Building an accountable team culture
When we look deeply at accountability as a trait of teams, we may break it down into two basic components: the acceptance of responsibility for outcomes and the willingness to personally fulfill that responsibility. In other words, accountability concerns the belief that the work is ours and the belief that we have the agency to carry it out. Our goal as engineering managers is to guide our teams to a state where they possess both of these beliefs.
Internalizing ownership and internalizing agency are two very different goals. You can imagine how easy it would be to know that a job is yours while having no idea how to do it. For team members to feel responsible for work but lack the ability or environment to accomplish that work can be incredibly demotivating and damaging. This underscores the importance of supporting both of these aspects of accountability on our teams. To serve these dual aims, use the three Ps of accountability: provide, promote...
