When reading the book, I had the impression that it's not only about workplace collaboration, it's the utopia we'd like to achieve in all our society.

A place

• You could comfortably expose your vulnerability, knowing that it won't be leveraged against you but earning mutual trust
• You could raise your point not fearing conflicts with others, knowing that it's all for the sake of revealing all the known facts and thoughts
• Everyone could confidently commit to a shared goal because all the views have been shared. Even consensus is hard to achieve due to natural individual difference, a commit is a commit so everyone could move on
• You could safely point out other's fault especially lack of respect for the commit, because both know it's not personally and only for the good of whole team. Meanwhile, when you're pointed out, you feel grateful for the safety net
• If some of you are in the same group, sharing the same goal, only the collective results matter. No one's action is stemmed from sole personal interest, especially the demonstration of own value

At least, I won't expect less from a true friend. Maybe that's what we are after in our daily life.

That's all the book is about, and I highly recommend a read of that, so you could find or make your comrades striving for a more enjoyable environment.

Appendix

The diagram that showcase the layered dysfunctions

A discussion around "Inattention to results"

In the book, the author used an example as the dysfunction of inattention to results. One of the character joined the company with the expectation to nurture his COO career. When the sales director quit, he had to volunteer to take that role. Although in the end they found a replacement and the guy resumed his COO role, it's not super clear that when this kind of personal interest having conflict with team's benefit, including career, skill growth, hobbies, lives, should the personal ones always be sacrificed.

My view is, individual should no longer be seemed as subordinate to a "bigger" organisation. If the team tends to go farther, all the individuals should be respected and their benefit is one of the missions of the organisation. It's fair to make short term sacrifice to help the boat sailing, yet it won't be sustainable if personal interest is ignored. The solution is again the transparency, so one has the willingness to expose personal desire believing that it's fine to be a normal person.

This might be my only concern with the book though I believe it's just for the brevity of the narrative.