Explore before you prescribe: diagnose why the gap happened
The solution to a missed commitment depends entirely on what caused the miss — and you usually don’t know until you ask.
Why it works
VitalSmarts identifies six sources of influence that create performance gaps: motivation (do they want to?), ability (can they?), and structural factors at the personal, social, and organizational level. Most managers jump to motivation (assuming the person didn’t care) or prescribe training (assuming they lacked ability) without diagnosing which source actually created the gap. A solution mismatched to the cause produces no change.
How to do it
- After describing the gap, ask: "Help me understand — what happened?"
- Listen for the source: is this a motivation issue, an ability issue, or a structural/resource issue?
- Ask clarifying questions: "Did you have what you needed?" "Was there something that got in the way you didn’t flag?"
- Only after you understand the cause should you discuss the solution.
Evidence
Misattribution of performance gaps to motivation when the actual cause is situational or structural is well documented in attribution research and in process improvement frameworks (root cause analysis). Diagnosing before prescribing is the standard corrective. (mechanistic)
The six-source model is Crucial Accountability’s diagnostic framework, not a separately validated taxonomy. The principle — diagnose before prescribing — is broadly supported but the specific categories are the authors’ synthesis.
Common mistake
Moving directly from describing the gap to demanding commitment to change — without understanding the cause, the commitment will fail for the same reason the original commitment did.
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More practices for Crucial Accountability: Holding People to Commitments That Matter
- Choose what to address and whether to address it at all
Not every violated expectation deserves a conversation — choosing which ones do is the first accountability skill.
- Describe the gap between expectation and reality, not your interpretation
State what was agreed and what happened — leave out what you think it means about the person.
- Notice and question the story you’ve already told yourself
Between the missed commitment and the conversation, you have built a narrative — and that narrative will leak into the conversation.
- Create safety for an honest account before expecting one
People who expect punishment for missing a commitment will not tell you the real reason they missed it.
- Close with a specific, confirmed, next-step commitment
An accountability conversation that ends without a specific new commitment has not resolved anything.
- Follow through on stated consequences — or don’t state them
Consequences you don’t enforce teach that commitments are optional.
Related concepts
- Crucial Conversations, Made Practical
Safety, mutual purpose, STATE, and the stories that drive us
- Radical Candor, Made Practical
The 2x2, the mechanisms behind real candor, and an honest read on the evidence
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Made Practical
Lencioni’s pyramid — the mechanism behind each dysfunction and the practice that fixes it