When team members don’t get along, one of the biggest sources of conflict is a lack of team accountability.
And when you look at A study of high performance teams, one common characteristic is that team accountability is not just the role of the manager—the team holds each other (and their manager) accountable. When you talk to high-performing teams, it’s easy to see that this team accountability doesn’t just happen. They are working on it. They talk about it. And they have the tools to handle it when things go wrong.
If you’ve read our first book, Winning Well, or participated in one of our foundational leadership development programs, you’ve likely come across our INSPIRE method for accountability conversations. (If you’re interested in how to use INSPIRE for performance feedback conversations, start here.)
The INSPIRE method can also be used as a practical way to address accountability issues with anyone you work with.
As we teach in our confrontation and collaboration courses, effective confrontational conversation involves connection, curiosity, and commitment. The INSPIRE method is a way to guide your conversation through these stages.
How to inspire better team accountability
Essay
Start by connecting to the person and the topic you want to discuss by I – initiating the conversation, N – noticing the behavior and S – giving supporting examples.
Me – initiating the conversation respectfully and stating your intention
In the first step, they connect and clarify. It could be something as simple as “My intent for our conversation is to make sure we can get this project done with minimal disruption 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 that a convenient time?”
Or, if you have a sensitive or more serious conversation in mind, you could say something like, “I really care about this project and our working relationship. We’re behind on our commitments and I have some ideas that might help. Do you have time later today to talk?”
So you N – pay attention and share your observation.
Here you start with your experience of the situation. Keep the focus on what you saw, not what you think their behavior means. We are very intentional in using the word “note” because you tin Pay attention to the behavior, but you Hypocrisy Pay attention to the approach.
For example, you wouldn’t want to say to your coworker, “I noticed you’re lazy.” Instead, focus on observable behaviors. For example, “I noticed 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 lack thereof) in the imaginary video. These are observable behaviors.
And the last step of the CONNECT step is S – Support, where you provide supporting evidence.
For example, “I noticed you joined our meetings late. Today’s Zoom meeting started at 8 and you joined at 8:15. Yesterday’s team meeting started at 4:00 and you joined at 4:20.”
Good communication makes all the difference when having a team accountability conversation with a colleague.
curiosity
The real magic of the INSPIRE method comes in the CURIOSITY phase. This is where you ask open-ended questions to encourage them to think about what’s going on.
When you P-test it can be something as simple as, “What’s going on?” Or, “What does it look like from your perspective?” The key to this step is to ask with genuine curiosity. Maybe there is a great reason for what happened. You don’t want to assume a character flaw or bad intent.
Then, in the I-Invite phase, you ask them to come up with ideas for dealing with the situation. “How do you think we can get the data from your group in time?” Or, “What do you think you can do to ensure you can be at our meetings on time?”
commitment
And the last step in the INSPIRE process is commitment.
This phase starts with R – review. Here you summarize their commitment. This is a comprehension test. “Great, so what I hear you’re going to do is talk to the developers and let them know you need to finish this project before you go full force on it?” Or, “So, you’re going to see if you can remove some appointments from your calendar so you’re not always running back to back (and late).”
Finally, encourage your team E – Enforce. This is where they schedule a follow-up to discuss their new commitment. “So we have two more rounds on this project this month. Can we set up a time on the 30th at 3pm 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 key power expressions as well.
For example, in the connection phase, you can say.
“I care about _____ (you, this team, this project) and I’m sure we can find a solution we can all work with.”
Or connect first with their emotion
“It sounds like you feel _____ is that true? [pause for affirmation]. Thank you for telling me how you feel.” Here’s how I feel. I noticed…”
Or in the curiosity phase, you could say
“What would success look like to you?”
And then in the commitment phase, you might close with,
“So, to sum up our conversation, we agreed to _________. Is that your understanding?”
And, “Let’s schedule some time to talk about this again, and see how our solution works,”
The INSPIRE method is a proven method for making team responsibilities natural and helps prevent conflict escalation.
For more important conversations about team accountability, see…
How to Build a High Performance Team: Ten Essential Conversations
