According to our research at VitalSmarts, upwards of 80 percent of leaders who work on major initiatives, projects, or programs experience some form of team failure (visit www.silencefails.com for research results).

Anyone who has had team members miss deadlines, avoid meetings, or display incompetence in critical areas has experienced a team failure. Team failures wherein team members are unwilling or unable to support each other stem from a variety of problems, but they all have one solution: team leaders and members need to speak up.

Our research shows a leader’s ability to speak up and address team failures effectively is one of the key ingredients behind successful project execution. However, only 14 percent of leaders are able to speak up about team failures in a way that addresses problems. The rest experience poor results. Leaders who ineffectively deal with team failure exceed their budgets on 73 percent of projects, miss 82 percent of their deadlines, and experience functionality and quality problems 77 percent of the time. What’s worse, team failures damage team morale on 69 percent of these projects, creating unnecessary baggage that is carried forward well after they ended.

The problem is not the failures themselves—even the healthiest of teams experience them; the problem is that many leaders don’t know how to talk about and resolve them.

The true mettle of a team is tested by how a team’s leader deals with changing priorities, bad behaviors, and violated expectations. Team success or failure is based first on whether or not a leader steps up to a high-stakes conversation, and second on how well the leader handles that crucial conversation.

When a leader handles the crucial conversation of team failure well—when that leader holds the team accountable—he or she reduces cost overruns by 64 percent, reduces delays by 60 percent, and improves quality and functionality by 66 percent.

Ironically, leaders who don’t step up and conduct the crucial conversation because they want to maintain team-member relationships ironically are more likely to damage relationships and team morale.

Unfortunately, stepping up to a crucial conversation isn’t enough. Leaders who attempt to use power or authority to hold team members accountable are just as likely to get poor results. How leaders step up is just as important as when they step up.

Here are three tips to help you effectively step up to a crucial conversation about a team failure:

1. Be open to the idea that you could be wrong. All too often, a leader enters a crucial conversation with a story in his or her head (“He did this on purpose because he’s a lazy good-for-nothing.”). Our stories fuel our emotions, and our emotions create our actions. If you tell yourself the other person is lazy, you may feel anger or frustration toward the person, and your feelings will come out in your actions. Your potentially harsh treatment can, in turn, foster bad feelings and distrust, and the team will suffer for it.

When you enter a crucial conversation with a negative story, you will end up with poor results. To take control of your results, change your emotions by rethinking your stories. Consider that there might be other possible stories yielded from the same set of observable facts. Ask yourself, “Why would a reasonable, rational person do this?” This question will help you reframe and reconsider your story. Reconsidering your story doesn’t mean you need to be naïve; sometimes your stories are right. But, if you enter a crucial conversation assuming you’re right, your dialogue will turn into a monologue, and poor results will follow.

2. Describe the “gap.” The “gap” is the difference between what you expected and what you observed. Describing the gap helps the other person understand the problem so that he or she can address it. To describe the gap, start with facts, as they are directly observable: “I noticed you didn’t attend the meeting last Tuesday or this Tuesday. I thought we’d agreed you would attend these meetings.” All too often, leaders start with their stories and vague conclusions instead of indisputable, easy-to-address facts. Stories are assailable, but facts are not.

Once the facts are clear, you can tentatively share your story: “I’m beginning to wonder if you don’t value our meetings.” Then, check with the other person to make sure you’re not off-base: “Am I off here?” You want to invite him or her to challenge your story. Are your facts right? Is your story correct? The point is to start a dialogue, an open and honest communication between two individuals. The first 30 seconds of a crucial conversation establish the tone for the entire conversation, so start on the right foot.

3. Explore both motivation and ability problems. Once the crucial conversation is under way, leaders need to uncover all possible roadblocks. Frequently, leaders assume all problems are problems of motivation. If a team member fails to perform, it is assumed the person was lazy and unmotivated. This is known as the “Fundamental Attribution Error.” Attributing bad motive to others is a common error we make when things go wrong.

Avoid the fundamental attribution error by exploring the possibility that the problem is due to ability. Does the team member have the appropriate training or knowledge to perform a task? Are policies and procedures stopping him or her from performing? Are others not helping—or even actively hindering—the team member? Once you’ve identified all possible motivation and ability problems, jointly brainstorm solutions. Involving the team member in solution-finding will help him or her be more committed to change.

Remember, anybody can avoid a problem or find a workaround. The true test of a leader is whether or not he or she can step up to face the problem and handle it appropriately. Hold your team accountable and you will see your results and your relationships improve.

Kerry Patterson is the co-author of three New York Times bestsellers: Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. He is also an acclaimed keynote speaker, consultant, and cofounder of VitalSmarts, www.vitalsmarts.com. This page is protected by Copyright laws. Do Not Copy