18 Jun What Rome’s Traffic Taught Me About Running a Team

by Kalika Yap

I’m in Rome this week, and yesterday I stood near the Pantheon and just watched the street for a while.

It looked like pure chaos. Vespas cut between cars. Taxi drivers lean on their horns like it’s a second language. Tourists get within inches of the taxis. Vendors call out over all of it.

Everyone’s moving fast. Everyone wants their own patch of road. There isn’t a traffic rule in sight that anyone seems to follow.

And yet, nobody crashes.

Stand there long enough and you start to see why. Underneath the noise, there’s an order. A rhythm nobody wrote down. Drivers and walkers reading each other through a glance and a wave, sorting out who goes next.

And underneath even that was a confident trust. Everyone moved on faith that the other person would hold up their end, that the taxi would brake, that the walker would keep walking. That quiet, confident trust was the real modus operandi under all the noise.

I watched it and thought, that’s what running a team is.

From the outside, a strong team can look loud and a little messy. People argue. They push their own ideas hard. There’s friction in the room. The teams that work have an order humming underneath all that motion, and it keeps the noise from turning into a wreck.

Years ago, business management guru and best selling author, Patrick Lencioni, put a name to that hidden order in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

He found about five things that hold a team together, and the same five that quietly pull it apart. Here they are, from the ground up.

The Five Things That Quietly Break A Team

1. No trust. When people don’t feel safe being vulnerable, they hide their mistakes. They won’t admit when they’re wrong or ask for help. Trust gets built when people are willing to be human with each other.
2. Fear of conflict. Teams that dodge disagreement settle for fake harmony. It feels pleasant in the moment, and it leads to weak decisions, because nobody gets to the root of the real problem.
3. No commitment. After a discussion, people nod and smile, then walk out and quietly check out. They tell others they were never on board. Real buy-in means everyone owns the call, even the folks who pushed back.
4. No accountability. People won’t tell a teammate, “I think you could have done better here.” They stay quiet because it feels like it isn’t their place. Lencioni flips that idea. Holding a teammate accountable is one of the kindest things you can do, because it helps them grow.
5. Ignoring shared results. When people care more about their own department or their own win than the team’s goal, the whole thing drifts. The healthiest teams keep their eyes on the same scoreboard.

The fix is that same list turned right side up.

Build trust. Have good conflict. Commit together. Hold each other accountable. Keep everyone watching the same shared results. That’s the order running underneath the chaos.

Your Step-by-step Guide for This Month

Here’s how I’d put this to work, one step at a time. You can run this with a team of three or thirty.

1. Start with you

Before your next team meeting, name one mistake you made recently, out loud. When the founder goes first, everyone exhales. That one act sets the tone for trust.

2. Make room for real disagreement

In your next decision-making meeting, ask, “What are we not saying?” Then wait. Let the quiet sit until someone fills it, and thank the person who speaks up.

3. Close every decision with a clear commitment

Before anyone leaves the room, say the decision out loud and ask, “Can everyone get behind this?” Get a verbal yes from each person. Fuzzy endings are where commitment dies.

4. Build a simple accountability rhythm

Set a weekly fifteen-minute check-in. Each person shares what they committed to last week and whether they delivered. Keep it kind and keep it consistent.

5. Put one shared number on the wall

Pick a single team goal everyone can see. Revenue, projects shipped, clients served. When the whole team watches the same number, the “that’s not my job” energy fades.

6. Repeat for thirty days

None of this works as a one-time event. Run the same rhythm for a month and watch how the room changes.

A Short Note Before You Go

If you’re a founder and your team feels stuck, you don’t have to work this out on your own. I’d love to help. Book a discovery call with me here: calendly.com/Kalika.