Chapter 9
Hold People Accountable
When do you start holding the team accountable for its work? Right away.
Don’t wait for deadlines to slip—or even for someone to show up 15 minutes late more than once. An accountable team strives for continuous improvement from the outset. There’s no time like the present to become more efficient and effective as a group.
Initially, focus your accountability discussions on the team as a whole. Use them to build trust and develop skills in giving and receiving useful feedback. Then you can start having more difficult conversations about individual performance.
Team Accountability
Start small and simple. Do a brief “plus/delta” at the end of every meeting, asking “What did we do well today? What do we need to ...
Get HBR Guide to Leading Teams (HBR Guide Series) now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
