Recently, during my travels, I encountered an unexpected flight delay at Amsterdam airport that shed light on a significant issue: preventable profit margin waste. The scene was all too familiar – interminable queues at check-in counters, exacerbated by a glaring shortage of personnel. As a consequence, I, along with numerous fellow passengers, missed our flights. This setback led to a frustrating 10-hour wait before rebooking for the following day and prompted my contemplation about the avoidable loss incurred by the airline. Amidst the collective inconvenience, it struck me that had effective measures been in place to prevent profit margin waste; the airline could have reaped substantial benefits. By optimizing operational efficiency, not only could the original flight have taken off with a full complement of passengers, but the replacement flight could have accommodated additional travelers, bolstering profits in the process. This experience made me see how easily a company can lose profit and reminded me of a book I read long ago called Six Sigma Simplified by Jay Arthur. This book talks about a tale of two factories. According to Jay Arthur, every business has two “factories” running simultaneously: The "Good Factory" is where you focus most of your energy on producing goods and services for your customers. The "Fix-it Factory" cleans up all of the mistakes, rework, defects, breakage, returns, scrap, and other problems of the “Good Factory." The "Fix-it Factory," in most cases, is overlooked. This is where frustrations accumulate and also the area where valuable resources such as time, energy, and clients are lost. As a business owner, the “Fix-it Factory” can prevent you from sleeping at night and give you grey hairs prematurely. In other words, the “Fix-it Factory” consumes the company resources without any positive output. The cost of running a “Fix-it Factory” in any business is enormous and very harmful. Let’s illustrate the effects of the “Fix-it Factory” on the company using the following example. Jay Arthur says the “Fix-it Factory” costs 25 to 40% of every 100 Euros you spend. That means, for 100,000 Euros paid, a company could have saved 25,000 to 40,000 Euros; or for 500,000 Euros spent, they could have saved 125,000 to 200,000 Euros, and the saving could have reached 250,000 to 400,000 Euros for 1,000 000 Euros spent. The “Fix-it Factory” cost is even higher because you don't pay it out of the revenue but directly out of the company's bottom line. Let’s consider a company with one-million Euros in sales. Let’s assume they have only 3% waste. That means the "Fix-it Factory" will cost them 30,000 Euros. Considering this company has an 8% net profit before taxes, their profit will be only 80,000 Euros – 30,000 Euros = 50,000 Euros. The pain is even more significant when you consider that to get to the same profit level, the company has to sell nearly 400,000 Euros more to make up for this 30,000 Euros loss. Just imagine if the business can save a fraction of the money used…

Why the perception that the scope of team dysfunctions is confined to just five represents a grave misconception that needs urgent correction. This prevailing belief undermines the multifaceted nature of team dynamics, potentially obscuring the broader spectrum of challenges that can impede team success. Is your team failing to function well despite fixing the common five dysfunctions of a team? Today is your lucky day. In this blog, I will share my fortuitous discovery, which will give you an insight into other team dysfunctions you may have overlooked. Recently, I had the idea to write a blog article on team dysfunction. Just like everyone will do, I decided to research the keywords to find out what people out there thought about team dysfunctions. I started by typing “Team dysfunction” on Google, and to my surprise, at least all the results in the first five pages were based on “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni. I was surprised because this didn’t match my expectations. In my mind, I expected to find different sources or a variety of viewpoints on team dysfunction. I was shocked to be the only one with a unique perspective on such a sensitive subject that has troubled many organizations. Don’t get me wrong, I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team back in 2002, and it was one of the best books on team dynamics that I stumbled on. I have used it for my coaching ever since. However, what was shocking was the impression my Google search results gave me 20 years later. With most of the answers based on the book of Patrick Lencioni, I felt that Google was telling me: “There are only Five Dysfunctions of a team." A belief that most people have adopted. Why could people believe that there are only five dysfunctions in a team? We cannot take away the credit for the book being well written. The choice of Patrick Lencioni to present the concepts as a fable with examples makes the story very captivating and easy to remember. Like every good story, people have shared and recommended the book to others. I remember that I got the book on the recommendation of my friend Philipe Sarrazin. Word of mouth, the excellent marketing of the book, the services around the book, and the good SEO made it possible to get the impression that there are only five dysfunctions in a team. To the defense of Patrick Lencioni, I should mention that I have never read anywhere that he stated there are only five dysfunctions in a group.  The situation reminds me of the story of the monkeys isolated in a room with a banana placed on top of a ladder. As the story goes, the monkeys were sprayed with cold water as soon as one monkey tried to climb the ladder. Quickly, the monkeys learn that they should not climb the ladder; otherwise, they will be sprayed with cold water. The monkeys stayed away from the ladder…