Leadership by the book

If you’ve been walking through a UNMC office or talking at a coworker’s desk, you might have seen one of them: a little red hardcover book.

The book is “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable,” by Patrick Lencioni, and — having garnered high praise from UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D. — it is showing up at many places around campus.

The book charts the efforts of a new CEO at a fictional company to unite a dysfunctional leadership team. The CEO deals with recognizable personality types and common office conflicts as she works to build an effective team.

“This was the first book I gave to staff members to read and discuss,” Dr. Gold said. “From time to time at staff meetings, we discuss current UNMC issues within the context of what we have learned from reading the book.”

“It isn’t like any leadership book or ‘how to’ I’ve ever read. All through the story the five dysfunctional areas are discussed in a positive way that is easy to understand.”

Joan Hill

Howard Liu, M.D., asked his team at the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska to read the book. He purchased five or six books for them — some had already bought their own.

“In one of his earliest interviews, I read that Dr. Gold felt it was a critical book for senior leadership to understand at UNMC,” he said.

“The biggest lesson I took away from the book is that team building must be an intentional process for leaders on this campus,” Dr. Liu said. “The first chapter on trust is the critical element that makes everything work. As a leader, I think that it is easy to get so caught up in what we need to accomplish that we don’t pay attention to the care and feeding of our team members.”

“It isn’t like any leadership book or ‘how to’ I’ve ever read,” said Joan Hill, director of Student Services and Student Financial Services. Her team plans to meet and discuss the book at some point this fall. “All through the story the five dysfunctional areas are discussed in a positive way that is easy to understand.”

Kathleen Brandert is director of the Great Plains Public Health Leadership Institute in the College of Public Health, which has been using “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” as a training tool for 10 years. She was excited to find that Dr. Gold knew of the book.

“I got a nice feeling when I heard that,” she said. “It’s not even directly related to that book. Just the idea that Dr. Gold appreciates leadership, and the need for leadership training, and the need for conversation around leadership — that’s thrilling for me.”

Breaking down 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team'

Kathleen Brandert and Joan Hill on “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”:

“It’s a parable, and it tells a story that’s really simple," Brandert said. "It’s a very quick read, which makes it accessible to many people. A lot of ‘leadership’ books use academic-speak or jargon, they might take chapter upon chapter to explain a simple process or theory. This is much more readable.

“The book offers a number of lessons. But if I were to say the most important thing we can take away is that teamwork and a successful team means that each individual on that team is doing everything they can to make it successful."

"In the story there is an analogy that I found to be so true," Hill said. "'A fractured team is just like a broken arm or leg; fixing it is always painful, and sometimes you need to rebreak it to make it heal correctly. And the rebreak hurts a lot more than the initial break, because you have to do it on purpose.'"

“When we’re on a team, we often depend on the supervisor, for example, to make everything happen," Brandert said. "But it’s actually the responsibility of every team member to play a part in the team’s success. We have to take ownership for being a member of the teams that we’re on.

“That starts with us creating a trusting environment and relationship with and for our co-workers," Brandert said. "That includes being willing to engage in conflict and debate to make the best decisions we can and sometimes committing ourselves to things that we’re not 100 percent about.

“We also hold ourselves accountable for the actions we’re taking, and we participate in moving toward the team’s results, not just our own.

“People don’t just show up one day and become a leader," Brandert said. "Some people have some innate abilities, but anyone can be a leader. We all need development to be the best leader we can be. It’s exciting that the person at the very top of our system believes in leadership development and having conversations about how we can be better leaders.”

Leadership by the book

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Breaking down 'The Five Dysfunctions of a Team'

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