Establishing, discussing, and sustaining accountability in your team: Seven strategies

By L. Michelle Bennett, Michael O’Rourke, and Edgar Cardenas

How can I hold my teammates accountable?

Being willing and able to hold yourself and others accountable depends heavily on the collaborative culture created by the team (see previous i2Insights contribution by L. Michelle Bennett on Mindset matters for interdisciplinary teams: Choose a collaborative one).

Collaborative cultures characterized by psychological safety, transparency, and an ability to engage in productive conflict provide the strongest foundation for accountability. Purposefully defining the team culture, including how the team will integrate the value of accountability and implement behaviors and norms aligned with it, will have a strong return on investment.

Below are seven strategies and practical approaches to promote accountability within your research team:

1. Establish a clear team vision: To set the stage for accountability, begin by establishing clear goals and objectives for your research program. This may sound obvious, but we have worked with teams whose members have different understandings of their ultimate goal and milestones. This clarity provides a roadmap for progress. Keep in mind that it is not unusual for project goals and objectives to shift over the course of a collaboration. As such, revisiting the goals and objectives on a semi-annual or annual basis can help ensure the vision is always clear.
   Practical Approach: Hold a kick-off meeting or workshop where team members collectively agree on their shared vision, project goals, and objectives. Document the shared understanding in your research plan and/or your collaboration agreement to serve as a reference point throughout the collaboration.
2. Establish clear expectations: Ensure that each team member understands their roles and responsibilities. Then begin developing agreements about shared expectations. In other words, what can you expect from each other? Get detailed and very explicit about the steps the team will take to meet those expectations. This exercise will also help you tease out interdependencies among team members and aspects of the research project. Then jointly decide on the repercussions for not meeting expectations. Doing this before the team needs to consider them ensures everyone understands what will happen if a team member begins developing a pattern of behavior that is inconsistent with the team norms, such as failing to attend team meetings, missing deadlines, or not communicating in a timely manner. We advocate for repercussions focused on engaging in dialogue about what is leading to the observed behaviors, not thinking that repercussions somehow need to be punitive in nature. For example, a team might recognize that unmet expectations mean that some adjustments need to be made in how the team is approaching its work and so it schedules that conversation.
   Practical Approach: Pull the group together for a series of meetings where team members collectively outline roles and responsibilities, establish timelines, and agree on expectations. Behavioral, procedural, and project expectations should be accompanied by an articulation of the process that will be followed should a conversation about accountability be needed. The agenda may include a discussion among participants about what is different now as compared to when the team agreements were put in place. That provides a starting point for figuring out, collaboratively, what next steps can be taken.
3. Regular check-ins and progress updates: Regular communication is essential for building and maintaining a culture that includes accountability. Schedule periodic check-in meetings where team members can share progress updates, discuss any challenges or obstacles encountered, and seek support or feedback from peers. Use the meetings as opportunities to share achievements, address concerns, and realign efforts if necessary. By fostering a communication culture based on deliberate dialogue, team members can hold themselves and each other accountable in a supportive environment.
   Practical Approach: Learn how to facilitate meetings to maximize the team’s synchronous time and intentionally develop practices to engage in productive dialogue. Implement weekly or bi-weekly team stand-ups to review progress, run through the status of deliverables, and identify any issues that need attention. Utilize tools such as a shared collaborative space, project management software, or shared documents to track tasks and monitor progress in real-time.
4. It starts with you: Hold yourself accountable: Accountability is a two way street. It is just as important, if not more so, to be able to hold yourself accountable as it is to learn how to hold others accountable. Ultimately, it starts with you. If you try to hold someone else accountable for meeting expectations and you are not doing your part to meet the expectations others have of you, your credibility will be questioned. This point applies to everyone on the team: holding yourself accountable is part of being a teammate regardless of whether you are in a leadership or participant role.
   Practical Approach: Track the commitments you have made to the team and communicate when you have met an expectation. Actively ask people if they are waiting on anything from you. If you anticipate that you will struggle to achieve or deliver something that is expected, don’t beat around the bush or make excuses. Be upfront, communicate openly what the status is, share your current timeline, and ask people what impact(s) or unanticipated negative consequences this will have on them so you can develop mitigation plans as needed.
5. Agree on how to discuss holding your team members accountable: When planning to enter a conversation where you want to test a suspicion that someone else is not holding themselves accountable to the team, ensure you approach it with sensitivity, curiosity, and specificity. Share with your team member(s) what you think happened while giving them the benefit of the doubt. Start by describing the situation you witnessed, in as much detail as possible, and ascertain if they see it similarly or differently. That way, you start the conversation by surfacing and pooling information you each have, which can then help you move to the next steps of exploring what did happen. This sets the stage for learning from it so that the team can mitigate any immediate challenges and adjust expectations, if appropriate, in the future.
   Practical Approach: Develop a clear and agreed upon process for engaging in conversations about holding yourself or team members accountable. Having a process in place will help everyone understand what is leading you to have the discussion and can outline an approach for engaging in it. Document it in your collaboration agreement.
6. Promote a culture of trust and psychological safety: If a team cultivates a culture where transparency, vulnerability, curiosity, and sensitivity are valued, a willingness and ability to give and receive constructive feedback can follow. Teams should co-develop processes that enable members to communicate about their progress and challenges, as well as areas where they need assistance. The emphasis here is on the future and continuous improvement, rather than looking back, which tends to lead to blame or criticism. Strive to intentionally build a team culture in which members can hold each other accountable for maintaining high standards of performance.
   Practical Approach: Facilitate regular retrospective review meetings to reflect on lessons learned and identify areas for improvement. Establish peer mentoring or feedback groups where team members learn to provide constructive feedback to their colleagues and coach each other on developing strong skills to do so.
7. Lead by example: Accountability within a team is heavily influenced by those in leadership positions. If team leaders want the team to be accountable, they must lead by example. Team members will act in ways that reflect their leaders’ behaviors. Demonstrate a strong commitment to accountability by honoring agreed upon expectations, communicating openly, and holding yourself to the same standards as other team members. By modeling accountability, leaders can inspire and motivate others to do the same.
   Practical Approach: Look for opportunities to hold yourself accountable in front of your team. This could be as simple as being explicit about a difficult decision you had to make in order to remain committed to team expectations. This can be an important step in building a team culture that embraces and benefits from accountability.

This i2Insights contribution is based on our experience as the Team Science Faculty for the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator program, working with research teams funded by the program during their first nine months (Phase I), as detailed in our i2Insights contribution: Team science is an integral competency for the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Convergence Accelerator Program.

What’s your experience with accountability in teamwork? Do you have additional lessons or experience to share?

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence).

Biography: L. Michelle Bennett, PhD is the Principal and Owner of L.M. Bennett Consulting, LLC, based in Potomac, Maryland, USA, having departed her position as Director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute in 2021. Her main areas of interest are creating collaborative cultures, maximizing creativity and innovation within teams and organizations, and guiding teams in developing strategic approaches to their work and their team relationships.

Biography: Michael O’Rourke PhD directs the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) and is Executive Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing, USA, where he is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in AgBioResearch. He is a founding member of TDI, which has been funded by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and several US National Science Foundation programs.

Biography: Edgar Cardenas PhD is an Associate Director for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center at Michigan State University in East Lansing, USA. His work focuses on developing collaborative capacity for cross-disciplinary teams through structured dialogue and collective creativity approaches for strategic planning.