Summary Of Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions Of A Team

In Patrick Lencioni’s leadership fable, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” he outlines what he believes to be the five most common dysfunctions of a team in business. Lencioni’s analysis on business dysfunction could easily be applied to the sports industry. As discussed previously, the 2004 USA Men’s Basketball team failure in Athens sheds light on these five dysfunctions. However, there are many more similar examples in the sports industry that also could be applied. For the purpose of this analysis, the focus of dysfunction will be applied to the 2015 season of the Washington Nationals. Lencioni highlights the five dysfunctions as being: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, absence of accountability, and inattention to

The newly appointed CEO named Kathryn states that “trust is the foundation of real teamwork.” The company fails to understand that a lack of communication among fellow team members is a direct cause to the company not being successful. Not being able to be vulnerable among fellow team members is problematic. In order to be successful in a business there needs to be an understanding that team members can push you in order to reap the benefits of a more balanced team. As a result, invulnerability among team members leads to an artificial unity among the group. This can easily be tied to how Matt Williams (now recently fired Manager of the Nationals) dealt with his players. In Barry Svrluga’s Washington Post article, “In Jonathan Papelbon, Nationals got their closer- and their kiss of death,” Svrluga outlines how Matt Williams’s lack of communication got so bad that it eventually led to veteran player, Jayson Werth, confronting him in the clubhouse. Perhaps Williams felt he could not trust his fellow coaches or players with information regarding the team’s performance. This led to a lack of communication when he made changes to lineups and in game decisions. As a result, the team felt alienated by him. Rather then showing vulnerability to him by questioning Williams, players sought out their problems with Bench Coach Randy Knorr (Washington Post). This lack of trust also led to the

There is such a thing as constructive debate and dialogue, but Williams neglected to acknowledge this and the result was the team dynamic being more dysfunctional. The dysfunction’s outlined by Lencioni impacted the team even more with the acquisition of Jonathan Papelbon. Papelbon, waived his no trade clause from the Phillies with the insistence that his being on the Nationals would mean he were the Closer. The Nationals already had Drew Storen who was having a productive year up until that point, but Papelbon’s “inattention to results,” showed he preferred to focus on his own personal success and reputation than the performance of the