Taipan Masterclass 2013 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

1. Management Leadership Series TaipanMasterclass 2013 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team www.teamesc.com.au

2. Overview Breaking Down The Four Disciplines • Discipline 1: Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team • Cohesive teams build trust, eliminate politics, and increase efficiency by… • Knowing one another’s unique strengths and weaknesses • Openly engaging in constructive ideological conflict • Holding one another accountable for behaviors and actions • Committing to group decisions • Discipline 2: Create Organizational Clarity • Healthy organizations minimize the potential for confusion by clarifying… • Why the organization exists • Which behavioral values are fundamental • What specific business it is in • Who its competitors are • How it is unique • What it plans to achieve • Who is responsible for what • Discipline 3: Over-Communicate Organizational Clarity • Healthy organizations align their employees around organizational clarity by • communicating key messages through… • Repetition: Don’t be afraid to repeat the same message, again and again • Simplicity: The more complicated the message, the more potential for confusion and inconsistency • Multiple mediums: People react to information in many ways; use a variety of mediums • Cascading messages: Leaders communicate key messages to direct reports; the cycle repeats itself until the message is heard by all • Discipline 4: Reinforce Organizational Clarity Through Human Systems • Organizations sustain their health by ensuring consistency in… • Hiring • Managing performance • Meeting structure • Rewards and recognition • Employee dismissal

3. Building a Cohesive Team The Five Dysfunctions of a Team The Role of the Leader… Focus on Collective Outcomes Confront Difficult Issues Force Clarity and Closure Demand Debate Be Vulnerable #1: Absence of TrustThe fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team. #2: Fear of ConflictThe desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive, ideological conflict. #3: Lack of CommitmentThe lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to. #4: Avoidance of AccountabilityThe need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable for their behaviors and performance. #5: Inattention to ResultsThe pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

4. Building a Cohesive Team Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions • Dysfunction # 1: Absence of Trust • Strategy for Overcoming: • Identify and discuss individual strengths and weaknesses • Spend considerable time in face-to-face meetings and working sessions • Dysfunction # 2: Fear of Conflict • Strategy for Overcoming: • Acknowledge that conflict is required for productive meetings • Establish common ground rules for engaging in conflict • Understand individual team member’s natural conflict styles • Dysfunction # 3: Lack of Commitment • Strategy for Overcoming: • Review commitments at the end of each meeting to ensure all team members are aligned • Adopt a “disagree and commit” mentality—make sure all team members are committed regardless of initial disagreements • Dysfunction # 4: Avoidance of Accountability • Strategy for Overcoming: • Explicitly communicate goals and standards of behavior • Regularly discuss performance versus goals and standards • Dysfunction # 5: Inattention to Results • Strategy for Overcoming: • Keep the team focused on tangible group goals • Reward individuals based on team goals and collective success

5. Building Trust The first requirement of a functional team is trust. Members of greats teams trust one another on a fundamental, emotional level and are comfortable being vulnerable with each other about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears and behaviors. They get to the point where they can be completely open with one another without filters. • Personal Histories • A low risk exercise to establish vulnerability-based trust. At a staff meeting or off-site, go around the room and have every member of the team explain 1) where they grew up, 2) how many kids were in their family, and 3) what was the most difficult or important challenge of their childhood (but not their inner childhood; just the most important challenge of being a kid!). Simply by describing these relatively innocuous attributes or experiences, team members begin to get comfortable being open with one another and learn to relate to one another on a more personal level. • Behavioral Profiling (e.g. Myers-Briggs, DISC or Social Styles) • An objective, reliable means for understanding and describing one another’s preferences, skills and attitudes. Behavioral profiling allows teams to identify collective strengths and potential blind spots of the team. Knowing team members' behavioral preferences and personality styles helps to break down barriers by allowing individuals to better understand and empathize with one another. • Time Together • One of the biggest impediments to trust-building on a team is the lack of time spent working collectively. This can include off-site meetings, strategic planning sessions, and even social activities. Avoid the temptation to “save time” at the expense of improving productivity by building a stronger team.

6. Building Trust Personal Histories Exercise Understanding some of the personal background and key influencers in a team member’s life is a safe and effective first step toward establishing vulnerability-based trust. In this exercise, take a moment to answer the following questions. Where did you grow up? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ How many siblings do you have and where do you fall in that order? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ Please describe a unique or interesting challenge or experience from your childhood. __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Mastering Conflict All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict to grow and improve. Teams that trust one another are unafraid to engage in passionate dialogue around issues and decisions that are key to the organization’s success. They do not hesitate to disagree with, challenge and question one another, all in the spirit of finding the best answers, discovering the truth, and making great decisions. • Conflict Profiling and Norming • The process for assessing a team’s attitude about and tendency towards conflict. A person’s conflict profile is determined by a number of factors, not the least of which is their behavioral preference or personality, which we talked about in the trust section. However, other factors like cultural background and family norms usually have a significant impact, too. Have team members review their behavioral profile from the trust exercise, highlighting implications specific to conflict. Have each team member share those implications, along with other conflict influences in their lives, including family and life experiences, as well as cultural background. • Mining • A facilitation skill that requires an individual to extract buried disagreements within a team and bring them to the surface. The "miner" must remain objective during meetings and be committed to the conflict until it is resolved. • Real-time Permission • The concept whereby a leader or facilitator interrupts a team member in the midst of healthy debate to reinforce the behavior. Real-time permission is best used when team members are not yet comfortable with conflict and need to be reminded of its importance so that they can avoid unnecessary feelings of inappropriateness.

8. Mastering Conflict Conflict Profile What do we do as a team that supports constructive conflict? (note in left box) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ What do we do as a team that detracts from constructive conflict? (note in right box) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ What can we do as individuals and as a team to use conflict productively and keep unproductive conflict from getting in the way? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Mastering Conflict Conflict Continuum Constructive Destructive Artificial Harmony Mean-spirited personal attacks Conflict Continuum • Strategies for managing conflict: • Real-time permission: • The concept whereby a leader or facilitator interrupts a team member in the midst of healthy debate to reinforce the behavior.  Real-time permission is best used when team members are not yet comfortable with conflict and need to be reminded of its importance so that they can avoid unnecessary feelings of inappropriateness. • Mining for conflict: • A facilitation skill that requires an individual to extract buried disagreements within a team and bring them to the surface.  The "miner" must remain objective during meetings and be committed to the conflict until it is resolved.

10. Achieving Commitment In the context of a team, commitment is a function of two things—clarity and buy-in. Teams that engage in unfiltered conflict make clear and timely decisions around direction and priorities and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, avoiding the desire for consensus and the need for certainty. • Commitment Clarification • The process that takes place at the end of a meeting during which the team explicitly describes and settles on the agreements and decisions that have been made so that there is no room for ambiguity in what they subsequently do and say. • Cascading Communication • The activity following a meeting in which team members go to their respective departments and report on the agreed-upon decisions and outcomes. Cascading communication should take place in a timely manner following a meeting (1–2 days) and occur face-to-face or live on the phone to facilitate questions and answers. • Scoreboard • A clear and useful tool for quickly assessing a team’s success so that it can organize meetings and discussions around relevant topics. Collectively, the team must clarify exactly what they need to achieve, who needs to deliver what and how everyone must behave in order to succeed.

11. Achieving Commitment Goals

12. Achieving Commitment Goals Hypothetical – A well-known tire company Survive-by Re-EstablishingCredibility RepairDistributorRelations ImprovePR AddressMorale SettleLawsuits Fix Tires ProductionLevels MarketShare CustomerSatisfaction Revenue Expenses

13. Achieving Commitment Goals “If we accomplish only one thing during the next 6-12 months, what would it be?”

14. Achieving Commitment Our Goals What should be the uniting focus of this team over the next 6 – 12 months? (Single, Qualitative, Time-bound, Shared across this team.) __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ What are some defining objectives that would show progress toward that goal? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ What actions will we take towards achieving this goal? And how will others know we are taking these actions? ________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

15. Embracing Accountability Accountability refers to the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that may hurt the team. Teams that commit to decisions and standards of performance do not hesitate to hold one another accountable for adhering to those decisions and standards. What is more, they don’t rely on the team leader as the primary source of accountability, but rather go directly to their peers. • Team Effectiveness Exercise • The Team Effectiveness tool gives team members a forum for providing one another with focused, direct and actionable feedback. At a staff meeting or off-site, team members identify the answers to two simple questions about every member of the team, excluding themselves: 1) what is the single most important behavioral characteristic or quality demonstrated by this person that contributes to the strength of our team? and 2) what is the single most important behavioral characteristic or quality demonstrated by this person that can sometimes derail the team? Once everyone has finished jotting down their answers, the facilitator starts by putting the leader of the team up first. • Meetings – the Lighting Round • The activity at the beginning of a meeting during which team members take no more than 30 seconds to update the team about their three top priorities for the week. If anyone on the team feels that a given team member is spending time unwisely, or that there is greater need for a person’s time and energy in another area, this is the place to call the question.

16. Embracing Accountability Team Effectiveness Exercise In this exercise, take a moment to write down what each of your colleagues does well, what they should keep doing and how they could make improvements to help the team be more productive. Name: Keep doing: Needs to improve: ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ ______________________ ______________________________ __________________________________ Feedback from my peers: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

17. Focusing on Results An unrelenting focus on specific objectives and clearly defined outcomes is a requirement for any team that judges itself on performance. To ensure that a team is focused on results, the team leader needs to make results clear and reward only those behaviors and actions that contribute to those results. Below are some effective ways for teams to focus on results. • Scoreboard • A clear and useful tool for quickly assessing a team’s success so that it can organize meetings and discussions around relevant topics. Collectively, the team must clarify exactly what they need to achieve, who needs to deliver what and how everyone must behave in order to succeed. • Team-based Rewards • Ensure that team-based rewards form the basis for most compensation and recognition programs. When team members have incentives to focus on their individual performance objectives and not those of the team, it becomes easy for collective results to take a backseat to personal financial goals and career development. • Team #1 • Confirm that the team priority is in order. It is critical–and difficult–for team members to subordinate the needs and interests of the teams they manage to those of the team they belong to. Results suffer when team members put a higher priority on the activities of their own departments or divisions.

18. Next Steps Personal and Team Commitments • What are the key agreements and decisions we have taken about your behavior as a group today? • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • What three behaviors will have most impact on our team in next 4 to 6 months? • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________ • __________________________________________________________________________________________

19. Next Steps Cascading Messages Key messages from this session… __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ Who will we communicate them to? How will we communicate them? When will we communicate them by? __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________

20. Team members are deeply concerned about the prospect of letting down their peers. Team members end discussions with clear and specific resolutions and calls to action. ____ 13. ____ 11. Team members know about one another’s personal lives and are comfortable discussing them. Team members are slow to seek credit for their own contributions but quick to point out those of others. Team members challenge one another about their plans and approaches. ____ 12. ____ 14. ____ 15. Team members are passionate and unguarded in their discussion of issues. ____ 1. Team members call out one another’s unproductive behaviors. ____ 2. Team members know what their peers are working on and how they contribute to the collective good of the team. ____ 3. Team members quickly and genuinely apologize to one another when they say or do something inappropriate or possibly damaging to the team. ____ 4. Team members willingly make sacrifices (such as budget, turf, head count) in their departments or areas of expertise for the good of the team. ____ 5. Team members openly admit their weaknesses and mistakes. ____ 6. Team meetings are compelling and not boring. ____ 7. Team members leave meetings confident that their peers are completely committed to the decisions agreed upon during the meeting, even if there was initial disagreement. ____ 8. Morale is significantly affected by the failure to achieve team goals. ____ 9. During team meetings, the most important and most difficult issues are put on the table to be resolved. ____ 10. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Team Assessment Instructions:Use the scale below to indicate how each statement applies to your team. Be sure to evaluate the statements honestly and without over thinking your answers. 3 = Usually 2 = Sometimes 1 = Rarely

21. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Team Assessment Scoring Combine your scores for the 15 statements as indicated below. A score of 8 or 9 is a probable indication that the Dysfunction is not a problem for your team. A score of 6 or 7 indicates that the Dysfunction could be a problem. A score of 3-5 is an indication that the Dysfunction needs to be addressed. Regardless of your scores, it is important to keep in mind that every team needs constant work, because without it, even the best ones deviate toward dysfunction.

22. Appendix Debriefing the Online Team Assessment • (follow these instructions to debrief your team assessment with your direct reports) • Hand out the Team Assessment report. • Ask the team: Take a few minutes to look through this report. Pay particular attention to the pages that list the strongest areas, the weakest areas, and the areas of key differences. • Give team members 3–5 minutes to look through the reports. • Ask the team: Let’s walk through the report to see what we’re doing well and what issues we need to focus on during the rest of this workshop. Use pages 7–14 in your workbook to note your questions, comments, and observations. • Ask team members to turn to the Team Summary on page 5 of the report. • Ask the team: • What does this summary indicate about this team’s areas of strength? Potential areas for improvement? Areas of likely concern? • Did anything surprise you? • Is this the pattern you expected? Why or why not? • What are some reasons that the team scored the way it did? • Elicit several responses. Then ask team members to turn to the graph with the overall scores on page 6 of the report. • Ask the team: What do the more detailed overall scores on this page tell us? • Elicit several responses. • Walk through the Team Analysis Summaries on pages 7–9 of the report. • During the following discussion, record team members’ responses on a flip chart page. Ask for a volunteer to read aloud the team strengths listed under “The Strongest Areas.”

23. Appendix Debriefing the Online Team Assessment • Ask the team: Why do you think the team scored the way it did in these areas? • Ask for a volunteer to read aloud the list of the areas for improvement under “The Weakest Areas.” Ask team members why they think the team scored the way it did. Repeat the process for the items listed under “Areas of Key Differences.” • Ask the team: Now let’s look more closely at your responses to the assessment items for each of the five fundamentals. • As a group, walk through the scores for each of the five fundamentals. For each fundamental, discuss what the responses indicate about the following: • The team’s potential areas for improvement and areas of concern • Reasons the team might have scored high or low on specific questions • Reasons that the team did not struggle with that dysfunction at specific times • Challenges to the team on improving in that dysfunction • Also clarify any misunderstanding or confusion team members might have about any of the assessment questions or responses. • Ask the team: Let’s take a moment to think about our discussion. Answer these two questions: • What key insights did you gain from this assessment? • In what ways does your behavior contribute to our team’s dysfunction? How does it help the team function well? • Give team members a few minutes to answer the questions. • Ask the team: Now let’s summarize what we have seen in the assessment. • Ask for volunteers to summarize the team’s strengths, potential areas for improvement, and areas of concern. Record the summaries on a flip chart page. • Excerpted from The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Participant Workbook

24. Appendix Teambuilding Roadmap Week 1: Pre-work for the Initial Off-site Before the initial off-site takes place, team members will have to spend approximately one hour completing two assessments: a behavioral profile assessment (e.g. Myers-Briggs) and a Five Dysfunctions of a Team assessment Week 2: Initial Off-site This is a one-and-a-half to two-day session which is the anchor of your team-building effort and the formal kick-off of your new approach to teamwork. It will include a review of your team’s assessment, as well as various exercises around trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results. Off-site Follow-up - Immediately after the off-site ends, it is critical that important notes are distributed to team members as a confirmation of the commitments they made, and for their on-going reference and use during the months to follow. Week 3: First Review Session In order to maintain the momentum coming out of the initial off-site, and avoid the common lull that can sometimes occur, it is critical that teams meet and review the commitments they made the prior week. They should take a few minutes to review their behavioral and team profiles, and tie up any loose ends that were left undone. Week 4 – 12: On-going Reference and Discussion During the weeks that follow the off-site and review session, team members should be referencing and discussing all relevant aspects of their team development process as they arise in the course of normal business activity. These will probably include but are not limited to the team assessment, behavioral profiling, conflict profiles and norms, goal commitments, team effectiveness development areas, as well as the team scoreboard. Keep in mind that a real team should be spending considerable time together in meetings and working sessions. In fact, it is not uncommon that as much as 20% of a team member’s time is spent working through issues and solving problems with the team as a whole.

25. Appendix Teambuilding Roadmap Week 13: Quarterly Off-site Review This is a one or two-day session during which team members review many of the assessments and profiles from the initial off-site, and more importantly, assess progress made by individuals and the team as a whole. Common activities would include a discussion of the level of productive conflict on the team, as well as a second pass at the team effectiveness exercise. The first quarterly off-site review is a good opportunity to review progress made against the team’s goals as well, as these are the best indication of real progress. Week 14 – 25: On-going Reference and Discussion During the next nine weeks, team members should again be referencing and discussion relevant aspects of their team development process as they arise in the course of normal business activity. However, team members should now be more comfortable than before in holding one another accountable for any deviations from team norms and personal commitments. Week 26: Final Off-site Review This is the last off-site within the context of the initial team-building effort, but certainly should not be the last such meeting for the team. During this session, team members should step back and assess progress made over the course of the past six months. This should include the re-evaluation of the team using the same team assessment that was completed during week 1. New areas for improvement should be identified and action plans for the future should be put in place. Week 27 and beyond Like a marriage, a team is never completely finished developing itself. And so, the team should be constantly addressing areas of deficiency, and periodically stepping back to assess progress. And again, members of real teams spend considerable time working together. Excerpted from Overcoming The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide, Patrick Lencioni, 2005.