At the urging of LeanChurchGuy I finally got around to reading Patrick Lencioni’s, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Actually Mr. Lencioni was at the Catalyst conference last year, but I opted not to sit in on his session mainly because I was experiencing information overload and I guessed that his talk would be potential boring. (Guess I was wrong).
One of the reasons I enjoyed the book, was because of the fictitious story line that follows a new company CEO and her plight to create a team out of a group of Executives, who are mostly concerned about their individual success and not that of the organization.
(A.D.D. Rant) Stories are so much easier to follow and interesting that simply writing out dogmatic statements. In the Bible belt, people love preachers who tell stories, over guys who give deep theological treatise. The best of teachers are always great story tellers.)
(Back to the Book) This book is easy to read and very insightful. I enjoyed it so much that I purchase Mr. Lencioni’s other book; Three Big Question for a Frantic Family, and my wife read it in a few nights (way to go J)!
My take away from the book revolves around the first and foundational dysfunction which is, “Absence of Trust”. Some real self discovery happened here. Let me take you through it.
OK, think about the people in your life (family, work, or church) whom you do not trust. You know the guy or gal with a certain sparkle in their eye or smirk on their face that makes you question their motives. OK, I think you are with me. Now image this. For some people in the world, if I were to ask them that same question I just asked you; guess whose face would pop in their mind?…………… Yeap, your face would appear.
You see we don’t understand why people don’t trust us, because we are aware of our motives (or what we think are our motives). Yet other people don’t judge us by our motives, they judges by what they imagine our motives to be. Often time judging us by our actions. So just remember, if you wonder why you can’t get your way with your wife, kids, boss, church, charity, or pets; it’s because they don’t trust you.
Now start building that trust, there are not real shortcuts.
