Now that your team trust one another, and they are willing to speak up and engage in healthy conflict, a decision still needs to be made and everyone needs to get on board with it.
How is this possible?
There are two key factors for commitment; buy-in and clarity. Team members must all be willing to support the team’s decisions and everyone must be on the same page regarding what those decisions and plans are.
Lencioni notes that this isn’t about waiting for consensus about a decision, rather it is about getting team members to commit to a decision without reservation. Teams that have conflict can do this because when people weigh-in, they buy-in.
In a survey of more than 4,000 people, 86% of people said they felt that team projects had suffered due to lack of commitment by other team members.
Take a moment to think about how big that is.
Now think about it in terms of your team or organisation. What projects are suffering because people aren’t committed? And why aren’t they committed? Is it because they didn’t get to weigh-in? Is it because they didn’t have clarity? Is it because they didn’t have trust so it was easier to just smile and nod and then go away and do their own thing?
So, what can we do about it? How do we achieve commitment?
The first step is to come up with some ground rules. Think of these as team expectations or standards of behaviour that everyone is expected to fulfil. Having these rules creates clarity around how team members interact with each other on an ongoing basis; remember, clarity is a key factor in achieving commitment.
A simple example for a ground rule for achieving commitment might be that in a meeting, silence is not agreeance. A lot of people assume that if someone doesn’t agree then they will say so, but this is rarely case, so a ground rule around silence not being agreeance forces team members to have to speak up and voice their opinion on whether they agree or not.
What are some of the ground rules for achieving commitment on your team?
Jess Weiss / Managing Consultant
