The Five Dysfunctions of a Team + The Ideal Team Player | Summer Reads | Part 2 of 7

Welcome back to the Impact Leadership Podcast. In today's episode, we'll be returning to our series, “Summer Reads.” Chip Parker will be discussing two books: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Ideal Team Player, both by Patrick Lencioni. As leaders, it is a top priority for us to create teams that are humble, hungry, and people-smart. Let’s dive in!

Thanks for listening to the Impact Leadership podcast! We are so glad that you're here. If you're looking to connect with Chip Parker, send him a message at chip@theorchardcc.org. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays. We'll catch you in the next episode!

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome into the Impact Leadership Podcast. My name is Chip Parker, and I'm the lead pastor at the Orchard Community Church, a multi-site church in North Central Florida working to impact lostness and impact the next generation. This podcast is all about helping you as a church leader grow your leadership to grow your impact. Let's hop into this week's conversation. All right, well, welcome back. I hope that you caught the first part of this conversation that we dropped last week, a conversation I'm calling Summer Reads, where I'm just going over some of my favorite leadership books that I've read and been influenced by in my life. Some of them are business books, some of them are personal leadership, some of them are from church world, but they're books that have all been beneficial, maybe in expected ways or in some ways I didn't see coming. So last week we talked about the motive by Patrick Lencioni and start with why by Simon Sinek. And really we addressed in those two books the idea of why we do what we do, why we do what we do as an individual, as a leader, and why we do what we do as an organization. If you miss that, go back and listen to it. It's good. But today we are going to jump in to two books that I would say are probably the two books I would recommend most to somebody outside of the church world and leadership. Like there's another book that's coming that may be in contention for that spot. And really, in my mind, these two books we're going to talk about today go together. But as far as just secular business leadership books, these two books are top tier. They're both by Pat Lincioni. And again, if you're not reading Pat Lincioni and you're a leader, you are missing out. But these two books are the ones that really turned me on to Pat and got me diving deeper into a lot of his work. The two books we're going to look at today are The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Ideal Team Player. Now, these two books both go kind of hand in hand. Both of these books talk about team dynamics, one from the perspective of the overall team and one from the perspective of the individual player on the team. The five dysfunctions of a team is really written in Lincioni's patented way, where it has a great fable, as he calls it, that pulls you in, outlines a very common illustration, and then dives into the principles at play. And this book is all about team dynamics. Why do teams struggle? How do we get teams to work better and perform better? And the five dysfunctions of a team that he identifies are five dysfunctions that build upon one another. And they are number one, the absence of trust, number two, the fear of conflict, number three, the lack of commitment, number four, the avoidance of accountability, and number five, an attention to results. These are what he says are the five dysfunctions of a team. And let me tell you, I don't think he could be more right. It's something that builds layer upon layer upon layer. And when you listen to him unpack how these all work together and how they flesh themselves out in unhealthy teams, you see it and you think, my goodness, he is so spot on. And really, it is those first two dysfunctions that hit home with me the most because I think this was the book that helped me realize the importance of them. They are the absence of trust and the fear of conflict. And I'm telling you, if you are having issues with your team that you lead or that you play on at work, you probably got issues here, either an absence of trust or fear of conflict. I could not recommend this book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, anymore. The next book, The Ideal Team Player, is in some ways a sequel to the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. You look at it not from the perspective of the overall team, but from the perspective of individual people who are on the team. And he talks about what makes the best teammates, what makes the best employees, what makes the best leaders. And he breaks it down into three categories. They are humble, they are hungry, and they are people smart, is what he says. They are humble, they are hungry, and they are people smart. Now, if you've been in a leadership role before where you had to hire someone, you have probably heard something that takes off of this idea of humble, hungry, and people smart. We say that when we hire for people, it's kind of widely understood. You look for three C's. You look for competence, you look for character, and you look for chemistry. Those go hand in hand with Patrick Lincioni, right? Character is about being humble. Hungry is about being competent and people smart is about having chemistry with your team. That is what builds an ideal team player from an individual perspective. And when you get a team full of those people, it knocks it out of the park. So let me just take a few minutes and walk you through what I think are some excellent leadership principles that I've learned from these books, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and the Ideal Team Player. I think first I would say this trust is the foundation of all teams. Trust is the foundation of all teams. If you are on a team, I don't care how competent the people are on that team. I don't care how hard they work. I don't care how skilled they are. If there is a lack of trust, your team is losing effectiveness in a major, major way. As a matter of fact, there's another book that did not make the cut on our list, but it's a book that I would recommend if that hits home to you. And it is called The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. So if that's an issue that you see in your team, maybe look that book up as well. Second thing I would say is this healthy conflict produces clarity and alignment. Now, if you have listened to the podcast before, you've heard me talk about healthy conflict. I think that conflict is one of the most overlooked parts of leadership. Now, if you are a leader who just licks your chops at conflicts and loves getting into it with other people, you probably need to read the motive and make sure that you have the right heart behind leadership. And yet good, effective healthy leaders lean into healthy conflict. Why? Because it is only through healthy conflict that we can bring clarity to our organization, clarity to the people we lead, and alignment across our departments or various teams, or in my case, in church world locations. Thirdly, it's accountability that protects culture. We have to hold ourselves and our teams accountable. If we do not hold ourselves and our teams accountable, we are going to fail as leaders. But listen, we cannot start by holding people accountable only for the results they produce. We have to hold them accountable for their behaviors, their processes, and how they interact with each other. And if you will start there, I promise it will be a lot easier to hold them accountable for their results, their production on the other side. However, if we are unable or even unwilling to hold our teams accountable, we cannot lead our teams well. Fourth, character matters more than talent. Character matters more than talent. Now, you might have heard that before, but I just want to double down on it because it is such an important idea. When you're looking for people to add to your team, look for character first. Make sure it's somebody you want on the bus before it's somebody who is super talented or super skilled. Not that you don't have to have competence. Now hear me, you have to have competence. But here's the difference you can teach competence, you can't teach character. And I would go so far as to say you can't really teach chemistry either. Competence is by far the easiest of these areas to correct. So when you're looking at that ideal team player, you find somebody who was humble and you can help them become hungry. And you are gonna hope they're people smart because if they're not humble and they're not people smart, it doesn't matter how hungry they are. And then finally, I would say this teams are what leaders tolerate. Teams are what leaders tolerate. Your team right now is a reflection of what you tolerate as a leader. What you see in your team is what you have allowed them to become. Hey, the buck stops here. As leaders, we are the ones who are accountable for where our teams are at. And if they are where we don't want them to be, that's on us, and we have to do better. So let me give you a couple applications before we wind down this short episode. Number one, wherever you lead, build environments where vulnerability is safe. If you want to increase trust, if you want to enable healthy conflict, if you want people to hold each other accountable, you have to create an environment where you can be vulnerable and where you can still be safe. Vulnerability and safety in your environments. Number two, I would say this reward humility and collaboration. Don't just reward the guy who goes out there and long rangers it to death by himself. Reward those who are humble and who do a good job working together. Find a way to highlight them, pat them on the back. And then finally, when you have issues, performance issues, and behavior issues, address them quickly. Everybody else sees them too. You're losing credibility when you don't address them. So I hope that's helpful. Let me encourage you as much as I can. Go grab a copy of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and the Ideal Team Player. If you've read them, great. If you haven't, read them and then keep them on your bookshelf because they will help you in the years to come. Can't wait to dive into next week's book as we continue our conversation in Summer Reads. One last thing before we end this conversation is just let me say if you are a leader, specifically in the local church context or even outside of it, I would love to be able to connect with you if I can help. If you would like, I'm gonna have my email in the show notes. Reach out to me. We can set up a time to connect because here's what I know leadership is bigger than any one of us. If we're truly gonna have an impact in our communities, we need to lean on each other and we need to learn from each other. So I would be more than happy to do what I can to connect with you and help you lead right where you are. So reach out, let us know how we can connect. But until then, we'll see you right back here next week on the Impact Leadership Podcast.