"Disagree and Commit"

One of the books on our reading list these days is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a very popular book about team management by Patrick Lencioni. It came out about six years ago and quickly rose to the top of the business book rankings. Non-profit managers, and particularly arts & culture nonprofit managers, are seldom exposed to thinking about teams and team management. Many of us come out of academia or the arts, where working in teams is not a vital skill. Lencioni's book is a short, highly readable introduction to the subject & I recommend it, but I've had one particular concept rattling around my head for a few days is the simple phrase "disagree and commit." The Lencioni model places great value on the ability of functional teams to argue. He nearly goes so far as to say that if a team does not argue, it's not really working. At the end of an argument, however, a decision has to be made--and those who don't prevail need to be able to have their disagreement acknowledged, at the same time that they commit to executing the decision made. Consensus among team members is not always, not even often, possible--but good team members have to be able to fully commit a project once the time for discussion is over.