“A FRESH LOOK AT ACCOUNTABILITY”
Holding people accountable is one of the most important functions of senior executives and at the same time one of their greatest problems. Why do so may managers have difficulty with this one? Often it is because they want to be liked and so won’t have candid discussions with non-performers. There are few basis rules about accountability. These rules sound simple but are often forgotten or ignored.
- At all levels in a company there must be clear definitions of roles and responsibilities
- Employees need to know:
Exactly what they are accountable for
Exactly who they are accountable to
Exactly what the consequences of failure to deliver are
- The manager to who the employee is accountable must hold them accountable for the agreed deliverable in terms of quantity, quality and time
- In turn, the manager must be accountable to someone else under the same rules
How do you define failure to deliver? Is it missing just one target? I would argue that it isn’t one and it isn’t ten or twenty. A useful concept is a “pattern of failure” with three being enough to establish a pattern. The number you are willing to tolerate is governed by the importance of the targets missed and the time period the pattern occurs over.
When an employee misses a target, you as a manager are accountable for dealing with it – either stimulating improvement or addressing the issue. Don’t forget that other employees are watching you and are observing your willingness to hold your employees accountable. How do you think your behaviour as a manager affects their view of you and more importantly their attitude to their own accountability?
Look in to why someone is not delivering. What is at the heart of the issue? Is it because they are in the wrong job? Are they doing something that has no value to them? Do they belong to your culture? If you have a challenge with someone, it tends to be that they don’t have a match among skills, passion and what the company needs. If these three factors come together for an individual, you will see amazing performance. If they are out of alignment, you need to either change the person’s job in the company or help them find a job somewhere else that bring these three things together.
Fundamentally, leaders of organizations should seek to establish a culture of accountability in which not only managers hold subordinates accountable but peers and teams hold each other accountable. This requires trust and respect, which are essential foundation for clarity, candour, constructive conflict resolution and genuine commitment, the behaviours that lead to a culture of accountability.
There are a number of great books in this area. I would recommend “The Five Temptations of a CEO” by Patrick Lencioni, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni and “First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Prepared by
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