Patrick Lencioni author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team said, “Teamwork is the ultimate competitive advantage because it is so powerful and so rare.” In this episode of By Your Life, we discuss this important and often elusive concept and explore what the Holy Trinity can teach us about teamwork.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2019/19_06_16.mp3

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity – June 16, 2019

Welcome to the sixty-fourth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life. If you haven’t already, please sign up for notifications on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Himalaya, or wherever you listen, or on the right side of this page so I can let you know when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend, if you think they would benefit from By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity is a central mystery of our faith and as such, it something that we cannot comprehend and human words and cannot explain. Although we try, no matter how many words or how well chosen, there will always be more. Theologians speak of the Trinity as Love – God the Father who is love, the Son who is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit that is the love between the Father and Son. This description is beautiful and helps, but as St. Augustine said, “If you understood him, it would not be God.” God is ever greater.

We never fully understand God. Yet, at each Mass on Sunday we recite the Creed and affirm our belief in One God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in the Son who is begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, and the Holy Spirit. We assert this belief each time we make the Sign of the Cross and pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three persons, one God, the heavenly team. And this is where my thoughts went as I reflected on the Holy Trinity and how we can glorify God by our lives at work this week. Let’s honor the Trinity through our demonstration of holy teamwork.

In all my work, both as an employee and for the past 16 years as a consultant, I’ve never encountered an organization that did not believe that teamwork was important to their success. Many organizations have identified it as a core value, that is, one of the non-negotiable principles that guide their behaviors and decisions. Despite this recognition of the importance of teamwork, it is often elusive. In fact, Patrick Lencioni, New York Times best-selling author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team said, “Teamwork is the ultimate competitive advantage because it is so powerful and so rare.”

So, what makes a good team? What makes you a good teammate? What does the Trinity teach us about teams?

First, the Trinity is one God—the unity of three persons. Listen to what Jesus said in this Sunday’s Gospel when telling the apostles about the coming of the Holy Spirit: “Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he [the Holy Spirit] will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” (Jn 16:15) The Trinity is one God and united because it shares everything! Great teams are also united. They are created for a common purpose, share a common vision, and honor shared core values. They are unified in their priorities, decision-making, and communication.

Years ago, when I worked for a Fortune 500 technology company, we hired a high-priced team of Harvard MBAs to evaluate our business systems and make recommendations to improve our efficiency. It can be effective to bring in a fresh set of eyes to offer a new perspective, and that is what this team did. They spent weeks and a lot of our money interviewing employees across the company. After a couple of months, they presented their recommendations and an invoice for half a million dollars.

The ink was barely dry on their proposal when it hit the circular file. A vice-president and key player responsible for implementing their recommendations announced, “We’re not doing that!” He dismissed them and their recommendations because they were based on the wrong foundation. They did not understand and therefore did not take into consideration the purpose and vision of our company. The team of consultants was united in their purpose, but they weren’t united with ours. As a result, their recommendations were rejected. All the time and money that went into that process was wasted.

In this case, the consultants were outsiders so you can understand how this might have occurred, but this happens inside companies all the time. Teams work at cross-purposes because they don’t share a common purpose. Sometimes it is because the company’s leadership has failed to set and communicate the path the organization is to follow. Sometimes it is because people haven’t bought into it. They set financial goals like “We are going to grow revenues by 10%,” and leave the rest up to the team to figure out. Sales, marketing, operations, finance, HR, IT, each have their own agendas and therefore their own priorities.

I liken it to a CEO who is leading his team across the country and the only direction he gives is “We are going to California.” Somehow, he expects everyone in the organization to know what they’re supposed to do to get there. Finance wants to save money, so they decide to drive. Operations likes to get things done, so they get in their cars and start driving; some heading north and then west, while others head west then north. Marketing creates announcements highlighting the benefits of sunny Southern California, but IT finds a bigger pool of technical resources in the Bay Area so they head to the northern part of the state. Sales decides to skip the drive and fly so they can play golf when they get there. And HR wants to improve morale and plans a bunch of side trips and stops along the way. What is the chance of this team arriving in the same place at the same time when they have competing agendas?

One of the consequences of a lack of common purpose, united vision, and shared core values is that competitive energy is focused inward, and as a result, trust is destroyed. It is no wonder there is dysfunction.

In Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, dysfunction #1 is an absence of trust. He explains that functional trust is more than trust that is based on credibility and consistency; that is, you can trust the person to do what they say they will.  As necessary as this is, more important, says Lencioni, is that teams have confidence that team members’ intentions are good. They can trust that everything they say and do is to further the purpose, achieve the vision, and honor the values that they share. They can trust each other’s intent. As a result, people can feel safe being vulnerable and ask for help, ask forgiveness, ask for clarification, without fear of being perceived as incompetent, weak, or stupid.

In our second reading, St. Paul wrote to the Romans. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1) “Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:3-5) Imagine a team that boasts of its weaknesses with confidence that it will make them stronger.

On the other hand, when fear guides behaviors, team members lie about their weaknesses and hide their mistakes. However, when there is trust, people can say, “I need help. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m having trouble at home that is affecting my work,” all without fear that showing this vulnerability will put them on a short-list. Instead, they have confidence that their teammates will rush to their aid.

The second thing the Trinity teaches us about teamwork is the value of the individual. There are three persons in Team God.

It has become cliché to say, “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM.” While it can be well-intentioned to elevate the importance of the team, this saying can negatively impact teamwork if what is meant is that the individual doesn’t matter and should be sacrificed for the sake of the team. Then, “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM” is counterproductive and leads to burnout and unwanted turnover.

The truth is, every team is comprised of a number of “I”s who bring their unique talents, skills, experiences, and perspectives. This is the value of a team. Two people can contribute more to further the purpose and achieve the vision than any one individual on their own. Even athletes who participate in individual sports acknowledge the huge support team they have behind them. Nothing great was ever accomplished alone, and as H.E. Luccock, a 20^th century American Methodist minister and professor at Yale’s Divinity School said, “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.”

Instead of “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM,” I like to borrow from Nintendo and say “There is more than one “I” in Wii” because this recognizes the importance of each individual and at the same time, the greater “we” that is created when working together.

This greater “we” benefits from the contributions each of the “I”s when they work together as a team. Multiple individuals contribute a greater variety of skills, knowledge, expertise, and wisdom that leads to greater creativity and better solutions to problems than any “I” can possibly achieve alone.

This diversity of ideas, however, can also lead to confrontation when team members, who are imperfect human beings, are threatened by ideas that are not their own and demonstrate behaviors that disrupt teamwork. It is because of this imperfection that I have been known to jokingly say, “Wherever two or more of you are gathered, there is conflict.” While this is true, the difference between a dysfunctional team and one that flourishes is how they view conflict. When conflict is considered taboo, the team avoids passionate debates that are essential to generating better results.

Patrick Lencioni identifies fear of conflict as dysfunction #2 because all great relationships require productive conflict in order to grow. Distinguished from destructive fighting and interpersonal politics, productive conflict allows different ideas to be presented, discussed and debated with the goal of understanding alternative perspectives and determining the best way forward. When we avoid it in order to not hurt feelings or in the name of efficiency, we bury problems, reduce buy-in, and cause long-term problems.

Jesus understood this. He knew our mortal limitations and He recognized the human imperfection which would cause division. This is why he sent the Advocate, “the Spirit of truth,” to guide us to all truth. (Jn 16:13) If we want to build a great team, we need to rely on the Spirit of truth to help us willingly discuss different ideas and concepts with a spirit for conversation, not confrontation. When we invoke the Holy Spirit, we can openly discuss different ideas confident that He will guide us to the truth.

We all understand the importance of teamwork. We know that Together Everyone Achieves More. We appreciate that individual differences contribute to a greater good. Yet, achieving truly great teamwork can be elusive. So, this week, let’s take a lesson from the Trinity and build functional teams—teams that achieve unity of purpose, common vision and shared values while valuing and affirming the individuals who make up the team. To this end, let’s ask the Holy Trinity to guide us.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, grant that all the thoughts of our minds, all the words of our tongues, all the affections of our hearts, and all the actions of our being, may always be conformed to your holy will. Let us be united in your Spirit and honor each other, who you have made in your own image and likeness. Grant, we pray that we may give glory to you this week by our lives. Amen.

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