How the Cycle of Accountability Can Keep Your Team Moving Forward: Tips for Leaders, Managers, Team Builders and Collaborators
Managers running a team, regardless of size, are responsible for the success of a given project. This can potentially come with a great deal of pressure, particularly if the company culture or the group dynamic is feeling stagnant, unmotivated, or downright dysfunctional. A manager’s first responsibility to a team’s overall success is to establish trust, and that’s where the Cycle of Accountability can lay the foundation for a successful group dynamic.
Thanks to Dr. LaWanda Yanosik Holland, Founder and President of Sustainable Outcomes, for teaching us about the Cycle of Accountability which aims to identify snags in the flow of a project or work environment and build behaviors through open communication that will prevent or course-correct those issues.
Read on for an in-depth look at how the Cycle of Accountability works - and how it can help establish trust and build healthy communication for your team.
What is the Cycle of Accountability?
The Cycle of Accountability breaks down the stages of a project into four parts:
Preparation, where an initial request is made and a team assesses the capacity to meet that request
Negotiation of the scope and specific deliverables associated with the project
Performance of the team to fulfill the request
Completion and delivery for approval or a request for changes
It’s important to remember that the first three steps in the process need to be flexible. As a project evolves, there will be movement back and forth between these stages in which a request may be renegotiated or canceled based on new information, changes in availability, or any new ideas that will bring the project in a new direction. These stages are meant to be a continual conversation until all parties have agreed upon the conditions of the project.
In these early stages, people may be reluctant to commit if they are afraid to set a boundary or too busy to give a direct report the guidance they need. As a manager, the responsibility will fall to you to mitigate any confusion, miscommunication, or lost time while these changes are being negotiated. Once the project reaches the completion stage, outcomes will be assessed by the project’s stakeholders, including the client, external collaborator, or other colleagues involved in the work, and will either be accepted or declined. If declined, the project should continue, but only with adequate feedback and additional considerations for how to deliver on an updated request.
The second part of the process in the Cycle of Accountability is to establish an accountability ladder, in which you as a manager will help your team build accountable behaviors. This will be critical to the health and success of any project. Accountable behaviors include:
Adaptability and willingness to adjust expectations when something in the project changes
Commitment to resolving any inevitable issues that arise during the project
Accepting ownership of a given situation
Acknowledging the reality of the situation you are in when it comes to making promises
Whatever happens during the course of the project will largely be within your control, so it’s important to accept the responsibility of that oversight and to remind yourself you have the power to ensure a way out of any difficult situations.
The accountability ladder is a direct attempt to prevent more avoidant behaviors that will threaten the success of the project. When issues arise, some team members will eschew responsibility, feeling instead like they should just wait and hope for a situation to resolve itself, set limitations on themselves regarding their own capabilities, make personal excuses or blame others for any potential missteps.
What Stands in the Way?
A common obstacle to achieving a good flow among team members is disengagement, particularly when one person removing themselves from the process adds more work to others, which will quickly throw things out of balance. When considering bringing on a new project, a new client, or a new initiative, the first step will be an honest assessment of the social styles, strengths, areas for growth, and level of engagement of each member of your team. Where do you expect this new work to fall into their current workload? What priorities can be adjusted to make room for the new project? Which team members will be the most amenable to those changes, and which will be the most resistant?
This assessment will also help you delegate work early on in the process; a major hurdle in achieving success can be an unwillingness to let go of control. Your team is there for a reason; don’t forget to embrace the very reasons they were brought on board to support you in the first place.
Overpromising can also be a culprit in a breakdown of the process. In professional settings, many people agree to certain requirements or deadlines, even when they may not be realistic and even when their managers have not provided enough information for them to adequately complete the task, out of the fear of being difficult or seeming incompetent. As a manager, it’s crucial to make the space for your team to voice these concerns; the alternative would be setting them up to fail. Applying pressure to over promise for the sake of impressing a new client or hitting an unrealistic goal is short-sighted, and as a manager, it’s your responsibility to assess how overpromising can hurt your reputation with clients rather than help it.
Negotiation is a key part of the Cycle of Accountability, and as a manager, that part of the process will largely be in your hands. It’s tempting to agree to anything a stakeholder asks for up front for the sake of building a positive relationship, but counteroffers are always an option - in fact, they are to be expected. The sooner adjustments are made to the scope of a project, the sooner the accountability ladder can be established, and the better chance you have of setting agreeable deliverables and deadlines. Counteroffers are always there to be leveraged to ensure your team has the resources they need.
How to Implement Accountability Among Your Team
For managers, understanding how the cycle works and where each team member lands in that cycle at any given time is going to be critical for maintaining a consistently functional team. Taking the time to build accountable behaviors and recognize the fluidity of each stage of a project early on will reflect positively on your management style as it establishes a certain level of responsibility and takes away any sense of shame or embarrassment team members may have when they need to voice a concern. Allowing space for those voices to be heard helps set healthy boundaries and reasonable expectations with the client, ensuring a positive relationship as the project continues to move forward.
The planning of a project will take time, so don’t be afraid to budget as much time as you need to accurately define the scope, agree upon a realistic timeline, and most importantly, negotiate based on the needs and capabilities of your team to keep expectations as clear as possible from the beginning. As tempting as it may be to dive right into a new project and get to work, the early stages deserve adequate attention and will be worth the investment in the long run.
To learn more about implementing the Cycle of Accountability with your team, book a team training session to get your team aligned and ready to take on any new project that comes your way.
About the Author
Jackie Miller launched Bespoken in 2015 to channel years of professional performance experience into techniques that improve public speaking, presenting, and professional communication skills. She holds a B.F.A. and M.A. both from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.