This is a recap of one of our PeopleUnboxed webinars, exploring what sits behind truly high-performing teams and how we can create the conditions for people to thrive together.
We often assume that if we put talented people together, good results will naturally follow.
But most teams have experienced the opposite. The intentions are good. The people are capable. Yet meetings go round in circles, difficult conversations get avoided and progress feels slower than it should.
In our latest PeopleUnboxed webinar, Jo and Rich explored why this happens through the lens of Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Together, they unpacked the behaviours that quietly undermine team performance, the foundations that help teams thrive and practical actions leaders and team members can take to strengthen team effectiveness.
You can catch the full webinar here, but if you would prefer to read along, you are in the right place…
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Most team challenges are not about a lack of capability or effort; they are about team dynamics. Lencioni’s model helps teams spot the warning signs that may be holding them back from achieving their best work together.
But, before we start… are we really a team?
One of the first questions we explored was surprisingly simple. Are we actually a team?
Lencioni’s model assumes a team exists in the first place, but not every group of people working together meets that definition.
A true team shares common goals, mutual accountability and collective responsibility for results. Members are willing to put the needs of the team ahead of their own individual priorities. Without those ingredients, we may simply be a collection of individuals reporting to the same manager.
Understanding the difference is an important first step because improving team effectiveness starts with recognising what kind of group you’re trying to build.
If we’re sure we are a team, then Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions give us a practical way to understand what might be helping or hindering that team. The model is not a checklist for fixing individuals; it is a way of looking at the conditions a real team needs to build trust, have honest conversations, commit to decisions, hold each other accountable and stay focused on shared results.
The model is built like a pyramid. Each level depends on the strength of the one below it, which means a weakness at the bottom quickly makes everything above it harder to sustain.
The five levels, from bottom to top, are:
- Trust
- Conflict
- Commitment
- Accountability
- Results
The key message is simple: Great results don’t happen by accident; they sit on top of strong foundations and are intentionally built.
The foundation: Trust.
At the bottom of Lencioni’s model sits trust.
It seems obvious that trust would matter in a team, but Lencioni is not talking about predictive trust: the kind that comes from knowing someone well enough to anticipate how they will behave.
He means vulnerability-based trust. Vulnerability-based trust means feeling safe enough to be open about failures, weaknesses, fears and mistakes. It gives people confidence that honesty will be met with support rather than judgement.
This kind of trust can be rare because it asks people to move against some very human instincts: wanting to look capable, avoid mistakes, protect their reputation, have the answer and stay in control.
Lencioni argues that high-performing teams are built when people are willing to do the exact opposite.
To build vulnerability-based trust a team needs to:
- Admit mistakes quickly
- Ask for help
- Share strengths and weaknesses
- Give appreciation publicly
- Create psychological safety
- Get to know each other as people
- Don’t judge
Some hacks for creating trust include:
- A shared sense of purpose – making sure everyone understands what the team is trying to achieve, why it matters and how they contribute.
- Behavioural profiling – giving the team a shared language for strengths, preferences and differences, so people can open up without feeling exposed or judged.
- Triple H or personal histories – using simple questions about heroes, hardships, highlights or early experiences to help people see the person behind the role. This reduces assumptions, builds empathy and makes vulnerability feel safer.
Remember: trust isn’t built through team-building days alone. It’s built through thousands of small moments where vulnerability is met with support rather than judgement.
Healthy conflict isn’t a problem.
Many people hear the word conflict and immediately think of arguments, tension or disagreement, but high-performing teams understand that healthy conflict is not something to avoid but something to embrace.
This comes after trust because, without it, conflict can quickly become defensive or political. But when trust is present, disagreement can become a productive search for the strongest answer, rather than a battle to win.
Now, conflict is going to look a little different from culture to culture, company to company. What’s most important is that people don’t avoid conflict; they avoid personal conflict. They debate ideas, challenge assumptions and test thinking because they’re committed to making the best decision for the good of the team, not to be proved right or drive their own agenda.
When teams do not debate properly or share their opinions openly, they are less likely to commit to the decision that follows. Instead, they may appear compliant while staying unconvinced, which creates problems for the next dysfunction: accountability.
Some hacks for mastering conflict include:
- Conflict profiling – helping people understand their own conflict style and the styles of others, so differences feel less personal and easier to navigate.
- Real-time permission – naming healthy debate in the moment, for example, “This is exactly the discussion we should be having.” It reassures people that challenge is welcome, not a sign something has gone wrong.
- Swap debate roles – asking people to argue the opposite view or represent a different perspective. This helps teams test assumptions and stops debate becoming fixed around personal positions.
- Mining for conflict – actively inviting different views by asking, “Who sees this differently?”, “What are we missing?” or “What concerns haven’t been voiced?” This brings hidden issues into the room before they become resentment later.
- Make it about the idea, not the person – challenge the thinking, evidence or impact rather than the individual. This keeps debate productive and protects trust.
- Be curious – ask genuine questions before forming conclusions. Curiosity slows down defensiveness and helps teams understand what sits behind different views.
Remember: to master conflict, we need to make healthy debate normal.
Commitment comes from healthy debate.
The third level of Lencioni’s model is commitment, but commitment doesn’t happen in isolation.
It is built on the foundation of healthy conflict. When teams avoid debate, difficult conversations or challenging each other’s thinking, they often struggle to reach genuine commitment. People may nod in agreement during a meeting, but leave with unanswered concerns, lingering doubts or the feeling that their perspective wasn’t heard.
One of the strongest messages from the webinar was: People don’t need certainty. They need clarity.
Commitment isn’t about consensus. We’re never going to agree on everything. Instead, commitment comes from knowing that everyone’s views have been heard, discussed and considered before a decision is made. Even if the final decision wasn’t our preferred option, we’re far more likely to support it when we understand the reasoning behind it and believe it has been made for the good of the team.
Without healthy conflict, teams often experience:
- Repeated discussions about the same issues
- Decisions that are revisited again and again
- Passive resistance after meetings
- A lack of buy-in to agreed actions
- Unspoken resentment
When people feel they have had the chance to share their view and understand the reasoning behind a decision, they are much more likely to support it.
And that’s important because commitment directly influences the next stage of the model: accountability.
If we don’t genuinely support a decision, we’re less likely to follow through on it ourselves and far less likely to hold others accountable for delivering it. But when commitment is genuine, accountability becomes much easier because everyone understands what was agreed, why it matters and the role they play in making it happen.
Some practical ways to strengthen commitment include:
- Thematic goals – ensuring everyone understands the team’s purpose, priorities and what success looks like.
- Worst-case scenario discussions – reducing fear by exploring what happens if the decision turns out to be wrong.
- Commitment clarification – asking, “What exactly have we decided today?” to remove ambiguity.
- Cascading communication – ensuring everyone consistently communicates and reinforces the decision across the wider team.
Remember: people don’t need to agree with every decision. They need to understand it, support it and commit to moving forward together.
Accountability starts with all of us.
Accountability is often the hardest dysfunction to overcome because it requires shared ownership. It cannot sit solely with the manager; in the strongest teams, people are prepared to challenge each other respectfully because they care about the shared goal.
It’s not about blame but collective responsibility and wanting the team to succeed.
Some hacks for embracing accountability include:
- Open forum 360s – creating regular space for team members to give each other direct, respectful feedback. This normalises peer-to-peer challenge and makes accountability part of the team’s rhythm.
- Public commitments – asking people to state what they will do, by when and in front of the team. This creates clarity, shared ownership and a natural basis for follow-up.
- Team reviews – regularly looking back at what was agreed, what happened and what needs to change. This keeps accountability focused on learning and collective performance, not blame.
Remember: To combat avoidance of accountability, we want to get to a place where team members hold their peers accountable… The strongest teams care enough about each other to have the conversation.
Results over ego.
The ultimate purpose of teamwork is achieving shared outcomes, not protecting individual goals, departmental priorities or personal status.
A useful test is to ask: would your team be more disappointed by one person missing an individual goal, or by the team failing to achieve its shared goal?
Some hacks for focusing on results include:
- Shared, visible goals – keeping the team’s most important outcomes front and centre, so everyone can see what success looks like and how their work contributes to it.
- Celebrate team wins – recognising collective progress, not just individual achievement. This reinforces the idea that the team succeeds together.
- Results-focused meetings – using team time to review progress against shared goals, remove blockers and agree next steps. This keeps attention on outcomes rather than updates for the sake of updates.
Remember: To combat inattention to results, we want to make collective success matter.
A final thought.
One of the most powerful messages from the session was that high-performing teams don’t emerge because they found perfect people.
They emerge because they create the conditions where people can be honest. Where challenge is welcomed. Where accountability belongs to everyone. Where success is shared.
Team effectiveness isn’t a destination you arrive at. It’s a set of choices teams make every day about how they communicate, collaborate and support one another.
And when those choices become habits, extraordinary things start to happen.
Take a look through the ideas shared in this article for overcoming the five dysfunctions, or download our handy team effectiveness resource here.
If you’d like to explore any of these ideas further, or would like support bringing them to life with your team, please get in touch with Rich or Jo.
A reminder, you can catch the full webinar recording here.
