In this post I’ve listed 9 accountability team building activities and exercises for you to use in training, whether you are training employees, teaching college students, or providing any other type of adult continuing development.
4 Benefits of Accountability in the Workplace
Accountability is important in the workplace as it provides many benefits that can be invaluable in business.
So, before giving you the 9 accountability team building activities as promised, let me first briefly explain the 4 key benefits of including accountability in the workplace.
1. Improved Productivity
Giving employees some level of responsibility and empowering them to be more engaged because they are trusted, most often tends to mean that deadlines are more likely to be met.
2. Enhanced Trust and Collaboration
Accountability helps drive employee engagement and benefits both you as a manager or employer and the employee.
Micro manage your employees and it will mean less accountability and in return less trust and collaboration between colleagues.
3. Increased Employee Engagement and Motivation
Allow your employees more accountability for their work (as discussed above) and you will find that they tend to take greater ownership and pride in their work.
This sense of responsibility can help improve employee engagement and motivation.
4. Higher Quality of Work
Accountability interestingly also seems to guide employees toward paying closer attention to detail and the quality of their work.
Knowing that they will be held responsible for the outcomes tends to mean that they take the necessary steps to ensure their work meets higher standards than if they were not trusted and given responsibility.
Accountability Team Building Activities
1. Accountability Chain Reaction
Number of Participants: 6 or more participants ideally.
Time Needed: 30 minutes.
Intention: This is one of the best accountability activities for helping participants appreciate and understand the impact that their own actions can have on the rest of the team and just why accountability is so important at every level.
How to Run the Activity: Start by asking the participants to sit in a large circle (if you are managing a large group you can break them into smaller groups).
Next, hand each group a basic scenario that involves a task and requires each person to have a level of responsibility. For example:
- “You are part of a team responsible for organizing an important end-of-year company event. In your team, each person has a specific role, such as booking the venue, sending out invitations, preparing the event agenda, managing the catering, organizing guest speakers, etc.”
As the training coordinator, pass a tennis ball to one person in the circle.
The person with the tennis ball (the ball by the way represents the task) needs to say what action they would take next and then pass the ball to another participant who continues the scenario by stating their action.
After the ball has been passed around and everyone has participated, participants will spend 10 minutes discussing the outcome of the scenario.
Example Chain Reaction Scenario
Scenario: You’re part of a team responsible for organizing a company event. Each person has a specific role, such as booking the venue, sending invitations, preparing the agenda, etc.
Team Member 1: “I’m responsible for booking the venue. I need to immediately check the availability of potential venues and make a booking, but I realize I need the guest list from [Team Member x] to confirm the booking date if suitable.”
Team Member 2: “I will prepare the guest list but I notice that we’re missing contact details for some key attendees and I will need an up-to-date list of the expected attendees and guest speakers. I will then need to pass it to [Team Member x] to gather that information.”
Team Member 3: “I will collect the missing contact details, but we’re short on time. I would inform [Team Member x] that we need to expedite sending the invitations.”
Team Member 4: “I will quickly send out the invitations, but I realize I need confirmation from [Team member x] to finalize the agenda based on attendees’ responses.”
And so on.
- Discussion:
- What if Person 1 hadn’t booked the venue on time?
- How would that affect the planning and others in the chain?
- What if Person 4 didn’t send the invitations quickly?
- How would that impact the event’s success?
The Accountability Chain Reaction activity is great for illustrating how individual accountability impacts team success.
2. Accountability Scoreboard
Participants: 5 or more participants is ideal.
Time Needed: 45 minutes.
Intention: This is one of those accountability activities that is good to use as a manager rather than for use in training as a teacher or trainer.
This works very well for work teams and provides you with a way to track team progress visually and to show individual contributions to push a sense of ownership and responsibility.
How to Run the Activity: I would recommend doing this first step before a meeting or training session as a manager or team leader and it involves creating a large, visible scoreboard (physical or digital) where team members’ names and their specific tasks or goals can be listed.
The scoreboard should include columns for tasks, deadlines, progress, and a column to confirm if the task has been completed.
Now have each team member define their specific tasks or goals for the following week or month, but ensure that are SMART goals.
Now add these goals and the relevant information onto the scoreboard and allow participants to take a photo of the board if they wish so that they can see and remember the parts they are responsible for.
Tracking Progress: Now inform participants of the time each month (or weekly if you wish) when team members will need to update their progress on the scoreboard.
This can be done individually by team members or as part of a team meeting.
Every so often also consider holding a short meeting (weekly can work well) for the team to review the scoreboard together.
As a work team, discuss any tasks that are behind schedule, and brainstorm solutions to get back on track. Also though make sure to celebrate completed tasks to promote positive behavior.
Recognition: At the end of each month or project, I recommend (as the manager) acknowledging the individuals or teams who consistently met or exceeded their goals. This reinforces the positive outcomes of maintaining accountability.
3. Accountability Peer Mentorship
Participants: 4 or more participants.
Time Needed: 30 minutes (and 1 hour a week or month).
Intention: If you are looking for accountability activities for employees then the peer mentorship exercise is one where participants work in pairs, and it helps create mutual accountability.
How to Run the Activity: You will need to carefully match participants up into pairs, and ideally, both participants can offer value to each other in different skills.
Have each pair sit together and discuss and then set clear goals for what they want to achieve through the mentorship. These goals can be anything connected to personal development, a project they are working on, or improving specific skills.
The pairs also need to set a timetable for when they will regularly meet up to discuss their progress and share and guide each other on any challenges they come up against.
Each session should have a structure, such as a review of the previous period’s goals, a discussion of current tasks, and planning for the next period.
The meet-ups should act as accountability check-ins, with each person holding their partner to be accountable for the goals they set. This might involve asking tough questions, providing feedback, or helping to brainstorm solutions to obstacles.
As the manager or trainer, consider having a regular group meeting where all pairs come together to discuss their experiences.
As a group, they can share information on what’s working well and what could be improved in the mentorship process.
4. Accountability Mapping
Participants: 5 or more participants.
Time Needed: 45 minutes.
Intention: For accountability activities for the workplace, this exercise works well as it helps to clarify how each person’s accountability affects and impacts the group’s success.
How to Run the Activity: Start by placing the team’s main objectives or projects at the center of the map. Then, branch out by adding each team member’s key tasks or responsibilities around these objectives.
Next, ask participants to draw lines or arrows to connect individual tasks to the main objectives, showing how each person’s work in the team contributes to the team’s success.
If more than one person is responsible for the same task, link them together to show collaboration.
As the map takes shape, facilitate a discussion about what the team observes.
- Are there any tasks that seem unclear or that still need to be allocated to someone?
- Are there overlaps where accountability might be shared?
- What issues or questions arise as a result of the mapping?
- Does the distribution of tasks appear unfair and unbalanced when mapped out and can this be fixed?
Accountability mapping is something that you will ideally revisit so that you can check on the changes in roles and balance of who is responsible for what.
5. Accountability Success Stories
Participants: 5 or more participants.
Time Needed: 30 minutes (but adapt as needed)
Intention: This is one of the best accountability team building activities for creating a positive attitude and engagement. This activity uses the stories of success from your team members, to inspire more responsible behavior within the team.
How to Run the Activity: If you have access to the participants beforehand (such as via email), ask them to come prepared with a story or example of when accountability has played an important role in something they were successful at.
They should include notes on how they took accountability for actions that led to the success, and how their accountability helped them solve any barriers or challenges. They should then explain the positive results which then resulted from the success.
It can be related to work or a personal (non-work) experience.
In the session itself, ask each participant, one at a time, to share their story of accountability.
After each participant has told their accountability success story, allow the other participants to ask constructive questions so that they can learn more themselves to be inspired.
6. Honesty Hour
Participants: 6 or more participants.
Time Needed: 1 hour per session (but you might want to run this once a month in the workplace for your team).
Intention: This is one of the best accountability activities for work teams for trust and team building as it is based on developing a culture of transparency and trust.
How to Run the Activity: Start this activity by asking each team member to share one challenge they’re facing or a concern they have regarding their work or the team’s progress.
Encourage honesty without fear of repercussions (i.e., create an atmosphere where psychological safety is strong).
After each person shares their issue, allow the other participants in the team to give constructive feedback and support, or to suggest potential solutions.
This collaborative problem-solving reinforces accountability.
7. Accountability Checkpoint
Participants: Ideal for 5 to 15 participants.
Time Needed: 30 minutes but also worth doing monthly in the workplace as a manager.
Purpose: The intention, with this accountability exercise, is to create regular opportunities for team members to review their progress, address challenges, and reinforce their commitment to achieving their goals.
How to Run the Activity: At the start of the project or period, have each participant set clear, measurable goals.
These goals should be written down and the full list shared with the whole group so that everyone is aware of everyone else’s goals in addition to their own.
You will then set regular checkpoints (weekly or monthly) and during these sessions, each participant should share their progress since the last checkpoint.
They should include mention of what they have accomplished, any obstacles they faced, and how they are addressing those challenges.
As a part of the checkpoint, the group can provide feedback, suggestions, or assistance if someone is struggling.
In terms of team building activities for accountability, this is a classic and is easy to run as a regular exercise.
8. Accountability Time Capsule
Participants: 3 or more participants.
Time Needed: 30 minutes.
Intention: This is a fun activity that really gets participants thinking about long-term goals and accountability through a time capsule-style exercise.
How to Run the Activity: Participants will need to get creative in this activity so make sure as the manager or training facilitator, to have ready lots of items such as large pieces of paper, pens and colored pencils, and large envelopes.
(Note: You can do this as a digital exercise if you wish although doing it as a more tangible exercise can be more fun for participants and more memorable).
As the organizer you need to set a date for when the time capsule will be opened and this date should be written on the top of the box that you will use as the time capsule.
The first thing the participants will need to do is to write down their goals.
The goals need to include a clear timeframe and a clear outcome and they should include details they can think to add.
Once all participants have written down their goals, they should put them in an envelope and then place them in the box (you provide), with the envelopes sealed.
This box should be stored somewhere safely (and where privacy can be guaranteed) as a “time capsule”.
On the designated completion date, gather the participants (who still work for you) and open the time capsule.
Each person reviews their original goals and reflects on their progress. Discuss as a group the successes, challenges, and lessons learned.
What did they achieve? What changed? How did they hold themselves accountable? Hold a discussion with the group to answer the questions above.
9. Accountability Wall
Participants: Any number.
Time Needed: Unlimited (and ongoing exercise).
Intention: Many employees become more inspired when they experience things visually and the accountability wall fills this void through the use of a shared space where team members post their goals and deadlines.
How to Run the Activity: Plan a place in the office where you can permanently display an Accountability Wall, such as via a large whiteboard or bulletin board.
Each person in your team should write down their key goals or tasks on sticky notes (and include deadlines for each goal and the participant’s name for the goals accountability).
On the board make sure you have a section for categories such as “In Progress,” “Completed,” or “Upcoming.”
This visual representation helps the team see where everyone stands and what is coming up.
Encourage participants to update their notes regularly. For example, when a task is completed, they move the note to the “Completed” section. If new tasks arise, they add them to the wall.
FAQs
What are the 5 C’s for building team accountability?
The 5 C’s for building team accountability are Clarity (clear roles and goals), Commitment, Communication (open and honest), Collaboration, and Consistency (a standardized approach).
How to build accountability in a team?
One of the best ways to build accountability as a team is to put up an accountability wall in the office, where tasks, progress, and who is accountable are detailed for all to share.
How to make accountability fun?
Accountability means that targets are being met and things are being achieved so rewarding achievements that result from employees being accountable is a good way to make accountability more fun.
What is an accountability exercise?
You can find 9 accountability exercises and activities in the post above and these can be used as a manager, training coordinator, or corporate trainer.
Accountability-Related Teaching Materials
If you found these accountability team building activities helpful, you might also wish to check out the training materials we offer for teaching managers and employees.
Paul is Co-Founder of Symonds Research and is a qualified researcher with a PhD in wayfinding. Paul helps the team at Symonds Research build and focus on providing high-quality training materials packages and programs for trainers, classroom teachers and HR departments.