Over the 20 years that we've worked with both dysfunctional and highly functional teams, my colleagues and I have seen a key behavior surface as a difference-maker consistently. Accountability.
Unfortunately, it has become another buzzword, overused and with so many different interpretations that it has lost much of its meaning. According to Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “When it comes to teamwork, accountability means the willingness of members to remind one another when they’re not living up to performance standards and results.”