Building a Dysfunctional Team.

Look Better by making everyone else worse

You could work hard, be a team player, build good products... but is there an easier way? What if I told you there was a way to make yourself look better by making everyone else worse? What if you actually apply The 5 dysfunctions of a team in reverse to come out ahead?

So in this post I'll attempt to bring out your inner monster and provide a step by step approach to systematically destroy your team while working towards your own goals to make yourself look great in comparison.

How to use this system against your team

First, we have to lower the bar so it's easier to jump over, this is the 5 dysfunctions pyramid. The idea is to start from the bottom and work your way up.

• Trust
• Conflict Resolution
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Measuring Results

We'll start with the first dysfunction Trust.

1. Destroy Trust

Scar from the Lion King managed to become king by building a dysfunctional team

Vulnerability is a building block for Trust, it's also weakness. This can spread across the team and build a culture of shared learning and growth. Stamp out weakness by making people who show vulnerability uncomfortable, if you can use what they share against them even better. Don't offer your learnings and don't ask others what they could do better.

Transparency can build trust, be an enigma, hide discussions and decisions you're in from the team. If it's bad news you can pretend you're helping them by not telling anyone. People like to know what's going on and what's expected of them, they have to earn that right.

Following through on what you say can encourage others to rely on you. Say one thing, do another. This will keep your team mates on their toes and they'll never know what to expect. Don't worry about overcommitting, say yes to everything and maximise the chances of letting the team down. If the situation changes keep that as a fun surprise for the team.

Don't get to know your team, you might start to care about them and waste energy helping them instead of yourself. Don't ask about their lives, don't ask about their families. Don't humanise your teammates, they are a means to an end.

2. Crush Ideological Debate

Liz Truss became one of the UKs most successful Prime Ministers by not engaging in ideological debate.

If trust is still growing dispite your best efforts, discourage people from engaging directly in debate over different opinions. This usually results in a better outcome for the team and builds conflict resolution skills, here are some tips to avoid this.

• Build "us vs them" mentality to stunt discussion
• Back channels over discussing directly can help make a situation worse
• Don't try to understand the other person's perspective and objectives
• Don't empathise with other people's challenges
• Shut down uncomfortable constructive discussion before resolution
• Allow unproductive negative discussion to continue

The biggest risk for constructive debate is empathy as it can tempt you to compromise. Being empathetic to others also increases chances of them being receptive to your points.

Practice not listening to others, your spouse / partner, close friends or family are good targets, the less you feel, the better!

3. Stunt Conflict Resolution Skills

Do not let people on your team read this book

Debate comes with conflict, conflict resolution is the biggest risk for us now, if a team develops this skill it can be hard to stop them. Teams can then find ideal approaches to challenging situations. Recommendations for simmering conflict:

• Don't invite challenges from others, they might get into the habit of constructive conversation
• Get defensive when challenged to discourage others challenging you again
• Prioritising being "nice", avoid uncomfortable discussions instead of having them
• The goal is to win the argument, not solve a common problem or have a positive effect on the business
• Get emotional and personal, don't wait for emotions to pass for maximum damage
• If emotions get the better of you never apologise

Avoid objective models like Situation Behaviour Impact as they can remove the personal element from feedback.

4. Avoid Commitment

With creativity it's always possible to avoid commitment

Now is time to decide and focus on your personal goals, if you're lucky they are not aligned with the team's so you can push in the wrong direction. If the team attempted to set a single goal that could unify them, you need to disrupt this. A single, clear unifying goal risks the team committing 100% to it. If a team does this it might be too late to out perform them.

If the collective goal is not aligned with your personal goals, an idiot might disagree and commit. Sacrificing progress towards a personal goal for collective success. This makes everyone look good and will mean others will be more likely to help you in the future. You don't need this however as you're not weak. If you are out numbered then agree but do the bare minimum, if you didn't engage in ideological debate this is easy.

5. Encourage unaccountability

If the team has a clear goal, in order to be successful, they need to be held accountable. This is our chance to encourage others to not do this. Don't track and show the results of the goal you are committing to. Don't challenge others if you disagree and ask to see the results of their actions. Massage numbers to looks good, hide mistakes, make exceptions for yourself and avoid chances for the team to learn and improve. Lack of Vulnerability will help encourage the team to not speak up about their mistakes and challenge others here.

6. Personal Success

Now Chaos has taken hold, time to prioritise yourself.

If the team is working to a collective goal and tracking it, it's probably too late. So don't make collective results visible, deny learnings. Distract from the collective goal with your personal goals. Collect personal metrics, if you've focused on yourself they should be higher than your colleagues, only talk about these.

If you've followed this guide, Congrats! The team should now be dysfunctional and you should be the big fish in a small pond!

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my post on how to make your team dysfunctional, it was inspired by this post How to be a -10x Engineer. If you want to learn how to build a high performing team, I recommend reading The 5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni and Radical Candor by Kim Scott.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback on this post, please leave a comment below.

- Noel