that I have never seen in my career. Perhaps that is why this is a fictional book? Nevertheless, I found myself wishing I could be this way today and wishing even more that I had been that way over seven years ago when I took on one of my first major management roles.
I’ll save the details for another time (perhaps my own future book), but to say it simply – I found myself relating more towards the characters who were more apt to react brashly or surrender into solitude when challenged. Looking at the characters behaving this way as an outsider, it was easy to see the behavior and call it out. But living through it and doing some of the same behaviors myself over my career, it’s less easy and more difficult to realize it is happening and make significant changes.
I write all of this and slip a bit of personal reflection into this to tell you that this book is both educational and highly insightful. It is beyond easy to read. There are few books I’ve been able to finish in less than 24 hours, but this one goes by super fast and kept my attention the entire time.
If you are a manager, executive, or even someone hoping to become a leader one day, this book is worth reading. I promise you will take something from this. I am grateful that I came across this book and will probably spend the next week continuing to consider how the lessons in this book apply to my own career.
Leadership is critical and effective teams pushing towards the same goals with trust, accountability, commitment, and healthy conflict as the backbone is exactly what is needed today. This book speaks to this and presents an incredible model that can be applied in any business setting, and probably even outside of business wherever teams exist.
I don’t want to get too ahead of myself here, but so you know, I’ve already purchased three of Lencioni’s other books from the Salvation Army store. For the rest I couldn’t find there, I was able to request them all from my public library. I cannot wait to dig into my next read!
