Avoidance of Accountability

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:05 Let's look at another of the five team dysfunctions, avoidance of accountability.
• 00:12 Let me clarify what I mean by team accountability.
• 00:15 Recall from an earlier session that we contrasted responsibility and
• 00:18 accountability.
• 00:20 Responsibility is what one volunteers for or was assigned to do.
• 00:24 Accountability is the result of what you actually did.
• 00:28 So, our focus here is the actual result of each team member's performance
• 00:32 on the team activities.
• 00:34 Team accountability is the willingness of team members to confront other team
• 00:37 members about their performance on team activities.
• 00:40 We are not talking about performance reviews or
• 00:42 managerial discipline, we're talking about team member to team member interactions.
• 00:48 That means that we are talking about peer pressure on the teams.
• 00:52 You're probably taught that peer pressure is bad.
• 00:54 Peer pressure to adopt silly or
• 00:56 destructive behavior is normally unhealthy.
• 00:59 But peer pressure by team members, setting standards for team performance and
• 01:03 making it clear to others that they need to conform can help the team.
• 01:07 It may be something as simple as on-time attendance at team meetings.
• 01:11 I'm currently working on a project with several other consultants.
• 01:15 Each of us has a role to perform, and to put it bluntly,
• 01:18 I'm behind on completing my tasks and getting my part of the project working.
• 01:22 The other members of the team are now regularly checking with me
• 01:25 to make sure that I stay focused and complete my activities.
• 01:28 They are holding me accountable for my results.
• 01:32 Now, several of us have worked together before.
• 01:34 We've established trust and confidence in each other to the point where they feel
• 01:38 that our relationship and our camaraderie is strong enough that they can ask me hard
• 01:42 questions about my performance and I feel that I need to buckle down and
• 01:46 actually get busy or I will be letting them down.
• 01:50 A term that is sometimes used for this type of camaraderie and
• 01:52 peer pressure to get someone to improve their performance is tough love.
• 01:57 The team members don't let poor performers off with mediocre work.
• 02:01 They expect the highest level of performance of themselves and each other.
• 02:06 To bring this dysfunction of avoidance of accountability into sharper clarity,
• 02:10 let me contrast teams that practice accountability and
• 02:13 teams that avoid accountability, at least, in terms of team characteristics.
• 02:18 When teams practice accountability,
• 02:20 underperformers on the team feel pressured to improve.
• 02:23 They don't want to let the team down, so they strive to meet the expectations.
• 02:28 Also, team members are checking on each other and
• 02:30 that provides early indication of when a team member is having a problem.
• 02:34 The team can then react in a proactive manner to resolve the issue.
• 02:38 Team members have respect for each other's expertise and contribution.
• 02:41 That's why they don't feel resentful when someone points out a problem,
• 02:45 they know that the respect is still there.
• 02:47 Finally, the team doesn't play games around reporting progress or
• 02:50 acknowledging problems.
• 02:52 All that nonsense and bureaucracy can be bypassed because everyone is open and
• 02:56 honest about their status and issues.
• 02:59 Now let's contrast that list with the list associated with avoidance of
• 03:03 accountability.
• 03:04 Rather than the camaraderie and
• 03:05 friendly peer pressure to perform, team members are resentful of each and
• 03:09 have a different performance standard, either higher or lower.
• 03:13 This has a tendency to encourage mediocrity
• 03:16 as everyone aligns their own performance with what they perceive to be the lowest
• 03:20 level performance among other team members.
• 03:22 Naturally, performance suffers, deadlines are missed, deliverables are not done
• 03:26 correctly, the goal and objective of the team are not achieved.
• 03:30 When a team is operating like this, the team leader often becomes the bad guy.
• 03:34 They start hammering on team members to perform, but
• 03:37 as team members look around at the low performance of others on the team, they
• 03:41 just began to feel that the team leader is singling them out for persecution.
• 03:46 Needless to say, the team leader's job has now become much more difficult.
• 03:51 Obviously, the picture I painted about the avoidance of accountability is not good,
• 03:55 so what can be done to overcome this problem?
• 03:58 The best thing can be done is to eliminate ambiguity about goals and standards and
• 04:01 how they apply to each and every activity being done by team members.
• 04:05 Shining the light of expectations makes it harder to hide and
• 04:09 the team members who have bought into the team goals
• 04:11 will be much more likely to start holding themselves and others accountable.
• 04:16 Developing the characteristic of team accountability is difficult for
• 04:20 a team leader.
• 04:21 If they take on all the discipline, then the team won't.
• 04:24 However, if they wait for
• 04:25 the team to step up, the goal objectives may suffer until the team responds.
• 04:30 Many people today have never been in a position where
• 04:32 they were ever held accountable, so they don't know what to do or to expect.
• 04:36 The team leader may need to model this appropriate behavior.
• 04:41 Some of the tools that I have used over the years to help build team
• 04:43 accountability include a crystal clear public publication of all team goals and
• 04:48 objectives.
• 04:49 No one can hide, and no one can use the excuse that they didn't know the standard.
• 04:53 Incidentally, this is a lot of work for the team leader,
• 04:56 to cascade the team level goals and standards down to the team task level.
• 05:00 Another approach is to rely on simple frequent status reports.
• 05:05 The mantra becomes that old saying, what have you done for me lately?
• 05:08 Each team member reports to the entire team on their near team activities and
• 05:12 results.
• 05:13 This may actually cause a little bit of shaming,
• 05:15 but most people do not like to stand up in front of the others and look stupid, so
• 05:20 they change their personal performance.
• 05:22 As one changes, others change and
• 05:24 soon the peer group is expecting everyone to step up to next level of performance.
• 05:29 The third approach is to provide no individual rewards or
• 05:32 recognition, only team rewards.
• 05:34 For this to work, you need to let the team know upfront and
• 05:37 you need to follow through when they achieve the performance goal.
• 05:41 Teams that suffer from avoidance of accountability are never able to reach
• 05:46 sustained high performance.
• 05:48 Fortunately, there's several tools to encourage accountability.
• 05:53 When that is your team's dysfunction, start using some of those tools.

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