Friday, January 12th | Five Dysfunctions of Team

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. That said, let's start the show. You guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. You can leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify.

Anywhere you get your podcasting content from, we're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day—what is today's verse of the day? Romans chapter 16, verses 25 through 27. It says, Can't nobody do it like Paul. Ain't nobody writing books like Paul.

Golly, I was sitting there trying to keep up with everything he says. That's the book of Romans? Even for a book that's introductory to the Christian faith, you've really got to be paying attention.

And it's not that he's flowery, there's just so much. How do you encapsulate the glory of God into a single book? Paul is a master class in writing and communication, and I think just even just loving God, just being so on fire for who Jesus Christ is. Not just God, this mystical force in your life, but the person of Jesus Christ and his kingship and his lordship over Paul's life and over our lives.

It really is a great example of just how to live that authentic Christian life and have that authentic Christian passion. I wish I had that passion for other things in my life, especially the food that I eat. Now I'm pretty passionate about food. Well, I guess I should say, having that passion about managing my food. Ellie got me a food scale for Christmas.

I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't like it. I had David over the other night. I had some spaghetti already cooked. And Ellie weighed the spaghetti, it was like 240 grams, and that's a cup.

And there was another one that was like 170 grams. So I weigh out, I go to put the ground beef in there, I cook it all, and David's like, hold up, you have to weigh that. And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to weigh the whole thing. How do I weigh it? Do I just put it on the scale? He's like, no, you put it on a bowl. And I'm like, yeah, but the bowl also weighs something. Right, so you put the container on the scale, zero it out, and then add the pin that you're weighing. When you say zero it out, what do you mean? You tell it to, like, so if I have a scale, and I have a... You tear it. Yeah, tear it.

So, okay, I didn't know that was a function. So I'm getting angry and I'm giving David some mouth. I'm like giving him a little bit of lip. I'm like, I'm not going to sit here and weigh the bowl, subtract it. I gotta do math.

So he puts it on there, he sets it to zero. I'm like, okay, fine. Right.

I'm with you so far. Then I weigh out the entire thing, the entire thing of beef. And it was like, do you remember how much it was? I don't know. 500 grams or something like that. Okay.

It was probably more, but let's just say 600. Sure. I'm like, okay, I'm not eating this whole pound of beef.

Right. So he's like, all right, now you have to weigh out each individual portion. And I was like, David, I'm not doing that.

I was like, okay, fine. It's 600 grams for the whole pound. I'll just split it into four, 200 grams per. So you got 240 grams of spaghetti, 240 pounds of beef. I put all the beef back in the pan. I start to put sauce in and David goes, I hope you're planning on weighing that sauce. I'm like, you're not going to sit here and tell me I have to weigh sauce. So you asked for a food scale. I think if I'm interpreting this correctly, I think what you actually want is like a compartment that you put the finished product in and it analyzes the food for you. Yeah.

Opa Jetson style. I want them to say this meal that you're about to eat is this many calories. I don't think that exists. Really? Yeah. What you want is a cook. What?

Yeah, that's true. You want a personal chef. Really, you said food scale, but you meant personal chef. What?

You want a personal chef. No. And you know how I know that's true? How?

Because somebody in this room, uh oh, I'm looking at him. He said, why don't I just pay you and you can come over and cook my meals. I was just joking.

I don't think you were. I don't like the food scale and I'm considering returning it because I don't think there's anybody out there who genuinely uses that for every ingredient of every meal. It's impossible. You would never eat because it would take you an hour alone just to weigh all the food, another couple of hours to cook the food, and then eat this really unsatisfying small portion and now you're just angry. Does it take you an hour to make spaghetti?

No. Look, either you can take the time to weigh your food out individually and see what the weight is and know what your calories are, or you can step on the actual scale and be sad. This is insane. I'll keep trying. I'll keep trying with the food scale, but I'm not happy. If you've got any tips for Jon with the food scale, write in and let us know. I don't think he weighs the food scale, but he's got this app that he was using.

It's not a scale, but it's similar. When did he start counting his calories? He started counting his calories pretty recently, right?

It's been like three weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah, maybe around New Year's. Maybe that'll help some. I don't know.

Maybe. Let's bring him in and talk about it, but if you guys have any tips for Jon on use of the food scale, or if you are a personal chef and you're looking for a job, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. We'll be back after this. What's going on, listeners? My name is Jon.

And I'm David. And we hope you are enjoying the podcast thus far. We really appreciate how many of you download the podcast every day, but we also want to remind you that we are first and foremost a radio show. Clear View Today is actually syndicated through the Truth Network, and we just want to let you know right now that in addition to hosting the all-time best Christian talk show of all time, hashtag Clear View Today, hashtag Clear View Today, the Truth Network also, as it turns out, has an extensive library of Christian programming. We really love everything they're doing at the Truth Network because the whole goal is to encourage, challenge, confront, and uplift listeners with the life-changing truth of Jesus Christ through Christian talk radio. And listen, we know we are not the only show wanting to expand its audience, so if you have a vision for your show or for your ministry, why don't you consider syndicating your show through the Truth Network because they rely on decades of experience of self-syndication with a full array of features for your long-form or short-form content. Make sure you visit the Truth Network online today at truthnetwork.com, or you can give them a call at 336-759-0363.

Again, that's 336-759-0363. Well, John, are you ready? I was born ready, my friend. Let's hop right back in. All right. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. That's right. We are here once again in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abbadon Shah, who is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, happy Friday. Happy Friday to you guys. Happy Friday.

We're rocking right along in 2024. A lot of us had food-related goals, right? I know I did. Yeah. Start backtracking calories and stuff. Calories, grams, all this nonsense.

There's a lot of impassion to pace over. Nonsense. Calories. Well, the nonsense comes in over where all these numbers mean. Right. So I know you're tracking your calories as well.

I am. Do you use a food scale? Or do you just kind of know, like look up how many calories are in the food and kind of go from there? Do you use a food scale as in like a weight? Like you weigh out the food.

It depends on what I'm eating. Uh-huh. And I have a great app. If somebody needs to learn about this, I'd be glad to tell them. If you want me to tell them, please. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it.

Okay. This app is called Figwee. Figwee? Figwee. F-I-G-W-E-E. Figwee. Figwee. Like we eat figs, but it has nothing to do with figs. Like a tiny, a tiny fig. Or.

A figwee. Or it's like the Nintendo Wii, but it's got nothing to do with that either. Right. Yeah. Gotcha. Also, this episode is not sponsored by Figwee. Should we just say that?

Definitely. It is not sponsored by Figwee. But Figwee reps, if you're listening and you would like to sponsor the Clearview Today show, why don't you let us know?

Yeah, please do it. We just did that for free. That's right. Imagine how good we'll talk about you. You're welcome.

We'll get some sponsorship going on. That's right. You know, some other people that we're gonna talk about today that have written some really cool books. You know, because today is Friday, and you know what Friday means. I do know what Friday means.

Typically it means lightning round questions, but what does it mean today? It means that it is Dr. Shah's book, bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh. Bro, I set you up for success, dude. I'm so sorry.

I tripped the starting line. Dr. Shah's book club today. There you go.

That's right. I'm so excited. My words ran away from me. Dr. Shah, what's on the book club for today? Well, today is a great book.

One of my favorites. And of course, David will tell you over there that it's his favorite book, right, David? Why is it your favorite book? Because it is a book that talks about?

I think it's one of my favorite books because it's one that talks about leadership, team work, and it's also written in a very story-like format. That's right. That's right. So, and he loves it. He always, the moment we say like, we're going to read Patrick Lencioni again. He just like giddy, like a little school girl. He does his hair up too. He's got the ribbons.

I was like, Hey, David. No, not that far. Too much.

Too much. But this is a book. And by the way, Patrick Lencioni has written many books, but this is one called the five dysfunctions of a team and a leadership fable.

What David was saying about the story, it's a fable. And this book is that in the 20th anniversary edition, and it is fantastic. It will blow your mind. It will help you realize why your business is performing well, or why is it performing badly, poorly? Why is there no unity in your team or man, everybody's on the same wavelength.

They're heading towards a goal. This is a book that I think is awesome. One of the first things that we did when the staff started to look like our current staff here at Clearview is we started reading these leadership books. And this is one of the first, we read a few before this, but this is one of the first ones that at least for me changed my way of thinking because it is structured like a fictional narrative.

Yeah. It tells a fictional story, but undergirding that fictional story is these principles, these five dysfunctions of a team, and it's so masterfully written. It's written like a drama, like a soap opera, in that you genuinely don't want to put this down.

And I realized that as I'm saying that, you might be like, oh, leadership principles in a book, like that's got to be really dry and boring. I promise you it's not. It is an incredible story. It's so engaging. It's so funny at times. But it's one of those things where you start learning and you don't even realize that you're learning. You said this at one point, like parables, when Jesus told parables, they act as a mirror to see yourself. Right. And when you, if you are on a high functioning team, you will start to see different aspects of your own team in this story. Yeah.

Yes. And the way I came across this book is listening to John Maxwell. And John Maxwell, I've been following him coming up, I would say almost 30 years. I've been following him since about 1997, 98.

So what does that make it, 25 years, 25 years. And he mentioned Patrick Lencioni in one of his podcasts or just one of his talks. And I said, let me go check this guy out, see what it's about. Because I was very concerned about our team. And at the time the team meant two people, three people, a secretary and a youth slash worship pastor.

And I was like, I need to start getting my mind focused towards the day when we will have 10, 15, 20 people in that team. And having worked in a secular environment, having worked in the academic world, I knew how teams struggle with unity. How you have this one person who will just start negativity and before you know it, we're gone down the tubes.

And it's over. And it just brings the entire atmosphere down. I was in administrative positions where people were not following me, but they were following somebody else in the room. And it was very obvious when the lines were drawn, I was standing alone on this side of the line.

And everybody else, whether visibly or invisibly, were walking over to the other side. And I'm thinking, I'm the boss. I'm the leader. I'm the vision caster. And yet I'm alone in this.

What is happening? And so this book helped me tremendously. And when you guys came on board as a team, I said, oh, we're reading this book. Yeah.

And thank goodness we did. Because I think it really opens your eyes to a lot of these dysfunctions that you don't even think are dysfunctions. You always go towards the obvious thing, like, oh, someone's gossiping. Someone's backbiting. Someone is going behind your back and doing things. But these are dysfunctions of a person.

A person who, like, this is something that I can change regardless of whether I'm at work or not. Right. Yeah. It shows how these things are interrelated, too. One leads to another, leads to another, set up in a pyramid design where there's a base level and each one builds on the dysfunction of the previous one. So as you start to peel back the layers, you start to really address these dysfunctions that maybe you don't even realize are there. But once you start to dig, just like in the story, Catherine, the CEO, she starts to dig and get her team of leaders to see their shortfalls, to see their shortcomings. And it really starts to snowball from there.

Right. There are a lot of books out there on leadership, especially if you're going into a new work environment or you're taking on a position of authority or leadership. This is what you do. If it's not broke, break it. Now, there are some good points in those kind of books.

But what I found was that doesn't always work. Again, I'm not talking down about that book called If It's Not Broke, Break It or something like that. What I'm saying is that this book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, takes every scenario into account and all the different kinds of people on your team or on your staff that you have to either contend with or you have to come alongside with to help your business, your church, your workplace succeed.

And this book does a great job in identifying who those people are and how to work with each one of them. And sometimes the things you thought, man, I did it horribly wrong. I really messed up because that's not how it should have been done. Reading this book, you go, oh, no, actually, I did it right. I did it right.

And hence the results were positive and good. And then there are times that you go, yeah, I really thought this was the way to go. And I did it and it just, I mean, it fell apart. It blew up in my face. Now reading this book, I realized why it did.

I was so naive. One of the common reactions that you'll get out of reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is, man, I didn't realize that's what was going on. And it's written in such a way that it is a leader, the leader of the company, the CEO, leading a team of leaders. This isn't just you're like one person in their direct reports. This is a team of leaders who each have their own sort of entities and people who report to them. This is the hierarchical structure like leaders reporting to the CEO and how they're relating together as a team, as the primary unit impacts the way that they lead their own respective teams. And it's odd because that's typically where you find the most conflict is where you've got all these leaders trying to do something together and yet they've all got their own people, their own departments that they're responsible for. So they kind of section themselves off and they take on that as their identity. And so now there's miscommunication among the core leaders of the organization.

And really we want people to buy the book and read it because it's so good. So I'm not going to go further into the depths of each chapter. But I will say this, everything rises and falls on leadership. We may not like to hear that, but that's how it works. And organizations fail or they fall apart is because leadership, I'm not saying it's corrupt or anything, but I definitely think many times leadership is naive. There are times people are coming out of business schools or even seminaries and they're not trained to lead.

They're not trained to lead. They may be somewhat trained to manage, but management and leadership are two different things. You can manage things.

You can order what needs to be ordered and you can make sure things look nice and neat and tidy around where you are and make sure you have plenty of inventory. I mean, those are management things. Leadership is different. I'm not saying leadership is more important than management because if you have leadership but no management, you'll sit there with empty shelves and zero inventory in your back rooms and in your, what's the word I'm looking for, in your storage area.

And that doesn't work either. So you got to have management. But leadership, wow, it's incredible how a lot of leaders are just one or two when it comes to leadership. For the benefit of someone who's listening to the show, maybe this is their first time ever listening and they're like, I want to be that leader. Right now I feel like I'm a good manager. What would you say, hey, here are the qualities I look for when I say that's a great leader? One is be teachable. Be teachable. If you think you know and if you have that mindset, I got it. I got you figured out.

If you have that kind of mindset, you really need to get alone and go, I don't know. And that's one of the hardest things that I had to learn because I was like, I'm doing my PhD. I'm doing the highest degree, the terminal degree.

I'm doing that. But that didn't make me a good leader. So I had to admit to myself and to God that I need help in leadership. As a pastor, I needed help. As a principal of a school, I needed help because that's where my leadership skills were really exercised because all of a sudden I was no longer in an environment. I was still there because I was a biovacational pastor.

But no longer I was in an environment where people were like, oh, not a little pastor. He does a great job. He's so sweet. And I love, we love the little family. If they ever leave him, it'll break our hearts.

But we understand. So all of a sudden I'm in an environment where, hey, why did my child get disciplined? Why did they get suspended for two days?

All of a sudden I was in an environment where I'm in a staff meeting and I can clearly cut the tension with a knife. Like what is happening here? What's going on here? Why are they not going along with this wonderful vision that's going to help all of us? Why are they not supporting this?

Or we have a great school, but why can we do better so that people will come here rather than go everywhere else? So this is where I realized I need help. I need to learn what it means to be a leader.

How do you cast a vision? How do you build a team? How do you make the tough decisions? That was the hardest thing for me because I was always the Mr. Nice guy. Just be nice. Just be nice. Just be kind.

And when people cause trouble, I mean, it's just, I don't know what to say. Got to work with them to go, no, I think that person does not need to be here. That's the hardest thing to do. Yeah, that's true, but that's also part of leadership because some of you are in a leadership position and you are not making that tough decision.

Hopefully the other things are done right. Hopefully you are learning, you are growing, you are doing what you're supposed to do as a leader before you say, well, I don't think that person needs to be on this team. I don't think that person needs to be here.

No, I hope you're working on yourself first, but having done that, there are times you have to make that tough decision and people will not like you. Can you deal with that? Are you so eager to be loved and patted on the back and be told how wonderful you are so sweet, we love you, but your organization is suffering and you cannot afford anything because there's no money coming in? And I'm talking about secular workplace businesses and also church, ministry.

So what are you going to do? There are families around you on your team who need that paycheck. They need that insurance pay. They need that car payment. They need money for gas.

They need money to pay the doctor or the ER or the fast med or whatever that place is where they're taking their little kid. So your decision is impacting them. So are you going to step up and be the leader you're supposed to be or are you going to still be like, I just want to be loved.

I don't want no confrontation. So that was tough for me. I love that mindset of the choices you make and the decisions, the calls that you make as a leader impact more than just you and learning to sacrifice that desire for people to just come and pat you on the back, oh, we love you. But to really be the one, I'm out in front, I'm setting the course and people are depending on me to do that.

That's huge. I think a lot of leaders are, like Dr. Shuss said, content with being managers. I want to get the tasks done.

I want to turn in my timesheet at the end of the day and have all the boxes checked so that I can go home and live my life. And I think a lot of us, especially in ministry, that's what our leadership devolves into. And one thing that I love that we do is that we prioritize this every single day. At lunch, we sit down and we talk about stuff like this and if it takes an hour, it takes an hour.

If it takes an hour and a half, it takes an hour and a half. But to not do it and focus only on our tasks means that it's detrimental because we're breeding a church full of managers that don't know each other, that don't trust each other. And that if we don't know and trust each other, our congregation will never know and trust us. And so that trust has been huge. That's the biggest thing that I took away from The Five Dysfunctions and it's a tremendous book.

I mean, we can't recommend it enough. But that level of trust is huge because a temptation of mine, especially I do a lot with like design elements like graphics and things like that. And the temptation there where artistic things are involved is to take things very personally because it's something that I've created out of my imagination. And so for people to pick this design apart, before reading this book and when I was still kind of naive in my understanding, that felt like a personal attack. That felt like, oh, well, you don't like what I have done.

You don't like what I have created. But after reading this and learning the importance of that base of trust, I trust my team. I trust you guys enough to know that you want what's best for Clearview, for the Clearview Today show, for our church. And so you're not attacking me as an individual.

You are trying to make this product be the best that it can be. And that's a goal that we all share. That's huge. That does a shift in thinking. And that's not automatic. That's something we have to cultivate. We have to build as a culture here where I'm willing to take criticism.

That's why at the end of every Saturday evening service, we sit down and say, OK, you heard the message. What can I do different? Please tell me. I see what I need to change. I can see it. What do you see? What do you see? What do you genuinely see that I can either change or remove completely or add or refocus?

What can I change? And something that I love about that, what Ryan's saying, is pastors and leaders, if you ask your team that and they're like, nothing, it's great. That's a team that does not trust you. That's a problem. Yeah, they're afraid.

Your team does not trust you. And they think that they'll be punished for. So that's what I'm saying. I love them. Oh, they don't care. Right.

It's great. What I care about is my stuff here because I've got a youth event coming up where I have to lead worship tomorrow and then after that we're going out of town or something, something. I don't really care.

Can we just go home, please? Yeah. But that changed my way of thinking because now whenever we're sitting down and we're talking about something and we're all together and we're saying, hey, look, I see what you're doing.

It needs to be this or it needs to be that. Now before I used to take it as an attack, but now I'm like, these are people who trust me because they trust that I'm not going to run off or take it personal or get scared or get angry. These are people who are putting trust enough in me to hear their criticism.

It's huge. And I'm constantly trying to improve myself when it comes to my preaching because that's a primary responsibility on my shoulder because that's just like youth is yours or student ministry is yours, Ryan, and worship is yours, John. And David wears so many different hats and Nick does different things as well. But for me, preaching is primary. Now there's other things as well. I'm also a pastor, so I shepherd the people, make calls and go by, see them or sit down and counsel people. So there's a lot of other things I do as well. But preaching is that primary thing that I have to get it right. And of course it's all for God, by God, through God.

I mean, we know that, but I got to get it right. If I mess up there, then there's only one person to blame and that's me. So anyways, all that to say leadership matters. Leadership is important. And if you are a leader and you're not educating yourself, you're not reading books like these, like the five dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni, then you are not only cheating yourself, but you're also cheating your loved ones and you're cheating the team that is looking to you. And that's not easy because there will be people who will, the moment you start implementing some of these things, they're going to buck up, they're going to push back, they're going to hate your guts, they're going to stab you in the back. That may come, but you have to do it anyways.

That's right. And maybe get your team to read the book because that helped me a great deal. We did. Yeah, tremendously. This is actually our second time reading it. I was just about to say that we're in our second read through now and I'm getting things out of the book now that I missed the first go around.

So can't recommend it enough. Love this book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Check it out, especially if you're in a leadership role or you're a part of a leadership team.

So helpful for understanding how a team needs to work together. If you guys enjoyed today's episode or if you're interested in picking up a copy for yourself, you can write in and let us know, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Make sure you partner with us financially on that same website by scrolling all the way to the bottom, clicking that button, and letting us know that that gift is coming from our Clear View Today Show family.

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We love you guys. We'll see you on Monday on the Clear View Today Show. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.