I will be continuing my series on the five dysfunctions of a team. Last week, I wrote about the fear of conflict. This week, I will be writing about the next dysfunction: the lack of commitment.
Let's recap. Remember that each dysfunction not only introduces problems specific to itself but also ladders up to the next dysfunction. The first dysfunction is the absence of trust. Without trust, you can't have healthy conflict. Without healthy conflict, you can't expect each person on the team to commit to the decisions made.
This makes sense, right? If you are told to do something without having any say in the decision-making process, you won't truly commit to the decision. How could you? If the idea succeeds, it wasn't something you helped produce, and if it fails, you can't be blamed for it. You will be indifferent to the outcome, and either consciously or subconsciously, you will not work as hard to make it succeed.
But, once you have had healthy conflict, voiced your opinions and ideas, and have heard the opinions and ideas of your teammates, you can commit to the decision. Fantastic! What now though?
What does commitment look like?
Commitment is a function of clarity and buy-in. If you are not clear on what you are committing to, you can't commit to it. So be clear! Write things down and draw things out in places everyone can see. In a team setting, there is always someone who has a different understanding of what was said, so communicate in multiple ways to smoke out any misunderstandings.
To ensure everyone is bought in, have each and every member of your team voice their commitment to the decision. This is not a time for them to say they are "fine" with the decision. They must be able to say they are "100% committed" to the decision. If they can't, you need to have a conversation about why they can't commit. If more conflict is had and an agreement can't be reached, someone may just have to disagree and commit anyways as long as they understand why the decision was made.
Once you are clear and have buy-in, restate the decision and the rationale behind it on a regular basis. This will help everyone remember what they are committing to and why. Another benefit of these reminders in that they will be natural opportunities for people to bring up any issues they now see with the decision. This is a good thing! It is better to bring up issues as soon as possible than to have them come up later when it is too late or the work has already been done in vain.
The consequences of not having commitment
If there is a lack of commitment, your team will experience several issues. Let's go over a few of them. First, you will have ambiguity. People won't be doing exactly what they need to be doing because they don't know what they are committing to. Second, people won't really care about the outcome. They won't be working as hard as they could be to make the decision succeed. Third, you will have a lack of focus. People will be working on things that don't matter in relation to the goal.
Without commitment, you also can never have accountability, but we will talk about that next week!
Conclusion
Without trust, you can't have healthy conflict. Without healthy conflict, you can't have commitment. Commitment requires clarity and buy-in, and it is the only way to get the best ideas out of your team. If your team is experiencing ambiguity, lack of focus, or lack of accountability, you may be suffering from the lack of commitment and must address it to see the results you want.