Morning friend ☕

Last week was sad for me personally - I lost my biggest fan, my father-in-law. 😭
Will write a proper tribute to him and his thoughts on my blog at a later point.
For today, the show must go on. I know he’d want me to keep teaching what leadership looks like when it’s hardest.

We are still on the Broken Team Series, based on Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

You know when the room feels calm.
Too calm.
The meeting ends. Smiles all around.
You feel relief, not clarity.
Everyone’s “aligned.”
But nothing moves.

Last week, we tackled The Conflict Problem: when teams stay too polite to be real.
This week, we hit the next dysfunction: Lack of Commitment.

No one wants to disagree.
No one wants to decide.
Momentum quietly dies.

How do you, as the manager, fix this?

Grab your coffee ☕

Let’s chat!

At first, it looks harmless.
No arguments. No tension.
Just calm professionalism.

But underneath?
Deadlines slide.
Priorities blur.
People start protecting themselves instead of the mission.

Every “Let’s revisit this next week” is a quiet surrender of momentum.

That’s how teams drift.
Not from chaos, but from comfort.

Lack of commitment doesn’t come from laziness.
It comes from ambiguity.

When people aren’t clear on the decision,
they can’t commit to it.

When they weren’t part of the decision,
they don’t own it.

And when no one owns it, progress quietly dies.

No Avenger embodies commitment like Steve Rogers.

He’s not the loudest or flashiest.
He’s the anchor when the mission fractures.
When others hesitate, he decides.
He doesn’t wait for consensus.
He creates conviction.

That’s the essence of real commitment in teams: not agreement, but alignment through courage.

Every manager needs a bit of Captain America in them: clear, decisive, and unshakably united once the call is made.

Commitment doesn’t mean agreement.
It means clarity.

Everyone may not agree on the decision.
But, they understand it, accept it, and own it.

Here’s how great managers build commitment:

1. Create clarity before you close.
End every discussion with a clear decision:
Who’s doing what, by when, and why.
If it isn’t written down, it isn’t real.

2. Capture dissent before you decide.
Invite challenge before you lock in.
Once the decision’s made, the debate is over.
Everyone rows in the same direction.

3. Make decisions visible.
Write them. Post them. Repeat them.
Visibility creates accountability.
It’s hard to drift when the destination is pinned on the wall.

4. Use short-term commitments to drive long-term progress.
That’s why frameworks like Scrum work.
Short sprints, clear goals, and regular check-ins
turn “plans” into “promises.”

5. Build rituals that reinforce conviction.
Weekly priorities. End-of-day check-ins.
Small, consistent routines make big commitments stick.

When commitment is clear,
energy follows.
Meetings get shorter.
Decisions get faster.
Progress becomes visible.

Because people aren’t scared of being wrong anymore.
They’re focused on being better.

Next, let’s see how our favorite team handled the same problem.

When the Avengers argued about the plan,
Steve Rogers didn’t wait for consensus.
He listened, decided, and said: “We may not all agree, but we move together.”

That’s leadership.
Commitment through clarity, not consensus.

Amazon calls this principle Disagree and Commit.
Debate hard, decide fast, then stand behind the decision as one.

Because unity after decision is what separates momentum from mediocrity.

Ask yourself:
Where is your team pretending to agree?
Which decision keeps getting “pushed to next week”?

Call it out.
Clarify it.
Commit to it.

Because great teams don’t need perfect plans.
They need courage, conviction, and clarity.
Because great teams don’t wait for certainty.
They create it.

Till next Monday, friend! ☕
Vaugan

White to play and force mate in 3 moves.

Solution here

Tony Stark had the suit, the genius, the swagger.

What he didn’t have (until it almost broke him) was accountability.

Tune in next week for Episode 4 of the Broken Team series: The Accountability Problem.

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