Reddit mentions of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

Here are a few that I've found useful relating to teamwork, management, and/or general career shit:

• Corporate Confidential
  
• Work Rules!
  
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  
  

You will pick up the knowledge fairly quickly, but the wisdom part comes slowly.

Read some books:

• Phoenix Project https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business-ebook/dp/B00AZRBLHO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835961&sr=1-1&keywords=the+phoenix+project
  
• Practice of System and Network Administration https://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Enterprise/dp/0321919165/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
  
• Toyota Kata https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Kata-Managing-Improvement-Adaptiveness/dp/0071635238/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495835986&sr=1-1&keywords=Toyota+kata
  
• GTD https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
  
• Five Dysfunctions of a Team https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836025&sr=1-1&keywords=five+dysfunctions+of+a+team
  
• How to win friends and influence people https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034
  
• Powershell in a month of lunches https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Windows-PowerShell-Month-Lunches/dp/1617294160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1495836112&sr=1-1&keywords=powershell+in+a+month+of+lunches
  
  Start humble, stay humble, be quick to listen and slow to speak, and don't make changes on Friday!

because everyone thinks their team problems are unique and really they're all just stale memes.

if you read this you'll be able to perfectly line up all the shitheads in your department with the book characters

You know those business leadership guides on behavior and such? Like for example having nice leader/tough Second in Command (or vice versa)? They actually work quite well to resolving issues before they even begin. Most of them you can get out of the 5 dysfunctions of a team.


The anime club I ran at my community college avoided a ton of drama for a quite a while even after I left because I tried to solve problems or issues before they even occurred. Unfortunately I do hear it's now a drama llama mostly because they undid all the rules and procedures I put in place years ago. Thinking and planning ahead as much as possible helps immensely. I also suggest having mechanisms/rules in place to stop one singular person from controlling the entire anime club and that includes the president/leader.

> How to discuss and compromise on decisions in a team

So, this is going to be super non-specific to TTRPGs/design work, but I cannot recommend reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team enough.

A TLDR for one of the major points of the book:

Reasonable adults don't always need to get their way but they do need to feel as if their concerns and beliefs have been listened to, considered, and addressed. This requires both trust and a team commitment to actually getting into productive conflict over contentious ideas or solutions. Without these, you're always going to have a hard time with decisions and getting the team to commit properly to them.

There is, unfortunately, no magic way to get to this point. You have to work together and build these relationships and behaviors. If you know a silver bullet, I'm all ears.

If you're the type of person who hates books about management babble, then you're just like me. Having said that, I did get a lot out of this one book. It's a great book for helping with team building, and it covers OP's exact topic as one of the major points.

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

How to be part of a team and lead a team.

There's one book to read - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

I read this book, and it opened up my eyes. Working as part of a team is THE most valuable thing I've learned.

This is my favorite book on team building. http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership/dp/0787960756

It contains some great lessons about how to address these issues, as they are generally indicative of deeper problems w/in the organization, rather than just with the meetings themselves.

The Foundation Bible of starting an MSP: Managed Services in a Month by Karl Palachuk Amazon Link

I'll also throw a vote in for Traction as a general business book.

And my personal people/team management bible that I bring into every company I work with: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Amazon Link

1. Assess strengths, weaknesses for each person on team - review previous work, get feedback from other teams they worked with
   
   
2. Meet with each member individually, ask them what they like/dislike about their roles, what they would improve, and where they see themselves in two years
   
   
3. Roadmap improvement plans for each member that has clear improvement areas, how they can do it, and a baseline measurement of their current skill set
   
   
4. Roadmap all SEO tasks currently in play and for the next quarter - assign tasks to team members in a strategic plan
   
   
5. Get with your manager (Director, VP, etc) and present plans (who, what, value, cost, measurement). Approve costs for training, and secure everything you need. Recommend approving significant rewards for completion and progress.
   
   
6. Present improvement plan to individual team members
   
   
7. Present strategic plan to team with clear tasks, goals, and outcomes. End with a “commanders intent” and let everyone know that the second something is unclear, reach out to you.
   
   
8. Start a daily standup at business start time. Go over yesterday’s tasks, today’s tasks, and any blockers. Start on time, this is about discipline and structure.
   
   
9. Create biweekly checkins with each team member to go over skill improvement and strategic plan progress. Use 30m - 1hr to conduct 1:1 feedback and training. Give them the first 15m to discuss anything.
   
   
10. Create a reporting dashboard for the team that shows progress towards goals, value of their work, and transparently communicates team output/value to leadership.
    
    
11. Read books on leadership and team management — recommend several:
    
    https://amzn.to/2Ku6Xbi - The Ideal Team Player
    
    https://amzn.to/31zGqPs - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
    
    https://amzn.to/2Ku8UEE - Extreme Ownership
    
    https://amzn.to/2YXLkE3 - Dichotomy of Leadership

I'll say my books aren't expressly feminine. They're more about dynamics, relationships, motivations, which have helped to prevent me from going wild with aggressive masculine approaches despite my surroundings and peers. Thank goodness I found these so early :)

I loved Captivating, which is about women from a Christian perspective and it's counterpart called Wild at Heart, which is about men. Neither of them were too overwhelmingly Christian, IMO.

Another book with Christian influences, The Servant is a book about leadership theory that's been very helpful to me stepping into a more nurturing and deferring approach.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team is my very favorite book ever, and it discusses the reasons teams (be it a couple, sports team, friend group, or work group) fail and how to prevent that. Very helpful in learning why vulnerability, an important feminine trait, is so important.

I'm 31 and just started my own company. When I turned 16, I had a profound epiphany about what I wanted to do "when I grew up". That epiphany was I wanted to own my own business. The why, came from the experiences I had since I was 14.


I worked as a delivery guy for two guys who owned a bounce house company. At 15, I was employee 1 at an advertising company. I started in the mailroom stuffing envelopes and I continued to work for that company through college and even a few months after graduating college. I didn't stay in the mailroom though. As I taught myself programming and a little design, I was growing within the company, as they themselves grew in revenue and size. I was getting a front row seat to what it was like to be an entrepreneur and I loved every minute of it; the long hours, the struggles, the doing whatever it takes, carving your own path, etc.


Even though I knew being an entrepreneur was part of my path in life, it has taken me 16 yrs to make that a reality. I have no regrets as I've been able to gain knowledge and experience the entire time. Everything you experience in life can help you in some way on your path to becoming an entrepreneur.


Remember, you can do a lot of good by being an employee too. You have not failed if you don't start a company.

1. Get a job right now if you don't already have one. Work and understand what work is and build a work ethic. Even better, find a job at a small company, no matter what it is. At most small companies, no matter your role, you get exposed to the entire business.
   
   
2. Meet and speak with entrepreneurs. Check out Meetup.com for events which are going on. You might be limited to not attending the events that are bars, but I've seen plenty of kids your age attending events.
   
   
3. Find a skill and learn it. You might not think it now, but as /u/douglasjdarroch stated, you have a ton more free time to devote to that skill than when you get a full time job. I'm partial to it, but any amount of technology skills will help you with your pursuit.
   
   
4. Culture is huge when it comes to creating a successful company it can be a differentiator.
   
   Suggested Reading
   
   

• The Great Game of Business
  
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  
• Rework
  
• Leaders Eat Last
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Building a Great Company
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Being a Great Leader

There are many books on how to be a good leader, and not that many on how to go from a good to a great leader. I know 4 really good books in the latter category:

1. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
   
2. Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, Annie McKee
   
3. Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader by Herminia Ibarra
   
4. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C Maxwell, Zig Ziglar

Listen to the people who work for you. For every one person under you it takes a few hours a week to manage as a rule of thumb. When I say manage, I talk about leadership, developing them, understanding them, understanding how they want to grow and stretch.


I highly recommend reading the following book too about teams. It's a great book and in my experience holds true with small teams and large global teams.


http://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

Scrum masters can come from any background. Having PM knowledge is helpful but not required. A scrum master is a guide and coach for the team. They are responsible for ensuring the team is following the rules of scrum, facilitating their meetings, and overall helping the team on the path to high performance.

Understanding the rules of scrum and the agile principles are more important. In your first SM role you will likely be following the scrum guide as closely as possible but the importance will be in understanding why the practices exist. What is important in the daily scrum? Why do we ask the 3 questions? What is the real goal in that meeting? etc... Eventually guiding and facilitating becomes more about the principles, outcomes, and goals than the rules of scrum but that comes with time.

Pay attention to the people on the team. I suggest looking into some personality or team-working books as a scrum master should be in tune enough to understand the work being done (technical and business purposes) and how the people work together. Conflicts amongst team members can be a difficult impediment to remove.

https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Mastery-Good-Great-Servant-Leadership/dp/0957587406

https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Software-Development-Agile-Toolkit/dp/0321150783/

https://www.amazon.com/Implementing-Lean-Software-Development-Concept/dp/0321437381/

https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Agile-Teams-ScrumMasters-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321637704

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756/

https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262509/

https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Lean-Program-Management-Collaboration/dp/1943487073/

https://www.amazon.com/Tribal-Leadership-Leveraging-Thriving-Organization/dp/0061251321/

This book has helped us a lot to think about the team, management and studio dynamics. I would recommend it - it doesn't matter that it isn't game industry specific, nor how big your team is.
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756

Please go and buy and read all of these this week, for the sake of you and your team:-


https://www.amazon.com/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growth/dp/1491973897


https://www.amazon.ca/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp/1430243147


https://www.amazon.ca/Debugging-Teams-Productivity-through-Collaboration/dp/1491932058


https://www.amazon.ca/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756