When the Team Breaks Down, Families Feel It

By Jay Jacobson, LUTCF, CPC, CFSP

The family had asked for one thing.

It was not expensive. It was not complicated. It did not require special equipment or hours of preparation.

They wanted a particular song played as their mother’s casket left the chapel.

The funeral director wrote it down.

The family talked about why it mattered. Their mother had sung that song while cooking Sunday dinner. She sang it in the car. She hummed it while rocking her grandchildren. To everyone else, it was music.

To this family, it was her.

The day of the funeral arrived.

The service ended. The director stepped forward. The pallbearers took their places.

But the wrong song began to play.

Somewhere between the arrangement conference and the funeral service, one small piece of information had been lost.

The staff corrected it quickly, but the moment had already passed.

That is the difficult truth about teamwork in funeral service.

When our team breaks down, the family feels it.

One Promise, Carried by Many Hands

A family may believe one funeral director is handling everything.

In reality, their trust passes through many hands.

One person answers the first call. Another makes the removal. Someone meets with the family. Another prepares the death certificate, writes the obituary, contacts the cemetery, coordinates with the clergy, prepares the deceased, arranges the flowers, manages the visitation, operates the sound system, directs the service, and follows up afterward.

Each person carries part of one promise.

Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team explains why capable people sometimes struggle to function as a team. He identifies five breakdowns: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

Those may sound like problems for a corporate boardroom.

They are also problems in the arrangement office, preparation room, transfer vehicle, administrative office, and chapel.

Families may never know the language for those dysfunctions.

But they know how the dysfunctions feel.

Can Your People Say, “I Need Help”?

A young funeral director is unsure about a veteran’s benefit.

She has two choices.

She can ask for help, or she can remain quiet and hope she is right.

Her decision may depend less on her knowledge than on what happened the last time someone admitted uncertainty.

Were they guided—or embarrassed?

Were they mentored—or made to feel incompetent?

Trust does not mean believing everyone will perform perfectly. Trust means knowing we can tell the truth when something is not perfect.

It allows an apprentice to say, “I do not understand.”

It allows an experienced director to say, “I overlooked that.”

It allows an embalmer to say, “I am missing information I need.”

It allows an administrative employee to say, “This process keeps creating errors.”

Those sentences do not weaken a funeral home.

They may prevent the next mistake.

Talent Alone Is Not Enough

Owners often try to build a strong funeral home by hiring the most experienced people they can find.

Experience matters.

But a collection of talented individuals is not automatically a capable team.

Research highlighted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business challenges the assumption that hiring only the “best” people produces the best results. A team may perform better when its members bring different tools, perspectives, and abilities to the same problem.

That makes sense in funeral service.

One director may be exceptional at arrangement conferences. Another has a calming presence during family conflict. One employee notices operational details no one else sees. Another knows how to create a meaningful ceremony. Someone else understands technology, livestreaming, aftercare, community relationships, or preneed.

We do not need everyone to think alike.

We need people whose strengths fit together.

But those differences only help when the team shares the same goal. Otherwise, employees begin protecting their departments, preferences, and reputations.

The arrangement director says, “I did my part.”

The preparation room says, “No one told us.”

The service staff says, “That was not on our paperwork.”

Everyone may be technically correct.

The family is still disappointed.

The question cannot be, “Who was responsible for the mistake?”

The first question must be, “How did our team allow the promise to be broken?”

Silence Is Not Harmony

Some funeral homes are proud that employees rarely disagree.

That may not be a good sign.

The embalmer repeatedly receives incomplete information but stops mentioning it.

The office staff quietly corrects the same death-certificate errors.

The on-call director is exhausted but does not want to appear uncommitted.

The service staff sees a problem developing but assumes the director in charge does not want to hear it.

Everyone remains pleasant.

Nothing improves.

Healthy conflict is not hostility. It is the willingness to say what needs to be said before the family is forced to say it for us.

“We are losing details after arrangement conferences.”

“We promised something the service staff did not know about.”

“Our schedule is creating fatigue, and fatigue is creating risk.”

“We need to discuss how this family was treated.”

Those conversations may be uncomfortable.

But silence does not remove conflict.

It merely postpones it until the stakes are higher.

You Cannot Learn Teamwork From a Memo

We sometimes believe communication will improve because we mentioned it at a staff meeting.

We create a new checklist. Send an email. Review a policy. Ask everyone whether they understand.

They nod.

Then the next difficult situation arrives, and everyone returns to old habits.

Communication is not learned by hearing someone talk about communication.

It is learned through practice.

A 2023 study published in Advances in Physiology Education examined nine years of interactive retreats designed to build communication, collaboration, and team identity. Participants worked through case studies, role-playing, presentations, focus groups, and small-group exercises. They rated the overall benefit of the in-person retreats an average of 4.8 out of 5.

What did they value most?

The opportunity to interact informally, exchange honest feedback, practice conflict resolution, and better understand the people around them. Virtual retreats held during the pandemic were viewed as less beneficial.

These participants were graduate science students, not funeral professionals.

But the lesson travels well.

People become better teammates by working through realistic situations together.

What do we say when a family is angry?

How do we respond when two siblings give conflicting instructions?

What happens when the cemetery changes the schedule?

How does a young employee tell a veteran director that important information is missing?

How do we handle the first call when the person answering does not know the answer?

Role-playing may feel uncomfortable.

So does standing in front of a grieving family after something has gone wrong.

Practice gives us a place to make mistakes before the mistake becomes someone else’s memory.

A Task Is Not a Commitment

“Call the minister.”

It sounds clear.

But does it mean leaving a voicemail? Confirming the time? Reviewing the order of service? Providing family information? Verifying the pronunciation of the deceased’s name?

In funeral service, assumptions often hide behind simple instructions.

Commitment requires more than assigning a name to a task.

The person must understand what needs to happen, why it matters, when it must be completed, and how the team will know it is done.

A checklist can track a task.

Only communication can protect the promise behind it.

Accountability Is Care

A staff member repeatedly arrives late.

Important information is consistently missing from case files.

A funeral director makes promises without confirming that the team can fulfill them.

Everyone notices.

No one speaks.

That is not kindness.

It simply transfers the burden to the reliable employees who must repair the damage. Resentment grows. Standards weaken. Eventually, people stop believing that excellence matters.

Accountability does not require anger or humiliation.

It requires honesty.

“The information was not entered into the case file, and the evening staff was left unprepared. Let’s understand what happened and make sure it does not happen again.”

That is not punishment.

That is one professional caring enough to protect another professional, the team, and the next family.

Families Experience the Whole Team

The arrangement director cannot succeed while the preparation room fails.

The administrative staff cannot succeed while the service team remains uninformed.

The owner cannot succeed while employees are exhausted, defensive, or afraid to speak.

Funeral service is one promise carried by many hands.

Families may never see our staff meetings, training exercises, disagreements, checklists, or case-management systems.

But they experience the results of all of them.

They feel whether we communicated.

They feel whether we supported one another.

They feel whether someone noticed the missing detail before they had to point it out.

They feel whether their loved one mattered.

And when the final song begins, they should not have to wonder whether we remembered.

Families deserve more than talented people working under the same roof.

They deserve people with different strengths who trust one another enough to speak, practice, listen, correct, and remain accountable to a shared promise.

They deserve a team.

Sources Referenced

Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

Walsh, Dylan. “How to Build Better Teams.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, March 26, 2020. Used for the discussion of complementary abilities, diverse problem-solving approaches, team goals, and rewarding collective success.

Schmidt, Jean Marie, James T. Porter, Vanessa Rivera-Amill, and Caroline B. Appleyard. “Promoting Crucial Team Building, Collaboration, and Communication Skills in Graduate Students Through Interactive Retreats.” Advances in Physiology Education 47, no. 4 (2023): 919–929. Used for the discussion of interactive retreats, role-playing, case studies, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, in-person participation, and team identity.