For a fresh take on how to make workplace teams more effective, check out Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team at Douglas County Libraries. Lencioni's short and informative book comes in the audio book format. It's a great item to listen to while driving to work. Readers who want to improve their leadership and communication skills on the job will benefit from Lencioni's theory.

According to Lencioni, the five things that make a team ineffective are distrust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. All of these problems feed into each other and cause teams to dysfunction. When a team doesn't work, the organization who employs that team suffers. In other words, that team isn't able to communicate and focus effectively on making the organization better.

Lencioni's theory focuses on business executives. However, members of any team can benefit from his down-to-earth wisdom about breaking through the fear and facades, which inhibit success. Team leaders will especially find Lencioni's advice informative.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team describes a scenario, in which a CEO must turn a mildly successful business into a great one by creating a function and productive team. Lencioni's narrative serves as a somewhat engaging example of his theory at work. The situations he describes are a bit overblown, but they seem plausible. Like most business book narrators, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team's reader, Charles Stransky, makes it sound like an infomercial, but you can't expect much more from an item trying to sell its way into the corporate training libraries. Nonetheless, working listeners and readers will find Lencioni's theory useful.

Visit Douglas County Libraries virtual branch Online at DouglasCountyLibraries.org to place The Five Dysfunctions of a Team on hold.