“But we had the meeting,” Sheila complained. “I delegated the tasks, each, to the most appropriate team member. I spent a lot of time trying to build consensus for the direction we were heading with the project. I ended the meeting very firm, that the team would be held accountable for the results.”
“And what happened?” I asked.
“Everyone was very clear about their part. Lots of things had to be coordinated. I was looking for some high levels of cooperation,” she replied.
“And?”
“A couple of things got behind, and I didn’t find out about them. One part of the team was waiting on some things and couldn’t move forward until some other parts were finished. At first it didn’t seem like such a big deal, but it’s that snowball effect. The longer the project went on, the harder everyone worked, the more we got behind.”
the manager dropped the ball,,
she did everything fine but she did not monitor the progess…
Hi, Manny,
Actually, there were some progress meetings set. The schedule got behind BETWEEN progress meetings. But everyone kept silent, mums the word.
I agree with Manny, she didn’t follow up. Perhaps Sheila should have asked for feedback, might have given her a good indication of their progression.
The team being accountable means no one is accountable. If she communicated that she was accountable for progress of the entire project and required progress on schedule from the team members then the reason for communicating the slippages would have been more clear.
Since the team was responsible for the performance who do you inform when there is a problem? Who has the authority to make a decision? The Team?
Who is in charge may be intuitive to many but if you muddle the issue by claiming the team is in charge then problems probably arise.