7 Steps to Accountability Without Pain
Accountability.
Have you ever felt impending dread at the mere sound of the word? Like that other bone chilling word, "responsibility," both have the potential to deliver gratification and satisfaction as easily as they do blame, shame and guilt.
"Are you responsible for this?" Clearly the insinuation is that this mess, whatever it is, is your fault. How could you have been so careless? So irresponsible? The message, sometimes spoken, sometimes not, is that you'd broken the trust you'd been given.
Try casually inquiring about the dirty dishes in the break room sink and watch the denial, excuses and maybe even some deflecting or finger pointing. Where did all the grownups go?
Recently, my client Max, who owns a recruiting agency, referred to the "heads below the cubicle line" posture of his employees. I asked him what he meant.
"You know," he grumbled. "Head down, do your work, and don't do anything more than you have to – particularly avoiding any special projects."
I asked him to cite some examples of some "special projects" that had left him frustrated lately. He offered several. He'd asked Tom, one of the sales assistants, to organize and file some reference materials for him. The next time he needed the reference material, it was not where he'd expected to find it. Joan, in accounting, had said "of course" when he'd asked her to run a mid-month report. The mid-month report had not been on his desk when he needed to refer to it. Randy, in the Legal department, had said there would be no problem researching insurance requirements in two adjoining states. The research turned out to be completed for the wrong states.
As we talked about these incidents, a pattern began to emerge. In each case Max had been upset. And Tom, Joan and Randy had borne the brunt of his anger. When I pointed out that there were, after all, 5 states adjoining the one in which he did business, and that, on reflection, he had not specified a delivery date for Joan's report, and that there seemed no clear protocol for the storage of reference materials, I could almost hear the dots connecting in Max's head.
Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear
How often have you not been clear about a timeline for a given task and not gotten it "on time?" Could there have been a difference in the sense of urgency you and your employee felt? Does this feel like a chronic condition? How anxious will your employee be to raise her head above the cubicle if she knows that her inevitable disgrace or embarrassment stems from what you left out rather than from anything she did?
Taking on "accountability" in the face of near-certain failure is rationally something to be avoided. It is astounding how easily this condition can infect an organization!
I'd once heard responsibility defined as "response - ability." In other words, the ability to respond of one's own free will. That simple definition offered a huge shift in perspective. The question then becomes one of willingness to respond, to answer to, i.e. to be accountable.
How clear are you in communicating what you want when you ask someone to do something? You can't hold someone accountable or take them to task for not meeting requirements that you've hidden. Taking on accountability must be based on informed consent.
It Starts Here
I reminded Max of the conversation we'd had at the beginning of our coaching relationship. We talked about what he would be accountable for between our calls. We had established clear ground rules regarding the business development work he would be engaging in.
There were several key points:
• It was up to him to clarify what was being suggested or requested of him.
• He would agree, or counter offer, to engage with the material
• He would acknowledge the specific time the work would be completed or returned.
• He would communicate ahead of time if the work was not going to be done on time. In that case, he would note what got in the way of following through on our original agreement.
To the last point, this was not to be a list of excuses, but rather to provide clues for us.
These conversations are often some of the most important we have with our clients. Whatever took him off track most likely got in the way of his being able to bring his full attention and focus to other crucial aspects of his business as well.
Those ground rules were the beginning of establishing accountability in a straightforward and simple context. When you take the need for excuses out of the equation, accountability can be seen astaking account… counting. "Here's what I did, here's what I didn't do. This is what you can count on going forward." No story. No blame, no shame and no guilt.
In our E-Myth Coaching program we shine the spotlight on the multitude of elements that go into creating Working Relationships that Work and establish guidelines for Management that drives accountability by mutual consent.
You can begin, as Max did, to alter your company's culture and dramatically change the results you are getting.
Here are 7 Guidelines to Accountability:
1. Get clear agreements when outlining work to be done. Make sure that critical details are included. The test: Does your employee have a clear answer to the question: "What will it look like when I've done it correctly?"
2. Agree to notify the other party when work cannot be done as agreed. Guiding principle: "No surprises."
3. Specify any work assignments that are out of the ordinary in writing – with a due date.
4. Make sure you provide all the tools necessary to perform the work.
5. Get agreements before the assignment is considered final.
6. Schedule reporting loops for longer assignments to review and adjust work. (Don't wait for the last minute to "catch someone doing it wrong.")
7. Give timely and direct feedback to enable your employee to recognize and correct specific hurdles and to reinforce behavior that has contributed to his or her success.
At the end of our coaching call, I sent Max an email with this sentence. I told him to post it where he could be reminded every day: "If you don't tell someone exactly what you want, you will get something else."
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