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Defining clear roles and responsibilities is a common “go to” solution for team leaders when things break down on your team. But what if you could define roles and responsibilities in a way that also improves accountability?
Common breakdowns on a team include missed deadlines or people not keeping their commitments to each other. It can also include important things falling through the cracks with no one taking ownership. The symptoms of these breakdowns are often some combination of finger pointing at “them” and justifying that “I did my part”.
Defining clear roles and responsibilities is a best practice for forming a successful team. However, while this practice may temporarily address the breakdowns, the underlying problems caused by a lack of clarity often re-emerge. That is why I recommend you go a step further by also implementing the foundation for increasing accountability. The combination of both clarifying roles and responsibilities and implementing practices for accountability will facilitate sustainable high performance.
Two Steps to Improving Team Performance
First, take the time to clearly define (or re-define) the role of each team member. This includes the specific responsibilities for each role which ensures that you have the right people and the right skills on the team to accomplish your team’s mission. In doing so, you clarify the kinds of contributions each team member can make. This clarity gives everyone on the team an understanding of what you can call upon specific people to do.
The second step, is for team members to get clear about what they need from each other to succeed. It is this second step that is rarely attended to. Yet this step is the key to creating the level of accountability essential to high performance.
Following is a further explanation of each step, why they matter and how they work together to ensure high performance.
Step 1: How Do You Define Roles and Responsibilities?
An individual role on a team is not the same as a job description. Roles of individual team members are driven by the mission of the team and the skills, experience, knowledge, etc. that are essential to accomplishing the team’s goals. The team leader’s (or project managers) roles and responsibilities are perhaps the easiest to define. They are accountable for the team’s success, which often begins by defining success. Their role is to build the team and guide the strategy, planning, and execution. Of course, the team leader’s ultimate role is to lead and manage the team to success.
Team roles are defined based on the contribution required from each team member to accomplish the mission.
Consider these domains of contribution when defining every team members role:
- Expertise and/or Knowledge (i.e., What do they know?)
- Experience (i.e., What have they done?)
- Capabilities (i.e, What are they capable of doing for the team?)
Responsibilities are defined by the type of engagement the team requires from the individual in their role.
Said another way, what are you specifically counting on them to do for the team?
For example:
- Offer guidance and advice.
- Contribute strategic thinking.
- Generate innovative ideas.
- Perform a specific task or type of task.
There is no doubt that clearly defining roles and responsibilities can help to facilitate the effectiveness of a team. But this is not enough if you want to create the conditions for high performance.
Why Defining Roles and Responsibilities Alone is Not Enough
To ensure sustainable high performance, there is an implied belief that if roles and responsibilities are clear (i.e., everyone knows what they are supposed to do), then things will get done and run smoothly. I’ll suggest that belief is a myth and here’s why.
Roles and responsibilities are a kind of boundary separating one persons role from another. They are useful when it comes to delegating tasks and managing work. However, clearly defined roles and responsibilities on their own are insufficient to support and encourage teamwork.
This is because boundaries are what separate people rather than bring them together. When you only define the boundaries, you will inevitably discover something you have not clearly defined. And it will only be a matter of time before something else falls through the cracks. When this happens you will find yourself attempting to yet again define roles and responsibilities.
Besides, does the diagram below really look like a team to you?
Yet the traditional organizational chart is exactly the context you reinforce when you focus purely on defining roles and responsibilities. Which leads to the essential second step which is to define how the “boxes” connect. In other words, you also need to define how the people who sit in the box for each role will actually work together to optimize the positive impact.
Step 2: Defining What You Can Count on from Each Other
There is something simple, yet incredibly important, missing from the traditional definition of roles and responsibilities. What is missing is clarity regarding what team members can count on from each other. It is this step that enables you to increase accountability on your team.
By clarifying how people can and must support each other, you ensure that the work gets done and that the relationships work. This is a highly effective approach for improving teamwork and results.
When you define roles and responsibilities, you are clarifying what each team member can do and is expected to do. But it is only when team members develop a better understanding of what they can count on from each other that you will create the conditions for sustained success. Clarity and confidence in what you can count on from each other also replaces the “I did my part” but “they did not do theirs” phenomenon with an attitude of “what do we need to do to succeed”.
Said simply, the performance of a team is a direct reflection of the ability of team members to depend on one another.
How to Make the Shift FROM Doing My Part TO Doing What it Takes to Succeed Together
Do you want to stop things from falling through the cracks? Are you interested in empowering people to take personal responsibility for doing what needs to be done? Would you rather have people focused on producing results rather than worrying about whose job it is to do what?
Then clarify the connections between team members by having them actively negotiate agreements with each other to ensure mutual success. This is how you begin to build a bridge between the hierarchical model we have inherited and the practices essential to being effective in a dynamic work environment.
Using this approach causes a shift FROM my job vs. your job thinking TO a mindset of what do we each need to do to ensure our shared success.
When team members make promises to each other and honor them, they empower both their working relationships and their team’s success. When people ask for what they need with confidence that their teammates will deliver, everyone wins. This is what accountability looks like in action.
How Defining Roles, Responsibilities and Accountability Work Together
When you BOTH attend to clarifying roles and responsibilities AND develop accountable relationships, your team is equipped to learn and adapt together to deal with whatever comes next.
Roles and responsibilities will never be perfectly defined because you will rarely be able to think of everything that someone will need to do in advance. In addition, unanticipated circumstances will inevitably arise. But when you develop the discipline of clarifying agreements between people given their roles, teamwork flourishes.
By focusing not only on what each team member must do as individuals, but also on what team members can count on from each other, you build trust and develop an accountable culture.
When you both clearly define roles and responsibilities, as well as define what team members can count on from each other, you build the practice of accountability into the structure of your team’s relationships. This is a winning combination, not only for better results, but also for building a sustainable foundation for high performance.
I love this article, Susan. One of the exercises I use with teams has them outline for each of their key relationships: What am I willing to give? and What do I need to receive?”
Once they are clear about this, they have that conversation with each of their key relationships. Together, they identify the gap between what the other person needs, and what they’re willing to give, and vice versa.
This gap is where the dialog takes place, as they work out their commitments to each other. They walk away with an agreement. It’s an energizing process that eliminates a lot of “guess what’s on my mind.”
I love these two questions you’ve posed:
What promises does each team member make to the rest of the team that contributes to the result we are committed to producing together?
What promises do we specifically make to each other and what do we need from each other to keep those promises?
Thanks for a thought provoking article!
That is a great exercise Ava. I appreciate your using the word gap in this context. By closing the gap of understanding by creating agreements we do eliminate the “guess what’s on my mind”, as well as the expectations that go along with thinking others should know what we mean and what we expect.
Thanks for adding to the thinking here.
“Committing to each other is a living entity.” Well said Monica!
Thanks for sharing this article Sonia. I’d be interested in hearing about the difference adding this conversation to the mix in your new project makes.
Suzan, Great Post! In today’s scenario this is an issue which is seeking attention of management traditions and organisation hierarchies. If we take the diagram example the team members are the actual assets who are the driving force and providing value to the company. The titles, hierarchies maybe relevant from process point of view, but they might affect individual ideation, innovation very often.
Kapil
@kapilpoojari
By no means do I disagree with anything that has been written here, in Susan’s article or the many comments. In fact, i agree wholeheartedly. However, we may be missing a critical nuance in the thesis that “role definitions” are the problem, rather than focusing on how “role definitions” are used and people’s general response to them.
Roles, and mutual expectations of one another’s roles, are important to team success. Some of these roles may be pre-determined and “defined”; some may be more situational. In any case, we all have primary, secondary, tertiary… roles on a team. All team members must share a common role, which is critical and often missing, which leads to the problems described in this article and thread of discussion: that is, team members must have a primary focus to support and pursue the mission and purpose of the team.
Roles can provide necessary focus and a healthy way of organizing effort just as they can get in the way, lead to “siloing”, etc. One key to success is recognizing that regardless of your defined role, your default responsibility is to pursue and the support the team’s mission in collaboration with other team members. One might say this is Job No. 1.
My experience in over 20 years of coaching and working with teams is that lack of role awareness is one of a handful of root causes of team disfunction. The problem arises once those roles are “defined” – and how they are defined – and especially when people do not support the team with their discretionary behavior.
Focus your attentions on self-motivated discretionary behaviors that support team mission and you will see significant increases in collective performance and satisfaction. Susan offers excellent suggestions and do a few commenters. Right vs. Wrong and Win-Lose conflicts will turn into innovative, collaborative, idea-generating conflict and We-All-Win competition.
Read “The Measure of a Leader”, by Daniels and Daniels. Excellent book which provides research and perspective on this and similar issues.
Great point Rick – by focusing so much on the boundaries we impede both engagement and innovation, as well as collaboration.
I am looking forward to working with you in The Art of Accountability Webinar starting next week.
As usual, you mirror my experience! Defining roles is comforting because it is something to do. Straightforward, open and shut, done when its done! Committing to eachother on the other hand is a living entity! You commit daily. You face each other and figure it out every single time. In energizes and revitalizes like nothing else. Working on the connectedness is a bit messy, but so engaging! Accountability is definitely an art, and you master it!
Susan — terrific post! Accountability and ownership are key to successful professional and personal outcomes. One element I would add is that of accountability to oneself, e.g. taking personal initiative to make things happen be it going beyond the scope of job duties (without having to be told) or partnering with a colleague to mutually define what we own and how we’ll hold each other accountable for completing it.
Good post! The one disadvantage to being wrapped up into responsibilities is that it eventually develops silos within a business. Silos don’t lead to innovation as much as collaboration does. When people have a “it’s not my problem it’s theirs” mentality, nothing good will come from it.
[…] the individual commits whole-heartedly to learning, performing and improving. They own and are responsible for their performance; the leader owns holding them consistently […]
Your blog post, Susan, and the comments are all thought-provoking. Ava, in particular, I like the accessible language you use for conducting a conversation too few of us feel comfortable having yet need to have.
Blame it on the time of day (actually night, here in Singapore) that I’m writing this, but if we replaced these nouns: accountability, responsibility, roles, e.g. and distinguished the actions they could actually be referring to, we’d see whether we’d be accountablizing, role-ing, etc. Hmm … for that matter, what would we say about our place on the org chart … that we’re boxing?! 🙂
I highly recommend “The Power of Pull” by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison in the context of this post. John Seely Brown’s story of his surfing neighbors on Maui provide the answer for me. All members of the team are pursuing excellence in a world that has enough for everyone. No one believes that their success will diminish another team members chance for success.
I believe there is benefit in knowing what team members are taking responsibility for so there is operational efficiency, but it is a team in name only (TINO) if someone outside the team is defining roles and responsibilities. If that is the case it only confirms the lack of confidence of “management” that the team can do what they have been assigned.
Thanks for the book recommendation Paul.
Good points. I’d add that when a group of individuals are truly working as a team they are capable of far more then they would if they were just executing on their individual “jobs”. The whole truly is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Susan, Your blog informed mine:
Thank you for the inspiration.
Very funny!
Your point about using accessible language is so important Jeremy. It is too easy to “hide” behind the terms we have gotten used to using rather than mindfully choose language that provokes our thinking and raises our awareness.
So great to see you and thanks for stopping in all the way from Singapore!
Excellent point Drew. Getting “wrapped up in responsibilities” as you put it is the primary source of silos. If we want to break down those silos and create a “we” rather than a “us” vs. “them” mentality, I believe we must shift our focus to our commitments to each other in service of the outcomes we are accountable for producing,
[…] The Responsibility Myth by Susan Mazza […]
Your comment is packed with powerful points Thomas. Thank you for adding such richness to the discussion.
It is definitely not an either/or here. To your point, clarity about our boundaries, in this case in the form of roles and responsibilities, is important to healthy relationships.
Perhaps one of the best indications that an organization has likely defined roles and responsibilities in a way that is not healthy for the organization is the extent to which there is an “us vs them” dynamic.
[…] Assure the individual commits whole-heartedly to learning, performing and improving. Employees are responsible for their performance; the leader owns holding them consistently […]
You noted “roles and responsibilities are a kind of boundary”. Of course, boundaries are by definition limiting. Companies want employees to be both engaged and innovative, yet limitations serve neither end. Despite this, adherence to the practices that produce them remain common.
I appreciate this post for its willingness to challenge the status quo. It makes an excellent point of which all leaders should take note.
Thanks Susan!
I think that we must be impeccably clear about our boundaries. We must also be clear that healthy boundaries have permeability, allowing an exchange of our “goods” without acceptance of the “bads”, such as blame for the failing of a corporate endeavor. Boundaries should define roles and responsibilities, yet if they are mature, then they allow for flexibility, intimacy, expression, and acceptance (in fact, an embracing) that “nobody is smarter than all of us”. Healthy boundaries allow for “mutual interdependence”, and that point where all of our individual circles overlap becomes a powerful vortex of synergy and productivity! Thank you Susan… Respect!
Thank you Mark for adding richness and clarity in your comments.
You make a few points I want to emphasize: “lack of role awareness is one of a handful of root causes of team dysfunction.” – Absolutely, this is only one cause, not THE cause.
The problem arises once those roles are “defined” – and how they are defined – and especially when people do not support the team with their discretionary behavior… Focus your attentions on self-motivated discretionary behaviors that support team mission.” I think essentially this points to the difference between being accountable for your “defined tasks” vs. being accountable to the team’s shared commitment and doing whatever it takes, defined or not.
I believe a team’s success requires that we define BOTH clear roles AND promises to the team/other team members. I think it is our promises that ultimately drive the discretionary behavior you distinguished here. Defining roles is very useful and many times essential, but they are not enough to ensure collaboration or success.
Hi Susan,
I enjoyed your point about how defining roles and responsibilities can create teamwork accountability. Identifying connections between team members and clarifying their individual roles will lead to team success. In my opinion, this eliminates the false expectation that some team members think that they work harder than others. Ideally, most of the team members are cross-skilled and would help to create cohesiveness where everyone can help each other in different functions. I would have some reservations about team members negotiating tasks between each other, however. As a team leader it is my responsibility to assess and assign tasks based on the skills and abilities of the individual team members. I cannot measure success or performance if I am unaware of who is doing what, which would likely occur if individuals were negotiating tasks between themselves. Also, some people are better negotiators than others, and this could lead to a workload imbalance between team members.
Thank you Alejandra. You make some excellent points! One of the hallmarks of great teamwork is when team members know what they can depend on each other for so yes, those connections really do add to an experience of cohesiveness and acknowledging contributions. You bring up an interesting point regarding team members negotiating with each other. On the one hand, I can see where this could potentially create a workload imbalance among a team of people who report to you. Nonetheless, I do believe cultivating the skill of negotiating can ultimately elevate your team’s performance. It is, however, important that individuals that report to you know that when they make requests of each other they are simply requests (to which someone can say no!), vs. assigning each other work which can cause mischief. The larger the teams you lead though, the more the skill of asking for and negotiating for what you need from each other and offering what you can contribute can enhance team performance. Individuals will still keep you in the loop regarding what they are working on so you can still help to head off a potential imbalance. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts Alejandra!
in this new remote world. Lines of responsibility continue to get blurred, great and insightful post!
Thank you Redd! Working remotely definitely instensifies the issue of blurring lines.
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One of the biggest issues in leadership that I see in this day and age comes from the gaps left in ambiguity in roles for leaders. It definitely should be an actionable goal to make sure that leaders know what they’re responsible for.
Yes Dennis it is a big gap indeed! I think the historical way we approach defining jobs is a big part of the problem. We are not cogs in a wheel whose “jobs” can be defined by a discreet set of tasks. As leaders our job is to deliver on our promises for results and impact – not only the numbers like sales or budgets, but the culture we create including the way results are delivered, the relationships we build, and the possibilities we bring into existence. In other words we cannot define the role of a leader by what they do, but rather by what they promise and deliver on.