It’s been a while since I read something that was “good for me” that was also so easy to read. I really enjoyed the parable style story telling by Patrick Lencioni in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
The book takes you on a journey with a new CEO as she starts a job at a new with an incredibly dysfunctional leadership team. She requires her executive team to do a two day retreat with her where they review the five dysfunctions and what the opposite of each dysfunction is that she wants them to strive for.
As a stage manager, we run multiple teams at any given time. If you’re a PSM/GSM, you run the stage management team. You run the overall “show” team, by setting the tone for the production with the cast and crew. If you’re touring and living on the bus/spending most of your time with the crew, you’re also usually a leader in that group as well.
The book starts with the first dysfunction: absence of trust. This comes from a fear of making mistakes or showing weakness. This makes sense in the arts because it’s a tiny little community and sometimes it seems like jobs are scarce, especially at the beginning of your career (and I bet for a while coming out of COVID).
An absence of trust makes you scared to take any chances. Let me tell you about a time there was an abundance of trust.
I was working on a musical and when we arrived to load in to that venue that morning, surprise, there was a large pole towards the back of the stage that had been left of the drawings we received.
Our set did not fit. At all. It was possible to chop off parts of the sides of the set to make it fit, but the whole thing was held up safely by the middle of the set – right where this pole was.
So we said, “hey, we can’t build the set.”
As you can imagine… quite the reblock ensued.
Our gut instinct in those first few minutes was to do a concert version of the show, when the presenter swarmed down on me with the wrath of god, screaming a blue stream about how they paid for a full show and they’re getting a full show. A moment after he departed, my phone started buzzing from our producer.
Now, no decisions had been made. I had merely presented the concert version idea with the knowledge that I was about to start making several phone calls to both the producer and the director of the show, they just beat me to the punch.
So, at this point, I’ve now got the presenter and the producer yelling at me, when I tell them both, I will look at what more we can do, they just need to give me some time, which we have, because the cast will not arrive to the city for another 9 hours.
My ASM and I sat in the office for about 3 hours, reworking the show. We conferenced in the dance captain and talked about the next plan with him.
The director chose this day to never actually answer his phone. He did finally call me back around 11 PM that evening. Very useful.
But because of the trust I had in my team – both the crew and the incredible cast – we pushed much further than I had in any reblock before and, honestly, as good as many of my casts have been since, I don’t think I’ve worked with another that I trusted in their skill so much to push so hard.
We rebuilt the show with no set in a two hour rehearsal.
The audience had no idea. We got rave reviews in that city. The presenter actually did thank me after the show and the producer called too, which was fairly astonishing. He wasn’t big on thank yous.
Literally, this crazy success, that was safely and artistically executed, which I consider one of the most impressive days of my entire career, was 100% because of trust in the team I was working with.
The second dysfunction is: fear of conflict.
I totally understand this one. You’d think after years of stage managing, I’d be a pro at conflict, but it always makes me feel nauseous. I hate it.
But when you avoid it, nothing good happens. Your ideas don’t get heard. Little slights fester. People get away with things that ruin the entire teams morale.
It plays right into the third dysfunction: lack of commitment.
If you’re scared of conflict, you won’t fully debate ideas. If everyone doesn’t have a chance to put in their two cents (among the folks most responsible for upholding the decision), it can be hard to get them to commit. Even if the final decision isn’t the one they wanted, at least they were heard.
The forth dysfunction is avoidance of accountability.
I feel like in theater we’re lucky because this one happens less. If folks are slacking, people start to speak up.
The final dysfunction is inattention to results.
I feel like I see this more often on smaller projects, but it’s obvious when the act of what we’re creating matters more than the final project. Being creative can sometimes feel like enough of a goal over the end result, and while experimenting and learning are great, when the end game is clear, everyone should be working towards it.
