Take a moment and recall the best team experience you have ever had. Remember what it felt like to be part of that team. Now recall the worst team experience: What did it feel like being part of that team? What differences do you notice between the two experiences? When I’ve asked these questions of other leaders, here are some of the most common responses. In the great team experiences:

• Everyone was clear and aligned with what needed to get done.
• Each team member was accountable, pulled their weight, and went to great lengths to support one another.
• Everyone felt safe challenging one another and confronting issues head-on without fear.
• Team members leveraged the unique capabilities of everyone.
• Everyone worked hard but also managed to have fun and celebrate success.

In contrast, terrible team experiences are likely to be ones where:

• Team members are misaligned and work at cross-purposes to one another.
• Everyone works in isolation and demonstrates little support or trust.
• The team avoids critical conversations because no one feels safe enough to speak up or cares about the team’s success.
• Not everyone pulls their weight, creating frustration and resentment.
• Everyone is cynical and negative, thereby creating conflict and tension on the team.

While we desire to work on great teams, most people I talk to admit that they have had more experience working on terrible and dreadful teams. We must do better. Now here’s the challenge we face—all of us are spending more time on teams than ever before. It stands to reason that we need to figure out how to make these team experiences more positive.

A recent article by Microsoft on the changing nature of work reported that most employees are on twice as many teams as they were just five years ago.¹ Other research suggests that expectations of collaboration in organizations increased 50 percent in the past few years alone.² One of the challenges we also face is that many leaders I’ve worked with admit to never really learning how to lead teams effectively. Many learned on the job, often by trial and error. Many also didn’t have great role models to emulate. The good news is that this chapter will help you understand what it takes to build a truly accountable team and create an inspiring experience for those you lead.

Teams Have Transformed

In recent years, teams have taken on greater importance in organizations. Customers are demanding more value and innovation. In turn, this means that companies must bring different capabilities and areas of expertise together to generate value to meet increasing customer expectations. The implication is that we are working with colleagues across departments, functions, and geographies. As organizations have become more global and matrixed, so have teams. The way we work is also much more virtual in nature. Your day-to-day interactions with teammates are most likely via a conference call, video chat, or a collaboration app versus an in-person meeting. Remote workers and teams rule the day. You may work with team members you have never even met face-to-face. Given the global nature of work, your colleagues are also more diverse than ever before. Remote work can also be highly stressful.

What’s also different today is that some of your team members aren’t even employees of your company. You are working with others who are strategic partners, vendors, suppliers, freelancers, and consultants. Teams today are also more fluid—they are formed, disbanded, and rebuilt continually. As a result, you may be participating on several teams at once, either as the leader or as a team member. A few studies have revealed that today, 81 to 95 percent of us are working on multiple teams at any given time.³ The research also suggests this increases the stress and pressure that people feel when it comes to managing the expectations and workload of being on numerous teams.⁴

We are also trying to navigate the many collaborative project management and social apps implemented in companies. These are all designed to leverage technology and drive team performance. However, I speak to leaders who are overwhelmed by the number of apps and passwords they need to keep track of in their work.

I suspect none of this is new to you, as it probably reflects your current reality. However, we must come to terms with the fact that as organizations rely more and more on teams, our satisfaction with their performance is underwhelming. For example, a few years back my team did a research project in partnership with the Human Capital Institute.⁵ The survey found that 92 percent of respondents said that teams were essential to their organization’s success; however, only 23 percent said they were satisfied with the performance of their teams. We clearly have work ahead to improve the effectiveness of teams.

Teams and Accountability—the Critical Connection

My colleagues and I have had many experiences working with teams over the years. It’s typically a natural extension of our leadership development work. We’ve had extensive experience working with:

• New teams coming together for the first time with a significant mandate to deliver for their organization;
• Executive teams that are struggling, mired in conflict, dysfunction, or outright hostility toward one another;
• Cross-functional teams where leaders from across an organization come together to work on a mission-critical priority; and
• Teams made up of leaders from different organizations, such as public-private partnerships or strategic alliances. Sorting out who is accountable in these teams is, at times, a challenge.

Regardless of the type of team, their purpose remains the same: to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.⁶ That’s the ultimate promise of teams, but it is one that many fail to achieve. Interestingly, many of these clients began to see an important connection between the ideas of the leadership contract and their application to teams. As a result, we started to pay more attention to teams through the lens of leadership accountability. As we looked to the research in the area, we found some interesting insights on teams and accountability. For example, Katzenbach and Smith, two pioneers in the area of teams and teamwork, found in their work that we do not understand how accountability plays out in teams. They believe that no group ever becomes a team until it can hold itself accountable as a team.⁷

In his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni found that avoiding accountability was a common challenge for many teams.⁸ A recent article by Joseph Grenny in the Harvard Business Review found that the weakest teams demonstrate little to no accountability. In weak teams, the team leader is the source of all accountability.⁹ In the strongest teams, the team members manage most issues and performance problems among themselves. That’s the telltale sign of an accountable team. Based on these insights, it’s clear we have much work to do to understand how teams can be more accountable and thereby more successful. These insights are important, as they shed light on what is really required to build and sustain high-performing teams—accountability.

Now it’s important to understand that when many think about teams and accountability in teams, they believe it’s all about the team leader holding the team accountable. That’s certainly part of it, but it’s even more powerful when team members learn to hold each other accountable and have the courage to hold the team leader accountable as well. I believe this is the ideal end state, and we need to create truly accountable teams where each team member is accountable at an individual level and mutually accountable to one another. So how do we make this happen? We need to start by understanding the characteristics of truly accountable teams.

The Core Characteristics of Truly Accountable Teams

Through our client work with many teams, we began to glean important ideas and develop a deeper appreciation of the core characteristics that define what it means to be a truly accountable team.

The first insight we had is that accountable teams balance an interplay between individual and collective accountability. If team members are not accountable at an individual level, then it will require significant work, time, and energy to cultivate and sustain mutual accountability at a team level. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked to work with a team in trouble, only to see that their issues are not team issues, but individual leadership accountability issues. Some of the team members were not stepping up individually, not being accountable, and thereby undermining the success of the team. The other team members couldn’t count on them, and this creates conflict.

The second insight we gained was that truly accountable teams demonstrate two critical dimensions: team clarity and team commitment. The figure below further defines each of these two dimensions (see Figure 5.1).

These two dimensions are invaluable as a way of thinking about driving mutual accountability and sustaining high team performance over the long term. It doesn’t matter what kind of team you are leading, or how many teams you are leading—these two dimensions are critical.

Accountable Teams—What the Research Reveals

To better understand the dimensions of team clarity and team commitment, we conducted a focused study.¹⁰ We deployed several data collection strategies. First, we surveyed close to 100 companies of various sizes from different industries on the state of teams in their organizations. Second, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with several chief human resources officers. Finally, we analyzed the data from a diagnostic assessment tool and interviews we used when working with executive teams. The research revealed five key findings:

1. We found that the vast majority of teams are seen to be mediocre.
2. We were able to assess team clarity and team commitment and determine the strengths and gaps that currently exist among most teams.
3. We found that the dimensions of team clarity and team commitment are positively correlated, and if you increase clarity, you automatically increase commitment.
4. We found that high-performing companies have more accountable teams compared to those identified as average- and poor-performing ones.
5. Finally, we found that teams in high-performing companies score consistently higher on all behaviors of accountable teams compared to those on average- and poor-performing companies.

1. The Vast Majority of Teams Are Mediocre

Respondents identified that 80 percent of teams in their companies are mediocre or weak (see Figure 5.2). They also reported that 19 percent of teams in their organizations as being good. Only 1 percent of teams were seen as being truly accountable.

These findings are sobering and quite concerning. Given the importance of teamwork in organizations today, it is clear we need to do a much better job of building truly accountable teams. Let’s continue.

2. Team Clarity and Team Commitment—a Current Snapshot

In the survey, we asked respondents to rate 32 behaviors on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). We found several behaviors across all types of teams that were rated higher compared to other behaviors for both the team clarity and team commitment dimensions.

Team Clarity—Highest- to Lowest-Rated Items

Figure 5.3 presents the highest- to lowest-rated items for the team clarity dimension.

As you can see, the top three highest-rated items on the team clarity dimension include clarity on the needs of customers, clarity on the collective goals of the team, and clarity on the primary obligation of the team to drive success. As we look at the bottom three lowest-rated items, we see teams struggling with their ability to influence key stakeholders, understanding where they stand as a team, and how to align work across the organization.

It seems that teams focus their energies on gaining clarity on what they must do to be successful. Yet, they may struggle in how they must go about achieving their objectives, especially as this seems to be a particular challenge when working with other teams and key stakeholders across the organization.

Team Commitment—Highest- to Lowest-Rated Items

Figure 5.4 presents the highest- to lowest-rated items for the team commitment dimension.

As you can see, the highest-rated items reveal that teams are passionate about the future of their organization, genuinely care about one another, and set high standards for the team. These are good strengths for any team to have. However, when we look at the lowest-rated items, it shows that teams struggle to tackle tough issues and have difficult conversations. They don’t drive collaboration, nor can they break down silos across the organization. Finally, they have a difficult time holding one another accountable.

These findings suggest we have teams that have the best intentions to be passionate, to care for each other, and to aspire to high standards of performance. However, they struggle with some of the hard work that is required to build a truly accountable team, especially as it pertains to difficult work they must do as a team.

The other important insight in looking at the findings from both dimensions is that there is a tremendous opportunity for teams to get stronger. A rating of 3.8 out of 5 is okay, but most likely not strong enough for teams to perform at their best and drive extraordinary results.

5. Teams in High-Performing Companies Outpace Teams in Average- and Poor-Performing Companies

Another consistent finding was that teams in high-performing companies scored substantially higher on all items in the survey compared to teams in average- and poor-performing companies. Interestingly, teams in average-performing companies also scored higher than teams in poor-performing companies.

Team Clarity and Company Performance

As you can see in Figure 5.5, in the high-performing companies, accountable teams were rated higher in all four sub-scales of having high clarity on their business context, strategy, stakeholder expectations, and having clarity within the team.

You will also see that teams in average-performing companies score higher than teams in poor-performing companies. Again, this reveals the connection between strong team performance and company performance.

Team Clarity Behaviors and Company Performance

We also explored the net difference by company performance for each of the 32 behaviors in the survey. We found five items in particular in the team clarity dimension, where the net difference was the greatest (see Figure 5.6).

These results paint a clear picture of what matters most to teams when driving high team clarity. A team needs to be clear on its collective goals. It must understand how its mandate aligns with the organization’s overall priorities. It needs to be clear on the changes across the organization. It also needs to understand the leadership culture the team needs to succeed. Finally, it needs to be clear on how to align work across the organization. We will come back to these points later in the book.

Team Commitment Sub-Scales and Company Performance

Figure 5.7 shows the differences between company performance and the sub-scales of the team commitment dimension.

Once again, we see that accountable teams in industry-leading companies were stronger in each of the four sub-scales.

Team Commitment Behaviors and Company Performance

Figure 5.8 shows the team commitment behaviors where we saw the largest net difference between the industry-leading and average- and poor-performing companies.

The most important aspect of commitment is that team members are passionate about the future of the organization. They then demonstrate accountability for executing the organization’s strategic priorities. They support each other’s development as leaders. They work together to break down silos and drive collaboration across the organization. Finally, they hold each other accountable and call out unproductive leadership behavior when it arises on the team.

These findings suggest what behaviors set truly accountable teams apart from others and how this difference contributes to delivering results.

Final Thoughts

Although teams have always been essential, there’s a clear sense from the leaders and organizations I work with that teams matter more today than ever before. Whether it’s an executive team, departmental team, cross-functional project team, or even a team established with external partners and suppliers, organizations have higher expectations of teams. Unfortunately, at a time when we are increasingly relying on teams, it’s clear they are not stepping up to meet these increasing expectations. You are being counted on to build strong and truly accountable teams.