Coming up on Wednesday, 11 March 2026 at 11am EDT / 3pm UTC, we’re planning a live, 90-minute community book club session co-hosted by CSCCE community member Jody Peters (University of Notre Dame / Ecological Forecasting Initiative community manager).
The book club will focus on The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, a short fable that is used to explore a model outlining five things that are essential for a healthy, collaborative team (or working group, steering committee, or sub-community). If you haven’t read the book yet, but are curious and would like to join us for our book club session, rest assured, it’s not a long read (or listen!). If possible, we do ask that you read the book before the call, but we will also offer a recap of the key themes at the beginning of the session.
In this blog post, we’ll share more about our motivation behind hosting a book club and how you can get involved in co-hosting a similar session in the future. We’re also asking that you register to attend the book club in advance, and introducing a sliding scale donation option to help support our free community programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK CLUB
Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2026
Time: 11am US EDT / 3pm UTC (90 minutes)
Register via Zeffy (find out more about Zeffy)
Facilitators:
- Jody Peters (University of Notre Dame / EFI)
- Lou Woodley (CSCCE)
- Katie Pratt (CSCCE)
A new(ish) community gathering format for CSCCE
Often during CSCCE courses, Mini-workshops, or community calls, we’ll mention relevant books that explore community engagement themes in some way, but that we don’t have time to go into in detail; further reading for those who are interested.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is one of those books – and after going away and reading it on her own, Jody approached us to see if we would be interested in hosting a book club so that she could discuss it in more depth and further contextualize it in STEM settings.
Hosting a book club is something of a new format for CSCCE. Several of our community members have hosted book clubs within our Slack workspace in the past, and we’ve always been interested in holding more space to discuss the books that inspire and inform our work. So, as we talked to Jody, we considered how to develop this format in a way that would continue to facilitate community conversations beyond just one session.
We also saw in Jody’s proposal an ongoing opportunity for members of our community to step into more of an informal champion role, as well as a jumping-off point for additional, CSCCE-led training related to a given book. For example, we could support a community member like Jody in expertly facilitating a book club session, and then develop and run an implementation session that would help participants turn the conversation into action.
Contributing to CSCCE community programming
Developing new programming, of course, takes time and resources. For some years now, we’ve provided free programming in the form of community calls, Tools Trials, and other events. Developing new programming and expanding our community offerings means that we’re also thinking about funding sources – and to make sure that our investments match your needs.
For this first book club, we’re asking you to register in advance, and choose whether to make a donation to CSCCE’s community programming on a sliding scale from $0 to $100. Our hope is that this offers a mechanism for you to pay for programming you’d like to see more of, if you’re able, without creating financial barriers to participation.
We are also interested in exploring sponsorship or small grants that can help us to continue to host the kinds of valuable conversations that we know you’ve come to associate with CSCCE. If your organization is interested in such a partnership, or you’d like to work with us to propose a future project, please do get in touch.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a short book by Patrick Lencioni that explores a model for teamwork through a short business fable, split into chapters. The fable follows a new CEO, Kathryn, as she gets to know the existing team and how they work out aligning around the next steps for the company. The book concludes with a short overview of the 5 dysfunctions model and provides suggestions and resources for addressing each dysfunction.
The five dysfunctions model, which we regularly mention in our trainings, outlines how we can think of teamwork as a pyramid of key elements where one element iteratively enables the next layer.
On the base layer is the importance of trust. Trust – including psychological safety – enables productive conflict between team members. Conflict can result in shared commitment to an agreed upon goal, which leads to accountability, which supports paying attention to the results that the team has identified that they need to work towards.
Many communities have similar small teams – in the form of working groups, steering committees and other units that a community or program manager is often tasked with coordinating. We’ll be exploring these in more detail when we meet!
Find out more about the Five Dysfunctions model and/or order your own copy of the book here. The ebook and audio are also available on Hoopla.
Propose a future book club!
Is there a book that you’d like to discuss with other STEM community managers? We’d love to hear from you if so! Book club session co-hosts receive behind-the-scenes coaching and guidance from CSCCE staff, as well as the option for a small stipend. To learn more, please reach out to info@cscce.org, or DM Lou or Katie in the CSCCE Slack workspace (if you’re not already a member, request your invite here).