In retrospect, when Christina bought me a copy a The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, there were a few reasons it didn’t exactly rise to the top of my to-read pile: It addresses a non-fiction topic in the form of a story, which can sometimes feel contrived. It looks at the topic through a negative lens, which rubs optimist-me the wrong way. And if all that weren’t bad enough, it has a number in the title.
I’m glad I got over all that, because it’s a very good little book, a very fast read that offers a simple but powerful model to help groups of people work together with the trust and commitment needed of a team. The negative perspective is actually effective in highlighting poor team behavior. Though having absorbed it, I’m trying to put it into action using the positive version the author offers toward the end, which one might call the Five Functions of a Team…
2 Comments
Victor,
Christina recommended the book to me at Overlap as well, and a similar thing happened. It sat for a few days near the bottom of the pile, but a few nights ago I picked it up and read it in an evening.
I am so happy she recommended it, as it is changing the way I think about working in a small team. I think your positive model sums the book up quite well, even though I think everone needs to read it.
According to the function mentioned above, i think it is important for a team to enhace themslves in relation to this functions,because a team cannot funtion and enhacde the group cohesion if there is no any functioning in a particular team.so i think it is for their best interest for all members in a team to cooparate and interact with one another in order to achieve a coomon goal,