Mutual Accountability
Mutual Accountability is another behavior included in our model of high performing teams. It refers to the ability to commit to a shared purpose and goals, to translate ideas to action and to see them through to completion. Teams skilled in mutual accountability are able to clarify expectations and delegate ownership, to hold themselves and their teammates to a higher standard, and to trust that each person will follow through on their commitments to the team.
What it does:
counters diffusion of responsibility
improves motivation and speed of execution
allows for accurate forecasting and more timely and successful goal attainment
Trouble signs:
lots of high-level discussion and little identified actions
hypothetical, wishful language (e.g., “could,” “should,” “would”)
poorly defined timelines and avoidance or continual disregard for deadlines
Commit to action
Making a commitment is the first step toward building mutual accountability. Those who are especially skilled at this are quick to identify next steps and proactively offer their support where appropriate. Try reserving the last 5-10 minutes of every meeting to align and identify next steps. Based on what you discussed, what actions must be taken before your next conversation? What decisions must be made? And who will be responsible for taking those actions or making those decisions? Learn more
List to-don’ts
As leaders, you’re expected to juggle many different responsibilities. It’s critical that you know which responsibilities to prioritize when. But prioritization isn’t just a matter of reordering action on an ever-growing list. Effective prioritization requires saying ‘no’. It requires being able to recognize when an item needs to be taken off your list entirely and either added to someone else’s list or removed from the discussion altogether. It requires a certain level of humility and care for yourself—an acknowledgement that you can’t always do it all—and that’s okay. Learn more
Track your progress
Commitments without follow-through are meaningless. Ensure a steady beat of progress by creating a shared action item tracker. That can be a simple spreadsheet or even a collaborative text document—whatever is most comfortable for your team. That main goal is to clearly document your commitments and to have an easy, consistent way to track your progress toward each, taking care to note any blockers or dependencies as they arise. It might help to build some time into your regular meetings to update the tracker together. The more you make the tracker part of your routine, the easier it will be to update and the more useful it will become.