Peer-to-Peer Accountability is Crucial for Team Success

YO! I wanted to talk to you guys today about a situation that I personally have had to deal with at work over the last week. As someone who tries to eat their own cooking, I felt it was a good opportunity to unpack the situation. As I talk it out, maybe I can learn from it, and as you guys hear about this situation, maybe you can learn from it, too.

The Pyramid Model

I am a huge fan of Patrick Lencioni. He developed a model in his book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and I’ve adapted it.

Visualize a pyramid. At the top is winning. At the base is trust and vulnerability.

Once you have trust and vulnerability among the team, you can have healthy debate and conflict. Once you have that, you can commit to something. And once you have that, the level before winning is peer-to-peer accountability.

Two Types of Accountability

If you’ve been listening to The Dental Lighthouse Podcast or are a coaching client of mine, then you’ve definitely heard me talk about different levels of accountability. Just to keep it simple, there are really two levels of accountability:

• Peer-to-peer accountability
• Triangular accountability

Anytime there’s accountability, it’s a benefit. But triangular accountability is much slower, filled with friction, and not ideal. We’re ultimately striving for peer-to-peer accountability.

Peer-to-Peer Accountability

Peer-to-peer accountability is having the courage for team members at the same level to talk to each other. For example:

• “Hey, I just noticed how you acted there, and it kind of goes against our core values.”
  
• “Last week, we agreed to handle a new patient this way, but I noticed you’re not following it. What’s going on?”
  

It’s hard to do. It takes courage. But once you get momentum, it’s amazing how much easier things are.

Triangular Accountability

Triangular accountability plays out like this: You see someone not doing what they should. Instead of going directly to them, you go to their lead, office manager, or doctor. The leader then has to go to that person and say, “Someone told me you weren’t doing this.”

This creates defensiveness, gossip, and a lack of clarity. It’s still accountability, which is better than nothing, but it’s messy and inefficient compared to peer-to-peer.

Real Example: Mary

I had an assistant, let’s call her Mary, who was phenomenal clinically and with us for nearly 15 years. She was one of my primary assistants and was like a sponge when learning. But she also tended to:

• Talk condescendingly.
• Be passive-aggressive.
• Act like she had authority when she didn’t.
  

When I worked directly with her, I could rein it in. I constantly had quick “minute meetings” with her, going into the storm in the moment. “Hey Mary, how you spoke to Jane came across as passive-aggressive. That’s not how we do things here. I’d like you to apologize to her.”

It worked. She respected me, she’d adjust, and the behavior would improve for a while.

The Challenge Now

I no longer practice clinically, and I’ve heard rumblings of Mary behaving in those negative ways again. Since I’m not working directly with her, there is only triangular accountability—other people telling me about her behavior. When I confronted her, she said, “I don’t think I’m doing that. Can you give me specific examples?” 

I couldn’t, because I wasn’t there. So it becomes gossip, hearsay, and ineffective.

The Solution

Here’s what we decided: I went to the people who work closest with Mary, her doctor, hygienist, and pod assistant. I told them, “Mary struggles with awareness of her behavior. She has given permission for co-workers to call her out. If you see her being passive-aggressive, condescending, or not being a team player, step up and say something in the moment.”

Rules:

• Come from a place of empathy and curiosity.
• Say: “Mary, what you said made me feel this way. I know you don’t mean it, but I need to let you know how it came across.”
• Mary must practice active listening, not defensiveness.

Bigger Picture

All of this is hard to do. However, the leaders and team members who practiced it have grown tremendously. If you avoid uncomfortable conversations, the only person who benefits is you, because you don’t have to get uncomfortable.

• The person misbehaving doesn’t benefit.
• The business doesn’t benefit.
•  Only you do—and that’s selfish.

That’s why we’re preaching this culture of peer-to-peer accountability, minute meetings, and going into the storm with empathy and curiosity. It’s everything, and when you can encourage this behavior across the team, you’ll see exponential growth.