Is Your Business As Dysfunctional As Your Family?
Don't answer that, but probably, and it doesn't have to be. In fact, I found the perfect book called The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team by Patrick Lencioni. And in this episode of The Landscaper's Guide To Modern Sales and Marketing, I'm going to share some of my top takeaways from the book that I've implemented over the years that have helped me run a better business, which has impacted my family and ultimately led to a more enjoyable lifestyle. Now we recently featured this book as part of the Ramblin Jackson book club, and I'm also going to share some clips from that zoom meeting with my team. So let's dig into the key takeaways from one of my all time, favorite business books, The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team.
At Ramblin Jackson, one of our core values is Grow or Die, which means that we're continually learning and growing our skill and our craft personally, and as a team. So that way we can continue to serve our clients, serve each other and remain competitive. We love learning here. And one of the ways that we learn as a team is through our book club.
Jack Jostes:
Alright. Who else, what was another takeaway?
Maya Johnson:
Remembering you guys as the first team and not breaking everyone into separate teams, like Account Team, Growth Team, and Sales. So just kind of remembering that first was really an eye opener for me.
Rebecca Chambers:
And then also in one of the, on page 88, they talk about politics when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react, rather than based on what they really think. Now, personally, that is something I can relate to. I think a lot about how people will react before I speak.
Jeni Mitchell:
But at the same time, it's easy to be in your own little world of what you're focusing on and thinking about your own goals that you're trying to reach. So I think it's really good that we do reiterate those goals and we're all really trying to reach the same ultimate goal.
And we read the book, The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team by Patrick Lencioni, which is an amazing book. He has several other books that I've read that I really love. And I have implemented some of the group exercises from the book, this book, you know, basically follows a premise that there are five dysfunctions of a team that, if you don't solve them, create a lot of the problems that most businesses face.
What are The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team?
The 5 dysfunctions are:
- Absence of trust
- Fear of conflict
- Lack of commitment
- Avoidance of accountability
- Inattention to results
One of the things that I like about this book is it has a little team assessment that you can fill out. And we created a quick little Google form for our team to fill out. We found, having done a survey that's in the book it's called the team effectiveness exercise, that Ramblin Jackson's issue was avoidance of accountability.
We have a lot of trust. We have strong relationships, we have good measurements and standards. We have commitment on results and in our meetings when people are not pulling their weight on things like deadlines or other areas, people aren't holding each other as accountable as they could. And so this book has something called The Team Effectiveness Exercise, where you go one by one, the leader of the team goes first receiving feedback from the team on their biggest strength and contribution to the team, and then their biggest weakness and their biggest detractor. Now, we ended up having an extremely productive conversation and, hey, I'll go first. Here's what some of the team shared with me about my strengths and weaknesses:
Kevin Kawa:
Your transparency. I've always liked that you're transparent with everything that's going on. We've all worked in places, I know that I have and, to have a CEO who is transparent about what's going on in the company, you know, it's nice to hear that transparency. It's nice to know how the company's doing, you know, whether we're doing well or not. It does give stability to the job. I mean, I've never worked in a place that I know anything that's going on outside of what I'm doing. So I've always appreciated that.
And for weakness, I just think just based on the four-day work week, you know, you kept saying that you're overwhelmed that you're not really enjoying it because you're still working. You know, maybe a need to say, I need help, or I, you know, I can't do all this. I need to delegate this to you and this to you. You know, would it make your life a little bit easier? And I think it would make the company a little bit stronger. You don't need to do everything, you know, you have a lot of qualified people who have a pretty wide set of skills. So, you know, don't be afraid to ask for help.
Jack Jostes:
Thank you.
Everyone was initially a little anxious to do this exercise, but ultimately I shared with the team, as long as you're respectful in sharing feedback with other people, you can't really go wrong. And I have a pretty nice group of people. So we did get some good praise, which felt good. We did identify some things that people can work on, and the result of it, well, remains to be seen. But I can say that that book club was effective at bringing the team closer together and practicing accountability. So now we need to continue doing that.
So if you run a small business, if you have a team, definitely recommend reading The 5 Dysfunctions Of A Team by Patrick Lencioni with your team, check out the field guide for some more exercises. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we have other book recommendations available at landscapersguide.com/podcast. Thanks so much for checking out today's episode and send me an email. What, what are some of your favorite business books? I'd love to know. It's jack@landscapersguide.com and yes, I will read it. So I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.