Part 16 – Mutual Accountability and Selfless Collaboration
This post is a lesson excerpt from the How to incrementally improve your Team course
Mutual Accountability (all for one and one for all)
Mutual accountability is one of the key foundation stones of a team. It means that team members accept that they are accountable ‘to each other, which guarantees better performance and excellence in teamwork. Being accountable ‘to each other’ means team members accept that the team’s successes or failures fall on all of their shoulders.
If a team member has a failure, then the whole team shares the failure and embarrassment. Successes are similarly shared. When a team member has a success, the whole team celebrates and is proud of that success. Mutual accountability implies that each team member’s work activities effectively belong to the entire team. Everything is shared.
Each team member cannot be held accountable for other team member’s primary work duties, but everyone does share responsibility for each team member’s outcomes. This means that all team members need to take an active interest in how well everyone is doing. For example, a new team member needs training, therefore the entire team needs to lend a hand and mentor the new person whenever they can. If an existing team member is underperforming, then everyone should be trying to assist that person in any way they can.
Selfless collaboration
This is the finest quality of a team where people are working together to achieve any task, each other’s performance goals, and the common goal. In great teams, there is a very high level of initiative, sharing of ideas and cohesiveness amongst the team members. The members of a high performing team for example, act as business partners and they enjoy a higher degree of flexibility to achieve work goals. Planning and coordination are done by the team members collectively instead of being undertaken by a manager exclusively.
How does it work?
All team members are expected to volunteer their time and effort to assist for the sake of the common good. Accordingly, all team members need to take a constructive interest and participate in all of the team’s activities as and when required.
Selfless collaboration means in practice, that each team member will assist other team members in completing their work. Each team member has an obligation to fulfil their own responsibilities and be accountable for their own work but after completion of their work, each team member is willing to assist others with the completion of their work.
It is the concept that all work is shared. Another example is that if a team member is struggling with a project, then that team member would request assistance and the other team members would immediately assist.
The best way to get team members to accept selfless collaboration is to:
Advise them that they are expected to volunteer their time to assist others after they have completed their own work.
They are expected to assist others even when their own work is not complete if another team member is struggling.
When a team member has individual success, they are expected to celebrate as a team success.
Practising Selfless Collaboration facilitates team members learning about other areas or work functions, expanding their knowledge and skill base. It is an opportunity to extend each team member’s knowledge and understanding as it facilitates the learning of another business discipline or field of work. In mature teams, team member’s positions are transposable, that is, they are swapped around on the basis that once they have mastered ‘management skills’ they can manage any function. An Infrastructure Manager might be swapped with a Development Manager, for example, and vice versa. Titles become transparent, only the positions individual responsibilities and accountabilities matter.