Teamwork is a critical ingredient, which has a significant influence on the effectiveness of employees within an organization and shapes how well they achieve their goals and objectives. Today, many organizations recognize that teamwork is vital in marshaling their employees towards meeting their collective goals (Daft, 2003). Despite the invaluable role of teamwork, some organizations have not yet mastered how to develop effective teams that can work towards achieving results in their workplace. Many reasons contribute to the failure of these organizations in developing and retaining effective teams responsible for various roles. While these reasons are numerous, several dysfunctions top the list of factors that cripple teams into failing to achieve their correct results in their work. The five dysfunctions of a team have an intricate relationship to organization theory because the latter is concerned effective achievement of results, whereas the former creates an impediment to the process.
Patrick (2002) argues that trust plays an essential role in strengthening teams because it helps conceal weaknesses of team members and facilitate constructive feedback. There are traits, evident in a team with trust that hold the key to the effective achievement of results. However, the absence of trust is a dysfunction that can explain why teams cannot achieve effective results. Since workers may hesitate to offer help or hold grudges, a team can fail to meet its goal and consistently produce poor results. The lack of trust and the notion of invulnerability among teams underscore the connection between team dysfunction and poor achievement of results.
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Teams that achieve effective results are welcome to constructive conflicts, and they use them to exchange ideas and learn from their peers. As a key factor that shapes successful teams, fear must not have dominance over a team. In his text, Patrick (2002) argues that teams that live with fear create a negative environment where peers fear and waste their efforts avoiding risks. As a result, this dysfunction connects to the poor achievement of results in an organization. For a team to achieve effective results, productive conflicts must exist, as it helps shape the role of the team in meeting its goals. This trait characterizes an effective team that achieves effective results.
Patrick’s (2002) dysfunction of teams explains why the lack of commitment can expose a team to the poor achievement of results. More than not, the lack of commitment creates a team that cannot focus on its goal and opportunities that come on its way. As a result, such a team will fail to achieve effective results due to the lack of commitment. However, an organization with a committed team can make significant gains by achieving effective results. By looking at the lack of commitment as a dysfunction, it is possible to note its role as a hindrance of effective results.
The lack of accountability among teams is a recipe of disaster and a predictor of poor results among teams. Teams have a role of meeting high expectation and delivering effective results. Nonetheless, a team cannot meet its expectations in the absence of accountability among peers. In most cases, some team members set low standards that do not motivate them to put more efforts into their work. Consequently, such a team fails to achieve effective results as the lack of accountability encourages late work and weighs down on effective performers.
The lack of focus is the last dysfunction of a team that explains why some teams cannot achieve their goals. Teams have a distinctive role of pulling resources and maximizing their expertise to achieve various results in an effective way (Patrick, 2002). However, the lack of focus can make a team fail its role due to reasons such as loss of drive. The team can also suffer from distractions. Because of the inattention to results, a team will continue to post poor results and have its members engage in grooming their ego more than focusing on their tasks. Indeed, the negative effect of the above dysfunctions among teams demonstrates their relationships with organization theory, which expects team to effectively, achieve results.
