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Erin Day highlights trust, productive conflict and accountability from ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’
Summary
Erin Day, deputy director in the Attorney General’s Office, summarized Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions pyramid—trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, results—and urged leaders to create psychological safety, use productive conflict and enforce accountability in teams.
Erin Day, deputy director in the civil division of the Attorney General’s Office, said Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team frames team weaknesses as a pyramid that leaders can reverse through deliberate actions.
Day listed the dysfunctions—absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results—and described practical remedies: build vulnerability-based trust, encourage productive debate, gain buy-in before final decisions, foster peer-to-peer accountability and keep the team focused on shared results.
Why it matters: Day noted that in state government employees may fear accountability and worry about repercussions; leaders must build psychological safety so staff will raise concerns and own outcomes. She recommended diagnostic and team-building tools (DISC, Myers-Briggs, working-genius models) to surface differences and create clearer role fits.
Audience exchange: In response to chat questions about employees who won’t engage, Day said leaders should continue building trust, have serious conversations about team fit and, when necessary, reassign staff to roles that better match their strengths.
Closing: Day connected these ideas to State Civil Service training offerings and encouraged leaders to pair team diagnostics with routine check-ins and clear expectations to sustain results.
