Commitment is the third behaviour – after Trust and Conflict – that needs to be accomplished to obtain a truly cohesive team.
Patrick Lencioni states:
‘Teams that commit to decisions and standards do so because they know how to embrace two separate but related concepts: Buy-in and clarity. Buy-in is the achievement of honest emotional support and Clarity is the removal of assumptions and ambiguity from a situation.’
Commitment is NOT consensus. It is a group of intelligent individuals buying-in to a decision – even if they don’t naturally agree.Organisations need to embrace disagreement, because members of great teams learn to disagree with one another.
Managers have the difficult job of balancing the conflict with leadership. They need to consider every opinion, evaluate each one, then commit to a decision and encourage this final decision to be embraced (buy-in) by the whole team.
Good leaders drive commitment by encouraging their teams to continually bring their ideas and opinions forward, even if they are not progressed. You may be surprised by the buy-in you receive from your teams with this approach. Even if they don’t agree with the decision, true commitment will still be evident, because it’s all about giving them their own platform to be heard.
Managers also need to give their teams clarity on the decision, so they are all 100% clear on what they are committing to.
Consequences of teams not committing:
- No clear direction or vision for the team, which creates uncertainty
- Missed opportunities due to over analysing and delay in making decisions
- Time wasted in revisiting the same topics multiple times, leading to team members becoming disheartened
- Team lacks confidence and is in fear of failing
- No clarity on the commitments, so individuals are second-guessing their team members’ thoughts and actions
Results of teams committing
- Clarity is achieved around direction and priorities, saving time and money
- All working towards the same goals, rather than silos working on their own agendas
- Review and learn from mistakes that may occur
- More adaptable and positive to change
- Gain competitive advantage by being more open to opportunities that occur
Teams need to commit themselves to a variety of decisions that are not always logistically based; behavioural commitment throughout the team is just as important.
Commitment is required for rules of engagement, responsiveness in communication and general interpersonal behaviour. This commitment must come from the top and be highlighted in the organisation’s values, mission, strategy and goals and echoed throughout the organisation so collective ownership is obtained. This helps teams work more cohesively together and hence more effectively.
So, how do we create committed teams?
Patrick Lencioni introduces a useful exercise which he refers to as ‘Commitment Clarification’, in order to reduce lack of commitment.
The Commitment Clarification exercise
- During a meeting, write down the decisions you think your team have made.
- Recap these decisions by reading out loud to ensure this is what everyone has agreed to, with deadlines, actions, responsibilities and progress milestones all clearly defined.
- Also, highlight worst case scenarios or plan B contingency options, to help teams overcome their fear of committing.
- Be explicit and tackle any issues now, so that discrepancies do not occur further down the line, creating inefficiencies.
- Then ask each line manager/team leader to discuss within 24hrs, ideally face-to-face (but definitely NOT via email), the decisions made during that meeting.
This ensures line managers are accountable for ensuring their decisions are correctly communicated to teams, which will help ensure they truly commit.
Why not try it out at your next meeting?
What next?
If you would like to learn more about improving team effectiveness, though a robust valid and reliable team improvement programme based on Patrick’s principles, take a look at The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team programme information or contact us to discuss the programme in more depth.
Excerpts from ‘Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team’ for Leaders, Managers and Facilitators by Patrick Lencioni.
