Roles and Responsibilities

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:06 One of the characteristics of effective teams is that everyone understands their
• 00:10 role and contributes appropriately.
• 00:12 Now, this doesn't happen by accident.
• 00:14 A good team leader clarifies everyone's roles and responsibility.
• 00:20 Let's start by clearing up some leadership myths.
• 00:23 Every person on the team will be a leader from time to time.
• 00:27 Different tasks and
• 00:28 activities will require different levels of leadership from each team member.
• 00:32 So first, the leader is not always the manager.
• 00:35 Leadership is not based upon what you control.
• 00:39 Second, the leader is not always the entrepreneur,
• 00:42 on the team, with a vision of the future that they are trying to turn into reality.
• 00:47 Nor does the leader need to be the smartest person in the room.
• 00:50 They don't have to know more than everyone else there.
• 00:53 Further, the leader does not need to be a pioneer.
• 00:56 They don't have to be the first person with the idea, or
• 00:59 the first person to attempt an activity.
• 01:02 Finally, the role of leader is not a position on the Org Chart.
• 01:05 It is not an assigned title or position.
• 01:08 Now, don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that a leader can't be any of those.
• 01:13 What I am saying, is that being a manager, entrepreneur, pioneer, or
• 01:17 even the smartest person in the room, doesn't automatically make you the leader.
• 01:23 It may sound corny, but
• 01:24 the only universal attribute of leaders is that they have followers.
• 01:29 There is someone else on the team who trusts them enough
• 01:31 to follow where they lead, at least on a particular team task or activity.
• 01:37 One of the roles of the overall team leader is to help the rest of the team
• 01:40 understand their leadership role within the team.
• 01:42 How do they fit with the other team members,
• 01:45 in order to accomplish the work of the team?
• 01:47 The best tool I have seen explaining this is the Responsibility Matrix.
• 01:52 This clarifies work assignments in a visual way
• 01:55 that helps team members understand their own, and each other's, roles.
• 01:59 Every task or activity that the team must d,o needs a leader for that activity.
• 02:04 Someone who is responsible for ensuring that it is planned and executed properly.
• 02:08 Essentially, someone who will own that activity.
• 02:11 It doesn't have to be the team leader, in fact, often it is not.
• 02:15 The matrix is created to show the level of involvement of each team member
• 02:20 to each task or activity.
• 02:22 I normally create the matrix by listing the team tasks and
• 02:25 activities on the vertical side of the matrix.
• 02:28 Every task is a row.
• 02:30 I then list all of the team members across the top.
• 02:33 Every team member is a column.
• 02:35 Then for each team task, the role of a task leader, and
• 02:38 others who are contributing in some fashion, are shown on the matrix.
• 02:43 It is important to note that, roles, are not the same as individuals or job titles.
• 02:47 The concept of the role is based upon how the team determines to accomplish the task
• 02:52 or activity.
• 02:53 The tole can be passed around to different team members, and
• 02:56 some roles may have multiple team members.
• 02:59 The most common way to show the roles is to use the acronym RACI.
• 03:04 This approach has been widely adopted and,
• 03:07 in my experience, is widely misunderstood and confusing.
• 03:11 The problem is understanding the difference between the role accountability
• 03:15 and responsibility.
• 03:16 To most people they mean the same thing.
• 03:19 In the RACI approach,
• 03:20 the accountable person is the person ultimately in charge of the activity.
• 03:25 There's only one accountable person for each activity.
• 03:28 The responsible person is someone who must participate on the activity, and they have
• 03:32 a key role, but they do not have the ultimate accountability for the activity.
• 03:37 Then there is the consulting person who participates as needed on the activity.
• 03:41 And finally, there's the informed role who is kept aware of what is happening, but
• 03:45 does not actively participate on the task.
• 03:49 Due to confusion that often occurs between responsibility and
• 03:52 accountability, I've been using a different acronym, CALM.
• 03:56 With this acronym, L stands for the leader of the activity, and
• 03:59 there's only one leader.
• 04:01 C stands for contributes, and
• 04:03 there are as many of those as are needed based upon the nature of the task.
• 04:07 A stands for approver.
• 04:09 Some tasks require another individual to review and approve the result, and
• 04:13 the A represents this role.
• 04:15 Finally, the M stands for monitor, and is similar to the informed role.
• 04:19 Let's take a look at an example.
• 04:22 As you can see, the rows are tasks, and the columns are the team members.
• 04:26 If you look closely,
• 04:27 one thing you will notice is that there is only one leader for each task.
• 04:31 The team can determine who that person will be.
• 04:33 It may be the person with the most experience for that type of work.
• 04:37 It may be the smartest person in the room.
• 04:40 It may be the person who is the most passionate about the activity, or
• 04:43 it may be the person who has the most time to devote to the task.
• 04:47 But while there's only one leader, there can be a number of contributors,
• 04:50 approvers, or monitors on a task, or none at all.
• 04:55 The Responsibility Matrix is very helpful for identifying if one of the team members
• 05:00 is overworked and some of the roles need to be shared with other team members.
• 05:04 For instance in this example, I would be worried that Penny may be overloaded.
• 05:09 I would also be concerned about Howard,
• 05:11 who's only involved on two tasks and one of which he is leading.
• 05:15 However, no one else is working on that task.
• 05:18 And my concern would be that if Howard doesn't feel that he is an important
• 05:21 member of the team, he does not accomplish that task well.
• 05:25 The matrix is also helpful for explaining why the team needs additional people, or
• 05:29 different people, with different skill sets.
• 05:32 The focus is on whether the individual is able to fulfill the roles and
• 05:35 tasks, not whether the individual is a good person or not.
• 05:39 Which is why I found the matrix to be very valuable when I talk to HR or
• 05:43 other managers about why the team needs a change in personnel.
• 05:48 A team is not a one-man show.
• 05:51 Each team member is likely to have to take on multiple roles,
• 05:55 including roles of leading some of the team's activities,
• 05:58 even though they may not have the title of team leader.

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