OwnershipAmbiguity

Finger pointing, dodging, evasion, blaming... All are behaviors that happen -- A LOT -- on teams for which taking "ownership" is problematic. 

Some of the best teams I've observed (led by the wisest leaders I've observed) put into place some consistent practices/habits to make the "ownership" problem less of a problem:

• Leadership provides crystal clear clarity around who's responsible for what. 
• Monitoring conversations (not scorecards) among and between team members, both vertically and horizontally, happens as part of the daily routines.
• Team member are allowed much autonomy in the processes they use to achieve the outcomes they own.
• The team codifies shared goals, with some kind of metrics applied, so there is some reasonable way by which progress (or its lack) can be assessed.

Sounds easy, but it's certainly not. Otherwise, every team would be doing it.