Editorial
Welcome to Courage Coach, where expert columnist Karin Hurt answers readers' tough leadership challenges with practical tools and techniques you can use right away. Have a question for her? Drop her a line!
Dear Courage Coach,
I’m getting so frustrated with my co-workers. We have zero team accountability. People make commitments, and then don’t follow-through. It’s creating a lot of stress and conflict for all of us.
I think my manager is trying. But who knows what conversations are happening behind closed doors. But honestly, we’re grown adults. We shouldn’t have to get her involved when someone drops a ball.
I wish it were easier to talk about team accountability. What advice do you have for how I can bring this up?
Signed,
Longing for a Stronger Team
Dear LFAST,
I’m so sorry to hear you’re dealing with this. And you’re not alone. One of the biggest sources of team conflict I hear about is a lack of accountability.
One common characteristic of high-performing teams is that team accountability isn’t just the manager’s job – the team holds one another accountable (and their manager too). When you talk to high-performing teams, it’s easy to see that this team accountability doesn’t just happen. They work at it. They talk about it. And they have the tools to address it when things break down.
As we write in our new book, “Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict,” an effective conflict conversation includes connection, curiosity and commitment. The INSPIRE method gives you a way to guide your conversation through these stages.
How to INSPIRE Better Team Accountability
Connection
Begin with connecting to the person and to the topic you want to discuss by I – Initiating the Conversation, N – Noticing a behavior and S – providing Supporting examples.
I – Initiating the conversation respectfully and stating your intention
In this first stage, you connect and clarify. This could be as simple as, “My intent for our conversation is to make sure we can get this project done with minimal disruptions to both of our teams” or “I’d like to talk about how we can take less time to get our reports done accurately. Is this a convenient time?”
If you have a more serious conversation in mind, you may say something like, “I really care about this project and our working relationship. We’re behind on our commitments and I have some ideas can help. Do you have some time later today to talk?”
Then you N – Notice and share your observation
Here is where you start with your experience of the situation. Keep the focus on what you have observed, not what you think their behavior means. We’re very deliberate in using the word “notice” because you can notice a behavior, but you can’t notice an attitude.
For example, you wouldn’t want to tell your coworker, “I noticed you’re lazy.” Instead, focus on observable behaviors. For example, “I’ve noticed that I don’t have the report you said I’d get at nine this morning.”
You can help your team think about observable behaviors by asking them to imagine watching a video of what happened and narrating the action. Describe the activity (or its absence) in the imaginary video. Those are observable behaviors.
The final step of the CONNECT stage is S – Support, where you provide supporting evidence
For example, “I’ve noticed you’ve been joining our meetings late. Today’s Zoom meeting started at 8 and you joined at 8:15. Yesterday’s staff meeting started at 4:00 and you joined at 4:20.”
Connecting well makes all the difference when holding a team accountability conversation with a colleague.
Curiosity
The real magic of the INSPIRE method comes in the curiousity stage. This is where you ask open-ended questions to encourage them to reflect on what’s happening.
When you P – Probe It could be something as simple as, “What’s going on?” Or, “How does this look from your perspective?” The key is to ask with genuine curiosity. There may be an excellent reason for what happened. You don’t want to assume a character flaw or ill intent.
Then, in the I – Invite stage, you ask for their ideas to address the situation. “How do you think we can get the data from your group on time?” Or, “What do you think you can do to ensure you can be at our meetings on time?”
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Commitment
The final stage of the INSPIRE process is commitment.
This stage starts with R – Review. Here’s where you recap their commitment — and check for understanding. “Great, so what I hear you’ll do is talk to the developers and let them know you have to finish this project before going full force on that one?” Or, “So, you’re going to see if you can eliminate some meetings from your calendar, so you’re not always running back to back (and late).”
Finally, encourage your team to E – Enforce. This is where they schedule a follow-up to discuss their new commitment. “So we have two more cycles on this project this month. Can we schedule time on the 30th at 3 pm to talk about how we’re doing?”
The INSPIRE Method Provides a Framework for Connection, Curiosity and Commitment
The INSPIRE Method gives you a natural opportunity to use some core powerful phrases as well.
For example, in the Connection Phase, you could say.
“I care about _____ (you, this team, this project) and I’m confident we can find a solution that we can all work with.”
or to connect first to their emotion
“It sounds like you’re feeling _____ is that right? [pause for affirmation]. Thank you for letting me know how you feel.” Here’s how I’m feeling. I’ve noticed…”
Or in the Curiosity phase, you might say
“What would success look like for you?”
And then in the Commitment phase, you might close with,
“So, to recap our conversation, we’ve agreed to _________. Is that your understanding?”
And, ” Let’s schedule some time to talk about this again, and see how our solution is working,”
The INSPIRE method is a proven method for making team accountability natural and helps to prevent conflicts from escalating. Give it a try. Once you feel comfortable with it, you can share it with your boss and co-workers. The more you can do to normalize team accountability, the easier it will be.
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