With all of the mortar lobbing back and forth regarding how well (or not well) our Democratic President/Senate/House/Party has or has not been doing, and all the meta about the nature of lobbing mortars, I thought I’d go META on the meta, and write about one of my favorite little books – and some lessons that may or may not be relevant to our community. (NOTE: The author of the book, Patrick Lencioni, holds some political views very different from most of us here - he appears to be a devout Roman Catholic, with a very strong anti-abortion stance. That, however, does not negate the points addressed in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team).
In any event - about the book. Come on below to learn more about The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - and how those dysfunctions might or might not be present around here.
The book tells a "fable" of a new CEO trying to create a sense of true teamwork amongst her direct reports. Through the fable we learn of the "five dysfunctions" that keep teams from working together effectively. I think these are worth walking through and seeing how they may or may not apply to our "team" here in Kosylvania.
Dysfunction #1 – Absence of Trust. The essence of this trait is "the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. .... Teammates must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another." Lencioni distinguishes this from the more usual definition – "the ability to predict a person’s behavior based on past experience."
Characteristics of teams that lack trust include:
Concealment of weaknesses and mistakes
Hesitation to ask for help or constructive feedback
Hesitation to offer help outside of your area of responsibility
Jumping to conclusions about intentions or aptitudes without attempting to clarify/confirm
Failing to recognize and tap into others’ skills and experiences
Wasting time and energy managing behavior for effect
Holding grudges
Dreading meetings and finding reasons to avoid spending time together
On the flip side – Members of trusting teams:
Admit weaknesses and mistakes
Ask for help
Accept questions and input about their areas of responsibility
Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving at a negative conclusion
Take risks in offering feedback and assistance
Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
Focus time and energy on important issues, not "politics" (in our sense I think this refers to posturing and positioning, as opposed to the political processes that we are most interested in)
Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group.
Looking at these lists, there are some areas where we, as a "team" do quite well – including taking risks, tapping into others’ skills and abilities, and at least for some of us, still looking forward to checking in on a daily basis. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of posturing and positioning, not a lot of offering and accepting of apologies, and at least currently, a fair number of folks who are less excited about visiting DKos than they were earlier in the year. So – overall, I’d say a bit of a mixed bag on the "trust" thing. And why is this important? Because, according to Lencioni (and my own personal experience), lack of trust results in ...
Dysfunction #2 - Avoidance of necessary and healthy conflict. As Lencioni says:
"It is important to distinguish ideological conflict from destructive fighting and interpersonal politics. Ideological conflict is limited to concepts and ideas, and avoids personality-focused, mean-spirited attacks. However, it can have many of the same external qualities of interpersonal conflict – passion, emotion, and frustration – so much so that an outside observer might easily mistake it for unproductive discord. But teams that engage in productive conflict know that the only purpose is to produce the best possible solution in the shortest period of time"
There isn’t much fear of conflict at DKos, but I think that because our community – by its very nature – can’t very often actually produce any solutions, we tend to move from the ideological to the interpersonal far too often. And that becomes unhealthy conflict. I also think the anonymous nature of the internet adds to this problem. The purpose of healthy conflict is to arrive at a point of commitment (to a course of action). Obviously then, the third dysfunction would be ...
Dysfunction #3 – Lack of Commitment. Here we see a bit of a breakdown in the theory as it applies to DKos – not so much because it is inaccurate, but because the method of arriving at a decision to commit to is pretty straightforward in politics – have an election (caucus, primary or general) and viola! – You have your decision. We certainly saw this around here in the winter and spring of 2008 .... Lots of trust that we were all interested electing a Democrat .... Lots of spirited debate about the "correct" candidate, but once it was obvious it was Obama, we had clarity around direction and priorities, all of us working to a common objective, and moving forward without hesitation. Probably a better example of a high functioning team was the actual campaign team of Obama – high trust, high healthy internal conflict/discussion but once a decision was made, the team committed to the decision.
The absence of commitment (or in the case of DKos, the difficulty in creating and formulating exactly what "commitment" means in between electoral cycles) leads to ...
Dysfunction #4 – Avoidance of accountability. As defined and used by Lencioni, it means:
"the willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might hurt the team ... the unwillingness of team members to tolerate the interpersonal discomfort that accompanies calling a peer on his or her behavior ..."
Now one might think that with our HR system and the spirited back and forth that goes on here this would not be a problem. But I believe there is an aspect of accountability that we do not manage well – and that is the accountability for uncivil debate and interaction. Others have commented on this in other diaries, that we say things to each other most of us would never say in person, face to face. Lencioni notes that the best way to manage this is through peer pressure, but we have had front-pagers and high visibility posters whose behaviors certainly seemed to suggest that it was socially acceptable to treat others with contempt and disrespect. When folks are not held accountable for non-contributory "contributions" they tend to not only continue with that same behavior but also turn attention to their own needs and self-aggrandizement. As Lencioni says,
"An absence of accountability is an invitation to team members to shift their attention to areas other than collective results, leading to ..."
Dysfunction #5 – Inattention to results. And just what "results" is our DKos team supposed to be focused on? Well, from the Keyboard of Kos, circa 2004:
This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. ... Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions.
If the aim is "electoral victory" – then how do many of our internal battles advance that goal? If the nature of the "battle" (better stated as a healthy conflict of ideas amongst trusting individuals) is to arrive at a decision as to how to best promote policies and politics that would result in ELECTORAL VICTORY, that would be one thing. But often, we devolve into litmus test debates and purity rants that don’t advance an agenda of electoral victory.
When DKos is focused on elections and electing Democrats, we get focused on results. When we want to raise $100,000 for a candidate or candidates, we do it. When we want to get folks to volunteer to phone-bank and drive voters to the polls, we do it. For the last two cycles, we have been an effective team. But in between cycles we have many people with strong ideas, but little focus on achieving specific goals.
The reality is we aren’t nearly as effective at changing a Senator’s vote on health care or the environment, and that ineffectiveness then spirals back down the five dysfunctions. If you can’t get results, then who cares about accountability. And if accountability doesn’t matter, then what’s to be committed to? And if you have no commitment to something, then who cares whether your noisy conflict is healthy or not, its really just about getting some air time and recs from the like-minded, and that doesn’t require any trust that those who disagree with you have good and sincere intentions.
So, if I were trying to facilitate a similar group, I think I’d remind everybody of what our team goal is
to elect Democrats first, and liberal progressive Democrats second
Most everybody at DKos shares that goal, and we should have spirited discussion about how to achieve that goal, recognizing that absent Red-Staters in Kos clothing, we are all together on that and should trust that opinions and assertions are ideological and political (in the electoral sense) and not personal attacks on the intellectual integrity of those with differing opinions. With that, I would expect that people would commit to actually DOING SOMETHING to get Democrats elected (that something ranging from dedicating one’s daily existence to a candidate to at a minimum making sure you got to the polls and voted for the Democrat, and everything in between), and I would expect to be held accountable if I wasn’t doing my part to advance our agreed upon goal.
So, the question(s) of the morning: 1) What are your thoughts about the Five Dysfunctions as they apply to DKos, and 2) if you were the leader of this team, how would you address any dysfunctions that got in the way of our stated goal of electing Democrats first, and liberal progressive Democrats second.?
And finally what is a diary worth, if it doesn’t have a poll? Here you go: