Fighting Group-think with Descent

Blog contribution by Psyblog.

· Why dissent is vital to effective decision-making.

In government, in corporate boardrooms, every day across the land people gather in groups to make decisions. More often than we would like these decisions turn out to be wrong, sometimes very badly wrong. Governments waste billions, corporations go bankrupt and people suffer. So why do groups sometimes make such awful decisions?

Group decision-making can go wrong in a number of predictable ways, but one of the most common is groupthink. Groupthink is a well-known psychological phenomenon, but less well-known are the techniques for fighting it.

Understanding how groupthink occurs and what can be done to fight it is vital for effective decision-making in groups, and consequently vital for well-run society and profitable businesses.

Groupthink

Groupthink emerges because groups are often very similar in background and values. Groups also usually like—or at least have a healthy respect for—each other. Because of this, when trying to make a decision, a consensus emerges and any evidence to the contrary is automatically rejected, ridiculed even. Individual members of the group don't want to rock the boat because it might damage personal relationships.

The groupthink pioneer was psychologist Irving Janis. He analysed the decisions made by three US presidents (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) to extend the war in Vietnam (Janis, 1982). Groupthink, he argued, explained why they had become locked in their course of action, unable to explore alternatives.

Subsequent psychological research has backed up Janis' arguments. Experiments show that people are quick to adopt the majority position and, crucially, they ignore all the potential alternatives and all the conflicting evidence (Nemeth & Kwan, 1987).

Manufacturing dissent

Fighting back against groupthink, Janis argued, is all about vigilant decision-making. What this means in practice is trying to make the group aware of problems with the consensus and offer alternatives. To do this someone in the group has to be critical. Encouraging critical thinking is not easy, but it is possible:

• Devil's advocate: someone in the group, but not usually the leader, is assigned the role of trying to spot holes in the decision-making process. This approach was tested by Hirt and Markman (1995) who encouraged experimental participants to generate multiple solutions. The results showed that these participants demonstrated lower susceptibility to group bias.
• The power of authentic dissent: unfortunately for the devil's advocate, they can easily be ignored because people don't take them seriously. Better, then, is someone who really believes in their criticisms. Nemeth et al. (2001) found that when compared with a devil's advocate, authentic dissenters were more likely to provide a greater quantity and quality of effective solutions.
• Nurturing authentic dissent: group leaders play a crucial role in encouraging (or crushing) dissent. Vinokur et al. (1985) analysed the decisions made by a panel investigating new medical technologies. The best outcomes were associated with a facilitative chairperson who encouraged participation from the group rather than one who was too directive.

These techniques for eradicating group-think, then, revolve around encouraging dissent. In the interests of making a good decision, someone has to be critical otherwise mistakes are easily made.

This may seem relatively obvious but there are all sorts of reasons why dissent is never expressed (from Nemeth & Goncalo, 2004):

• Organisations often recruit on the basis of who will 'fit in' and not 'rock the boat'. The stereotypical yes-man often emerges, perhaps unconsciously, as perfect for the job.
• Group cohesiveness is highly valued for productivity ('are you a team-player?'): groups who are always bickering are perceived as getting less work done.
• Disagreement and the expression of conflicting opinions makes people uncomfortable and they try to suppress it, partly because:
• Dissent is easily misinterpreted as disrespect or even a personal attack.
• Dissenters are often labelled as trouble-makers and targeted for either conversion to the consensus or outright expulsion from the group.

As a result dissenters in groups are likely to be an endangered species. To be effective dissenters must tread a fine line, avoiding pointless confrontation or personal attacks; instead presenting minority viewpoints in an even-handed, well-modulated and authentic fashion.

For their part the majority has to fight its instinct to crush dissenters and recognise the risk they are taking in being critical of the majority opinion. Although the majority consensus may well be right, it can be more secure in its decision if dissent is encouraged and all the options are explored.

What are you waiting for? It is time to disagree!

The Acceptance Prophesy: How You Control Who Likes You

Blog contribution by PsyBlog.

· Is interpersonal attraction a self-fulfilling prophesy?

The mystical-sounding 'acceptance prophesy' is simply this: when we think other people are going to like us, we behave more warmly towards them and consequently they like us more. When we think other people aren't going to like us, we behave more coldly and they don't like us as much.

It's a self-fulfilling prophesy because if we predict acceptance we get it, if not we don't. It's also an intuitively appealing explanation for how people come to like (or dislike) each other. But the question for psychologists is whether it is really true or just a neat fairy story.

The waters are, of course, muddied by all the usual individual and cultural differences—some people care more about other's acceptance and some people are naturally more accepting—but let's set those aside for a moment and just imagine two people who are identical except that one expects others to accept her and one expects others to reject her.

What the research has found, according to a new paper just published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, is that one part of the acceptance prophesy has strong evidence to support it, while the other part does not. Until now.

The first part, in a model put forward by Dr Danu Anthony Stinson at the University of Waterloo and colleagues, is that the interpersonal warmth people project predicts how much others like them (Stinson et al., 2009). For psychologists this is uncontroversial; people take better to others who are genuinely warm with accurate judgements about their warmth made in only 30 seconds (Ambady et al., 2000).

Pleased to meet you

What has proved more controversial is whether anticipating acceptance really does increase the interpersonal warmth that people project towards others. It's this question that Stinson et al. (2009) set out to test by manipulated people's expectations about a person they were about to meet for the first time.

They told 14 of 28 men recruited for their study that the attractive woman they were going to meet was nervous and worried about how she would be perceived by them. Quite naturally when these men found that the woman was nervous and insecure it made them feel better in comparison. This had the effect of making the men much less anxious about the interaction (actually about half as nervous as judged by independent observers) and consequently much warmer.

In comparison the other 14 sweaty-palmed participants were only given basic demographic information about the woman they were going to talk to, nothing that would calm their fears of rejection. This manipulation created two groups, then, one that was anticipating acceptance more than the other.

What the results showed was that when the risk of rejection was lower, men acted more warmly towards the woman to whom they were talking. This extra warmth also lead to a panel of observers liking them more in comparison with those who were more fearful of risk and therefore interpersonally colder.

So this provides evidence that the acceptance prophecy holds true. In this experiment people who expected to be accepted did act more warmly towards a stranger and consequently they were perceived as more likeable.

Social optimist or pessimist?

There was an exception, though, to the results of this study. One sub-group were not affected by the experimental manipulation to increase how much they expected to be accepted. That's because they already expected to be accepted. These are the social optimists (or at least people who think rather a lot of themselves!).

Social optimists, of course, are in the happy position of expecting to be accepted and finding that, generally speaking, they are. Social pessimists, though, face the dark side of what sociologist Robert K. Merton—who coined the _expression 'self-fulfilling prophecy'—has called a 'reign of error'. Expectation of rejection leads to the projection of colder, more defensive behaviour towards others, and this leads to actual rejection. "Uh-huh," mutters the social pessimist, "I knew they wouldn't like me".

And so it goes.

7 steps to instant happiness

Blog contribution by Hannah Booth.

Be positive

"Positivity makes you more attractive and resilient, with lower blood pressure, less pain, fewer colds, better sleep. Increase the number of positive emotions in your day, however fleeting. One can lead to another and so on, until we're in an upward spiral of positivity. Take a moment to find the good in a situation. Don't over-generalise ('I can never hold down a relationship'), jump to conclusions ('I'll never finish this job') or ruminate endlessly. Any healthy distraction – a run, a swim – that lifts your mood is good."

Barbara Fredrickson is Kenan distinguished professor of psychology, University of North Carolina.

Be brave

"Studies show people regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did. Why? We can rationalise an excess of courage more easily than an excess of cowardice, because we can console ourselves by thinking of the things we learned from the experience. We hedge our bets when we should blunder forward. In fact, large-scale assaults on our happiness – a lost job or failed marriage – trigger our psychological defences (and hence promote our happiness) more than smaller annoyances. The paradoxical consequence is that it is sometimes easier to achieve a positive view of a very bad experience than a bad one. And yet we rarely choose action over inaction. Knowing we overestimate the impact of almost every life event makes me a bit braver and more relaxed because I know what I'm worrying about probably won't matter as much as I think it will."

Daniel Gilbert is professor of psychology, Harvard University.

Meditate

"Meditation helps us better manage our reactions to stress and recover more quickly from disturbing events. This is key to happiness. One study took people in high-stress jobs and taught them meditation for eight weeks: they felt happier after and even remembered why they liked their work. Before, they were too stressed to see it. Beginners can benefit from meditation, but it takes practice to see real benefits. I recently spent an evening with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, the Tibetan lama dubbed 'the happiest man in the world'. How did he get that way? Practice. Observing his behaviour, I noticed he recovered quickly from upsets and this is one way science measures a happy temperament. If you start to get upset, let go of the negative thought, deal with the problem – and then let go of that."

Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and author, based in Massachusetts.

Be kind to yourself

"The way we relate to ourselves – kindly or critically – has a major influence on our wellbeing, contentment and ability to cope with setbacks. If you're feeling self-critical, stop, take a few breaths, slow down and try to think of the ideal qualities you might have, such as kindness, warmth, gentleness. It doesn't matter whether or not you actually have these qualities – like an actor taking on a part, feel yourself become them. In a journal, make a note of what happens to your self-criticism when you do this. Then turn your attention to what you're about to do."

Paul Gilbert is professor of clinical psychology, University of Derby.

Use your pessimism

"Defensive pessimists expect the worst and expend lots of energy mentally rehearsing how things might go wrong. But by doing this, they can improve the odds of achieving their goals. It's a useful skill for everyone to learn. Imagine what might go wrong in a situation by focusing on specifics. If you're terrified of public speaking, try to articulate whether you're afraid of fumbling with your notes or tripping on your way to the podium. Then imagine what happens next: if you drop your notes, will someone laugh? By doing this you shift the attention from feelings to facts, so you can plan effectively to avoid (or at least deal with) negative outcomes if they occur."

Julie Norem is Margaret Hamm professor of psychology, Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Find a calling

"Work less, earn less, accumulate less and 'consume' more family time, holidays and other enjoyable activities. Pursue goals but remember, it's the journey, not the end result, that counts. If your work is not a calling, can you reframe it to see it as more than just a pay cheque? If not, try to find a noble purpose outside work – religion, teaching, political campaigning. Find activities that fully engage your attention and you're good at: singing in a choir, painting, driving fast on a curvy country road. This is known as 'flow'. Happiness is not a shallow state of feeling chipper all the time, or something you can achieve directly. We need love, work and a connection to something larger. Get these conditions right, then wait."

Jonathan Haidt is professor of psychology, University of Virginia.

Act happy

"My research compares happy and unhappy people, and underpinning this is the 40% solution: the degree of happiness it is within our power to change, through how we act and think. I've identified 12 happiness-enhancing activities – things happy people do naturally. They may sound corny, but they're scientifically proven. You don't have to do them all – decide which fit you best. One, express gratitude. Two, cultivate optimism: visualise a future in which everything has turned out the way you want it, then write it down. Three, avoid obsessing over things or paying too much attention to what others are doing. Four, practise acts of kindness – more than you're used to. Five, make time for friends; be supportive and loyal. Six, develop coping strategies: write down your feelings when you're feeling upset and try to see that traumatic events often make us stronger. Seven, learn to forgive. Eight, immerse yourself in activities and be open to new ones. Nine, savour life's joys – linger over a pastry rather than mindlessly consuming it. Ten, work towards meaningful goals. Eleven, practise religion and spirituality. And finally, exercise. You won't see the results from these activities right away: like anything important, you have to work at it."

Sonja Lyubomirsky is professor of psychology, University of California.

Why Groups Fail to Share Information Effectively

from PsyBlog (http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/08/why-groups-fail-to-share-information-effectively.php)

"No, leaks aren't on the agenda..."

In 1985 Stasser and Titus published the best sort of psychology study. Not only does it shine a new light on how groups communicate and make decisions, it also surprises, confuses and intrigues. Oddly, the results first look as if they can't be right, then later it seems obvious they are right, then attention turns to what can be done about it.

The findings were relatively straightforward and, as is often the case with decision-making research, another blow for the fragile human ego. They found that people trying to make decisions in groups spend most of their time telling each other things that everyone already knows. In comparison people are unlikely to bring up new information known only to themselves. The result: poor decisions.

As it happens Stasser and Titus' (1985) participants were making a relatively trivial decision—who should be student body president—but subsequent research has tested all sorts of other scenarios. Experimenters have asked people to choose the best candidate for a job (Wittenbaum, 1998), the best type of investment (Hollingshead, 1996) and the guilty party in a homicide investigation (Stasser & Stewart, 1992).

Again and again the results have shown that people are unlikely to identify the best candidate, make the best investment or spot who really committed the crime. When asked to make a group decision, instead of sharing vital information known only to themselves, people tend to repeat information that everyone already knows.

The explanations

At first these results seem deeply counter-intuitive. Surely people should be highly motivated to bring new information to the discussion, not just repeat the same old stuff? After all, the group is scuppering itself by failing to share. Three solid explanations for this strange behaviour have emerged from the research (Wittenbaum et al., 2004):

1. Memory. Shared information is likely to be more memorable in the first place, so more likely to be brought up by someone. Also, if more people in a group know a piece of information, whether because it's memorable or for some other reason, then there is a greater probability that one of them will recall it in the discussion.
2. Pre-judgements. People make their minds up to varying degrees before they have a group discussion. The information on which they make their pre-judgement is likely to be shared information available to everyone. Then, when the group discussion starts, whether consciously or unconsciously, people tend to only bring up information that supports their pre-judgement. Surprise, surprise, it's the same things everyone else is bringing up.
3. Anxiety. Before a meeting people are unsure how important the information they know is, and are also anxious to be seen in a good light by others in the group. Information that emerges during a meeting as shared by the group comes to be viewed as more important and so people repeat it. People are seen as more capable when they talk about shared rather than unshared information (Wittenbaum & Bowman, 2004). To be on the safe side people prefer to stick to repeating things that everyone knows and, bizarrely, others like them better for it.

Together these points begin to show why it is very likely that people will fail to share information known only to themselves.

Trained doctors do no better

But there is a fourth possible explanation for the experimental results. It could be that the participants have not been specifically trained to share relevant information with each other. They were, after all, largely college students—perhaps those with more experience and training can do better?

This is why Larson et al. (1998) tested a group of doctors who are professionally trained in pooling information from different sources in order to make a diagnosis. In their experiment 25 physicians were recruited and asked to solve 2 hypothetical medical cases in groups of three. Firstly each participant watched a video on their own in which they saw a patient talking about their symptoms with their doctor (parts played by actors). Participants were, however, shown slightly different videos, thereby imparting some information to all three members of the diagnostic team, and some information only to individuals.

The experiment was set up so that it was only possible to make an accurate diagnosis if the doctors shared the information about the patient that was known only to themselves. What the experimenters found, though, was the classic dynamic where participants spent more time discussing shared rather than unshared information. Because groups which didn't pool previously unshared information had less to go on, consequently they made less accurate diagnoses.

These findings are particularly dramatic because the participants were trained decision-makers.

How to encourage people to share

Naturally, then, ever since the first experimental demonstration of this phenomenon by Stasser and Titus (1985), the search has been on to find ways to encourage people to share the information that only they know. Here are some of the attributes of groups that do tend to divulge more of that critical unshared information with each other (from Wittenbaum et al., 2004):

• Groups where members disagree and who display less groupthink are more likely to share unpooled information.
• When people are told to try and recall relevant information before the meeting, this makes them more likely to mention facts that only they know.
• Members of a group should be made aware of each other's expertise, so they know (broadly speaking) what everyone else knows.
• The longer meetings go on, the more likely that people will recall previously unshared information (unfortunately!).
• People are more likely to share if they have a higher status in the group. So to encourage lower status members to share, their expertise needs to be specifically acknowledged to the group.

Next time you're in a decision-making meeting, try consciously noticing the extent to which the group is sharing information that everyone already knows. Then, if it seems that little new information is emerging, there's a case for using some of these techniques.

And in reality?

Much as psychologists would like otherwise, experiments are only attempts to simulate real-world situations. In reality things are more complex. Wittenbaum et al. (2004) give us one reason to be pessimistic about real world group decision-making and two reasons to be optimistic.

First the bad news. Compared with an experimental situation, in the real world people have their own goals which may conflict with those of the group. This may actively stop them sharing information, or lead them to share it in such a way as to further their own goals. This is hard to counter.

Now the good news. Most of these studies assume that the information that is only known to the minority is important for the decision. In the real world this won't always be the case. Also, people may share information they are unsure about outside a group meeting directly to other individuals. This is more likely to happen when the information is sensitive or of unknown value.

So perhaps real-world group decision-making isn't affected as badly as the experimental evidence suggests. Still, I can't help being reminded of a classic episode of the British sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which the fictional Prime Minister is asking what it is he doesn't know about Foreign Office secrets, to which his Principal Private Secretary, Bernard, replies:

"May I just clarify the question? You are asking who would know what it is that I don’t know and you don’t know but the Foreign Office know that they know that they are keeping from you so that you don’t know and they do know and, all we know, there is something we don’t know and we want to know. We don’t know what because we don’t know. Is that it?"

Well, quite.

What makes a man?

I can hear my train comin'
It's a lonesome and distant cry
I can hear my train comin'
Now I'm runnin' for my life
What makes a man walk away from his mind?
I think I know
I think I might know

I can feel the wind blowin'
It's sending shivers down my spine
I can feel the wind blowin'
It shakes the trees and the power lines
What makes a man spend his whole life in disguise?
I think I know
I think I might know

I think I might know
I think I might know, oh oh

I can see the sun settin'
It's casting shadows on the sea
I can see the sun, it's setting
It's getting colder, starting to freeze
What makes a man want to break a heart with ease?
I think I know
I think I might know

City & Colour

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Man! I need a break.

Arrrghh! A common comicbook expression indicating frustration or pain.
I can hear this echoing in my mind more than I would like to admit.
Perhaps I read too many comic books as a kid.

Regardless of this fact, if it was not 'Arrrghh!' than it would have
probably been some other colourful profanity. (Not that I'd don't use
one every now and then.)

What's my point? My point is that every working stiff at some point
needs to come up for air. With all the noise and static that is our
lives, we need to occasionally step out of our life routines.

As an executive coach to many a busy person, I see and experience this
fact, if not every day, than at least every week. People get sucked
into the routines of their lives, like ships gets sucked into a
swirling whirlpool. Without conscious effort to escape the vortex,
the swirling waters eventually drowns them.

I presume that is why we some times say, 'We are drowning in work' or
'I can hardly keep my head above water'. It is not suprising to think
we can almost literally interpret this to be true.

If a person is not able to see an exit to a long and dark corridor, it
can have a huge impact on him/her psychologically. Their
motivativation and drive for work and life can very quickly dry up.
One day you wake up and realize there is no colour or spice left in
your routine-based existence.

This happens to all of us. Sometimes to get out of the rut requires
changing small aspects of our lives. Perhaps it is finding a new route
to drive to work. Maybe it's to discover a new jogging trail that
awakens some feeling of being lost.

Sometimes I'll call a friend to go to the movies. It is a simple way
to be (kind of) social and at the same time get lost in another
reality. Other times, I'll grab some book that I'm engrossed in and
head to a cafe that I haven't been to before. I enjoy a great coffee,
get lost in the pages of the book, and immerse myself in the new
environment.

If I am really bogged down in routine and it is smothering my sense of
growth and curioisty, I jump on a plane to check out a new city and
go exploring. Of course, this takes a little planning and extra
investment of resources. But that's what it is - an investment.

The ROI (return on investment) is substantial. When I return I am
reenergized and refocused. Getting away for a couple of days always
leaves me with new perspectives and makes me appriciate what I have.

Having a growing business, a wife with a professional career and three
kids under 5 years-old requires that I'm disciplined with my time.

I'd like to know what you do to step-back and gain perspective.

Cordially

Jason W Birkevold Liem
phone: (+47) 957 66 460
email: MINDtalk@email.com
web: www.MINDtalk.no
blog: www.jasonliem.blogspot.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/mindtalkcoach

Twitter as a Business Tool?

I've been using Twitter for a few weeks now. I finally decided to to jump in and actively use the service for a number of reasons. One, it was to create a community around people interested in coaching, psychology, leadership and general business. Second, I found that it grabs the attention of crawling search engines, and subsequently, drives a lot of a traffic to my website. Third, (mind you it is only a very small fraction) it has generated business for me and MINDtalk, in the way of new clients.

Twitter is still a tool that I have yet to fully utilize. That is, there is still much about it that I can learn to use.

As I usually do, I crawl the latest blogs looking for new insights that can add to my knowledge-base. I found this one interesting blog entry from a tweet, and it's about Twitter as seen from a management model.

Please visit the original source at http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/115317. Enjoy the following entry by Gary Eckstein.

Twitter will not Survive - A Management Model Explanation

by Gary Eckstein

When consumers have little choice or when a product, technology or service is at the very beginning of the Product Lifecycle (also termed the Product Life Cycle), quality is not as an important differentiator as in mature products or markets. Quality becomes increasingly important as the product or market matures and moves through the Product Lifecycle stages.

What is the Product Lifecycle?

The Product Lifecycle (variously attributed to Levitt, Bartels, Converse and others) has four stages; Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline (the Lifecycle is sometimes presented as a five stage model; Introduction, Growth, Maturity, Saturation and Decline). A new product or service moves through the Lifecycle stages and each stage has distinct characteristics. The purpose of this article is not to explain the Product Lifecycle in depth but there are various excellent resources which explain this model.

What is Quality Management?

Quality Management is about improving the quality of products and services and ensuring that quality meets defined criteria. The quality of a service or product is a differentiating factor as may be seen with the success of Japanese Auto companies and the decline of the American Auto giants (e.g. GM and Chrysler). Japanese Car makers such as Toyota realized that competitive advantage may be attained through manufacturing Cars of a superior quality to those of American competitors. This quality focus has certainly shown its market relevance.

Quality Management and the Product Lifecycle

Quality becomes an increasingly important consumer decision factor as a product or service moves through the Lifecycle. In the Introduction and early stages of the Growth stage of the Product Lifecycle, consumers are ‘early adopters’ and are generally willing to accept quality flaws as a trade-off to being the first to own or use the new product. As the product moves into the Maturity stage and beyond consumers have more product choice therefore are more quality conscious.

As an example of this think of early Cellular/Mobile phone networks. Early adopters accepted poor reception however consumers will no longer consider poor reception.

Google Search, Quality Management and the Product Lifecycle

Here is a topical example of the importance of quality and how it relates to the Product Lifecycle: Google originally gained search market share quickly based on two quality basics; search speed and search accuracy. Before Google arrived, Lycos, Yahoo and other major search engines of the time offered slow and inaccurate results on the Search Results Pages (SERPs). Google appeared at the beginning of the Growth stage of the Search Engine product lifecycle and is a great example of the fact that being first to market is not necessarily as important as ensuring quality. Google Search is also a very good example of ongoing quality improvement. Google is constantly updating its search algorithms in order to best deliver the most accurate results to people as quickly as possible.

Twitter and impending Doom

Twitter looks to be in some trouble! Sure the number of Twitter users is increasing at an impressive rate however the micro-blogging industry is in its infancy (i.e. the Introduction stage). There aren’t many viable/realistic micro-blogging competitors out there. If Twitter is to micro-blogging what Yahoo was to Search in the 1990’s, then Twitter needs to concentrate on quality … and fast. Twitter is storing vast and escalating volumes of data. Increasingly low quality or ‘spam’ type data is appearing on Twitter and the recent ping attack on Twitter shows that it is in the sights of disruptive predators. Google is also making its search far more time relevant which has been one of Twitter’s key strengths up until now.

As micro-blogging progresses along the product Lifecycle consumers will want increasing quality in terms of relevancy of data. Just at a time when quality is becoming more important, the quality of Twitter content is subsiding. Micro-blogging competitors and new entrants must be feeling rather positive at present just as Google felt when they took on the giants of Search of the time in the form of Yahoo and Lycos.

Book Review - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

I first read this book back in 2003 by Patrick Lencioni when it first came out, and now I've just finished a second reading. I think that the book has pragmatic and useful information if you lead people. My recommendation is to skip to the end of the book and simply read the method behind the story.

I've included below another reader's review from http://www.extensor.co.uk/book_reviews/five_dysfunctions/five_dysfunctions.html.

Good reading!

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team:
A Leadership Fable

Someone once told me that most management books are two chapters long, with the rest of the chapters consisting of padding, to turn what would otherwise be an article, into something that can justify the price of a book. Regardless of whether you believe this to be an overly cynical view or not, this book fits the definition, yet it is one that I recommend highly to anyone wanting to learn more about the effective working of teams.

The reason it fits this otherwise critical definition is because it uses the “padding” chapters to put the theory into context, by telling a fictional story of how a newly appointed chief executive sets about improving the performance of the management team of a failing company. The net result is an eminently readable and extremely well explained management book.

The story begins with the new CEO taking time to get to know the team before taking them through a series of steps to get them to see the problems. The benefit of the way the story is told is that the model Lencioni is describing is related to the reader in a context that will seem familiar.

The one ‘eurica’ moment in the story for me was when a member of the team tried to undermine the new CEO by appealing to the Chairman. A similar situation had occurred to me in the past that I had ignored. What the book helped me understand was why it had happened and how I might have dealt with it better.

At the end of the book there are around 35 pages that describe Lencioni’s model, provide a self-assessment test and offer suggestions as to how to overcome the five dysfunctions. It is probably not giving too much away to summarise the model here:

• The first dysfunction is absence of trust amongst team members. If team members are not genuinely open with each other about their mistakes and weaknesses, it is impossible to build a foundation of trust.
• Absence of trust creates the circumstance for the second dysfunction, fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of fully and honestly debating issues as they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.
• The inability to openly discuss issues leads to a lack of commitment. If team members are unable to fully air their views, it is unlikely that they will be fully committed to the decisions of the group.
• If team members are not fully bought into the decisions of the group, they will inevitably avoid accountability. How can they stand up and be counted on issues if they were not completely committed to them in the first place?
• Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career, recognition or reward) or even their division above the collective needs of the team.

The clear message is that trust is the cornerstone of all teams. It may sound obvious, but how many corporate structures, particularly with regard to reward and recognition, reward trust and cooperation rather than competition?

The book is well worth reading for anyone who leads a team.

Communication Skill and Team Cohesiveness

I think one of the most interesting, and at the same time most
difficult, aspects of being an executive coach is working with teams.

Much of the work I do with teams and project groups is to get them to
communicate better amongst themselves. This means, how members convey
their message and if it is clear and understandable to the recipient.
This though, is only scratching the surface.

There is a deeper process that teams have to go through first if
commincation skill-sets they've learned are going to be fully effective.

You can compare it to receiving a beautiful, well-engineered sports
car, but the only roads you can drive on are riddled with pot-holes
and uneven cobble stones. Communication skills alone are not going to
help the team if there is no infrastrature of trust, healthy conflict,
commitment, accountability and collective acheivement.

What is needed is to delve deeper into the fundamentals of
communication. By building the the roadways of communication to each
of the members, their communication skill-sets will be fully utilized.

One of the methods I use is from, Patrick Lencioni's, The Five
Dysfunctions of a Team. I've been using this method since 2003 and it
really helps to make teams more cohesive and to move them forward.

The basic idea is this: if a team has confidence to share their
vulnerabilities such as mistakes, interpersonal short comings,
requests for help etcetera then there is a healthy dose of trust.

If there is trust and confidence amongst team members, then there is
the courage for people to share their opinions, even if those opinions
are completely counter to someone else's. Every strong relationship
needs healthy conflict to bring forth issues out into the open. They
then can be discussed, clarified and settled.

If the team environment permits discourse and sharing of opinions
without any fall-out, this creates a sense of commitment to a decision
or action.

As a side note to commiment, there is the common misunderstanding that
any decision taken has to be one of consensus. The truth is people can
agree to disagree and still buy-into the decision and be commited to
action. The key is that people feel that their opinion has been heard
and considered.

If there is commitment and ownership to the process, then people will
feel a sense of accountability. Accountability for themselves to the
process, but also the accountability of other team members to the
process. This means, people are willing to give each other feedback,
both supportive and corrective, on performance and behavior.

If there is a genuine feeling of accountability, this will encourage
collective thinking. By which I mean, team members will put the
success and acheivment of collective goals before personal goals. They
understand if the entire team achieves, he/she will also achieve.

An atmosphere of trust, healthy conflict, commitment, accountability
and collective acheivement has to be present if interpersonal
communication skills are to be fully effective.

In coming posts, I'll elaborate more on
each of the steps. I use the essence of the above mentioned model, but
over the years I've built I'm aspects of my own methodology.

Cordially

Jason W Birkevold Liem
phone: (+47) 957 66 460
email: MINDtalk@email.com
web: www.MINDtalk.no
blog: www.jasonliem.blogspot.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/mindtalkcoach