When you joined a dysfunctional team, how long did it take you to realise? 
 
Casting my mind back to my most recent experience, the warning signs were there even before I started. 
 
Most team dysfunction is entirely predictable. 
 
When teams struggle, the discussion is often about personalities. The difficult partner. The disengaged associate. Or someone who “is not a bad person, but just can't work with people” — as was once said, memorably, about a Chief People Officer. 
 
Sometimes that explanation is right. More often though, a pattern is playing out. 
 
Years ago, when I was training as a coach, I read Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Strip away the executive retreat setting and it describes something recognisable to many: technically capable people placed in a system that makes effective teamwork impossible. 
 
The framework has the benefit of simplicity. When trust is fragile, people avoid real disagreement. When disagreement is avoided, decisions are not owned. When a sense of ownership is weak, so is accountability. And when accountability goes AWOL, attention is not on results. Individual agendas abound, and things can slide quickly from dysfunctional to downright dangerous. 
 
You do not need a personality clash for that pattern to appear. You only need a system that does not support the behaviours it espouses. 
 
That is why cultural problems so often look confusing from the inside. People assume they are dealing with individual shortcomings when in reality they are seeing the predictable effects of the environment they are operating in. 
 
The framework does not explain everything. Guarded behaviour is often a rational response to earlier trust-breaking moments, leadership issues or skewed incentives. You cannot reinstate trust simply by asking people to be vulnerable, or by staging authenticity theatre on a retreat however plush the setting. It says nothing about resource constrained models or systems that reward counterproductive behaviour. 
 
I have never looked into how strongly the framework is supported by research, but no one I have shown it to has dismissed it. It gives people a way of stepping back and seeing what might be happening. For that reason alone, it remains a helpful starting point whatever your role. 
 
If I have one piece of advice, it is this: if you are in a dysfunctional team, think carefully before sending the leader a copy of the book. It may make uncomfortable reading — and they may not thank you for it. You may find yourself being one of those people they can't work well with. 
 
I wrote all this because someone asked me to recommend a good business book to them. I love a good read, so I'd love to know what ones have stuck with you.