Accumulated research by Patrick Lencioni in his recent book “The Advantage” with over 12,000 senior teams, shows that the highest factor in measuring a team’s dysfunction is it’s scoring on lack of “peer to peer” accountability (65%). Today’s leaders have trouble being effective team leaders because they do not know how to give feedback to each other, call out another team player’s performance or solve problems together from a place of mutual accountability.
So what should be done to give each other more feedback, foster more collaboration and action oriented accountabilty on a senior team?
- Get in the habit of reviewing team performance, make it part of weekly staff meetings.
- Create a forum for how the results will be discussed among team members. Leave blame out of the discussion, instead focus on results and actionable steps for the future.
- Have the tough conversation and create a shared accountability for future success. Develop leaders who ask for feedback for improved performance in the future.
- Show you care and celebrate the ability to get the tough conversations on the table for increased effectiveness on the team.
Our recent work with a $500 million team portrays the downside of missed accountability. Two of the senior leaders on the team have a broken relationship and that causes the total team to struggle. People walk on eggshells around the two of them and the work is not getting done properly or effectively. Everyone on the team knows that the lack of discourse about the relationship and the performance of both of the leaders is hurting the entire 12 members. At a recent offsite, one of the newest members of the team finally had the courage to call out both of them “for their inability to solve basic issues that were killing the results of the entire team.” This courageous move allowed others to calmly discuss the impact their behavior was having on the team. And, it forced both leaders to confront the problems between them going forward in a more direct manner.
Does your team model holding each other accountable? and if not, what is it costing you?