<p>The Table Group, the consulting firm of business author Patrick Lencioni, identifies a major trend plaguing teams today - team members readily avoid holding their peers accountable for both their performance and behaviors that might hurt the team.<br>
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The trend is a conclusion of The Table Group's Online Team Assessment, a 38 question online tool that evaluates teams based on the model outlined in Lencioni's New York Times best -selling book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Nearly 15,000 participants have taken the online assessment. A full 68% of teams scored "red" on accountability - or lowest on The Table Group's three tiered rating scale of green-yellow-red. Other red scores for the remaining four dysfunctions include: absence of trust (44%), fear of conflict (39%), avoidance of commitment (25%) and inattention to results (28%).<br>
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Lencioni's definition of accountability goes beyond just informing people about missing "their numbers." The essence of this dysfunction is the reluctance of team members to tolerate the discomfort that accompanies calling a peer on his or her behavior. Team members have a general tendency to avoid difficult conversations.<br>
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Ironically, the assessment scores showed that the higher the position in the organization, the more pronounced the problem. Of the 132 executive teams (comprised of nearly 1,300 participants), 80% of the teams scored "red", or poor, on accountability. Lencioni finds that members of an executive team typically have similar socioeconomic status and, therefore, don't feel justified commenting on a peer's performance.<br>
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Lencioni says, "Great teams do not wait for the leader to remind members when they are not pulling their weight." To overcome this dysfunction, he suggests leveraging peer pressure on a team by publicly stating the team's goals and standards, instituting regular progress reviews and rewarding team achievement (rather than individual contribution).<br>
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<p><b>Patrick Lencioni</b>'s five best-selling business books have sold over one million copies. After four years in print, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team continues to be a fixture on the Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-seller lists. The Dysfunctions model for teamwork has been embraced by a great variety of organizations, ranging from the NFL to the Blue Man Group to the 82nd Airborne Division to local schools and churches.<br>
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Lencioni consults to organizations including Southwest Airlines and Cox Communications and speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager, refers to Lencioni as "Fast defining the next generation of leadership thinkers." <br>
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The Table Group is Lencioni's consulting firm, which offers products and services around team development and organizational health. www.tablegroup.com</p>
