The best strategy in the world will not work without effective implementation.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in implementation is a lack of Accountability.
Accountability is one of the five pillars of teamwork excellence, according to Patrick Lencioni – in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – and I could not agree more.
Accountability begins with you – the leader.
Management Guru Peter Drucker once said: “The most important person you manage is yourself.”
Can your team trust you to follow through on your promises? Do you get everything done by when you say you will? Do you bring your “A” game to every project. Do you make things right when you make a mistake? Pittsburgh Steelers Football Coach, Mike Tomlin, is fond of saying “The standard is the standard.” What standard are you setting?
By the way, even if you are not “the boss,” you can still influence the performance of your team when you hold yourself accountable to high standards.
Once you are fulfilling high standards for yourself with respect to Accountability, then it is time to hold others accountable. This does not mean that you need to be a jerk about it. You are simply asking others to fall in line with the standard you have set.
After every team meeting, make sure that someone has taken notes that are distributed to the team. The most important section of the notes are commitments that team members have agreed to, such as “Rob has agreed to provide an update on customer satisfaction statistics one day before our next meeting.”
If people do not fulfill their promises, you need to follow up with them – and this can be done privately: “Rob, you had promised that customer satisfaction report by yesterday, but I have not seen it. Please provide an update.”
Leaders who let even little promises slide show that they are accepting a culture of mediocrity, instead of excellence. In this example, talk with Rob about what is going on and provide some firm coaching. Support him in making sure this does not happen again.
Set high standards for yourself and your team. Whether you decide to quote Mike Tomlin or not, you can let them know – by your example – that “the standard is the standard.”
