There is no better time to see accountability, or lack of, in action is in the meetings. How often do actions from previous meetings get rolled over to the next, members arrive late, or behave in a way counter to the team charter. A great way to focus on accountability to do a round robin, where each member shares their key actions or priorities from the last meeting and update their progress. This can take just a few minutes per person. We aren't looking for long explanations.
If members know that they will be held to account publicly, they are more likely to focus on delivery.
Members will also track their performance against collective goals. This might be a shared scorecard, project tracker, Gannt chart or other shared collaborative tool. Transparency and openness is critical for accountability to work.
A case study
When I worked in the energy industry, out function would get together for a monthly meeting. There were generally 8 of us there, with very specific areas of responsibility, but all aligned in delivering group results.
We updated a shared Gannt chart with red, amber or green status compared to last month. We added one sentence to the notes to update notes. It was short, brief and to the point. At the beginning of each meeting, the chart was put on the screen and each member was invited to share their action and performance.
We were focused on the reds and ambers, and all challenged, asked questions and offered support to help each member. We might use coaching questions, offer advice or simply hold each other to account. The process worked as each member didn't want to let everyone else down, and where there was a genuine issue, we all knew that the team would come together to help.
As part of this course, you and your team members have an opportunity to identify aspects of your team’s practices that could use improvement—or areas where it would be possible and desirable to hold one another more accountable. Try this team activity together.
Team Activity
Complete this activity with your team, select all of the options you feel apply and compare your answers to see which option is most common.
Our ability to hold one another accountable could improve if we challenged one another to:
- Call one another on unproductive behaviours
- Follow through on personal commitments
- Give one another feedback
- Address missed deadlines immediately
- Have clearer priorities and goals
- Be more direct
- Review progress against goals during team meetings
- Publicly share goals
- Have more efficient and productive meetings
- Spend more time together
Reflection
From the above activity, gather team scores and order them from most to least voted for.
Ask yourself why the most voted for answer is at the top of the list...
What current problems are related to this issue?
What can you do to change it?
How comfortable are people trying to do this more often?
In what ways would the team benefit from behaviours you identified within the activity?
How realistic are these goals for the team?
and remember...
- Accountability on a high performing team needs peer to peer accountability.
- It won't happen unless the leader goes first, giving feedback and receiving it equally.
- Meetings are the best place to hold each other accountable as you set the rules of engagement, and create mechanisms and tools to give feedback in a safe environment. What begins in the meetings will flow through to everyday interactions.
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