When leaders think about building accountability and commitment, many common strategies are focused on individuals. With so much of our work focused on collaboration, how can we reward teams?
A recent blog by the Harvard Business Review provided some good suggestions.
- Make sure the team knows what you expect, and then check in regularly. Acknowledge good work, celebrate milestones, and provide timely feedback on problems.
- Be creative with non-monetary rewards. A pizza lunch can be fun, but many teams would rather have a chance to present their report to a senior leader.
- Talk in terms of teamwork. Modeling collaborative behavior will reinforce the importance you place on the team’s efforts.
- Emphasize team accomplishments. Where appropriate, consider doing a formal team evaluation and/or including team performance in individual evaluations.
Even more than in the past, our success going forward will depend on successfully building commitment for groups of people to work together collaboratively toward a common goal. How might you need to adjust your leadership strategies to build group accountability and commitment as well as that of individual team members?
Dee Anne Bonebright
Higher EDge 