Driving a Culture of Accountability

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Why Accountability Now?
“For the last 17 quarters, most of our salespeople made 80 percent of quota. That was fine then. Times were pretty rich. It’s not good enough anymore. How do we get them to meet their quotas? How do we make this a company where people are accountable? And, how can we make accountability engaging instead of demotivating?”

As the economic climate has become more challenging there has been a renewed emphasis on accountability. Leaders understand that they have to hold their people accountable, but they want accountability to be more than a carrot and a stick. They want accountability to become an energizing force throughout the organization.

Building Credibility and High Performance through Accountability
In a company that has a culture of accountability, people do what they say they will do. Sales and customer service personnel, engineers and scientists, executives and custodial staff build credibility for themselves and for the organization by holding themselves—and each other—accountable.

An organization that lacks accountability, on the other hand, will be full of excuses for not meeting objectives. There’s a sense that “close to the target” is good enough, since no one will notice the difference. Or worse yet, a sense that objectives are arbitrary and stupid, so the best that employees can do is invest their energy in beating the system.

When employees first hear the word accountability, they often wince, thinking it’s another name for punishment. We’ve seen the other end of the spectrum, however. At one of our client companies, employees find accountability so engaging, they’ve coined the term “the thrill of accountability.” 

In the “thrill of accountability” company, leaders have put a strong accountability system in place. They set the goals high. And the tougher the odds get—because the world has a way of hitting us with the unexpected—the greater the thrill when employees meet their goals. In this company, accountability invigorates.

Clarity, Commitment, Consequences – and a Curfew
Accountability results from an interlocking system of three elements—clarity, commitment, and consequences. Each reinforces the others; remove any one and the system breaks down.

Here’s an example of how it can work in a family situation:

A 16-year-old girl who’s had her driver’s license for three months wants to take a couple of friends to the school dance.

Father: Here’s what it will take for me to give you permission. Your curfew is midnight. I want you home safely before people start leaving the bars. When you’re home by midnight, you get enough sleep. I’ll be up, so I’ll know when you come in. If you get in by midnight, I’ll contribute to your gas money. But if you don’t, your curfew will be earlier next time—a minute for every minute you’re late, for that many days. And if you’re two hours late, you lose the car for two weeks.

Daughter: But what if something makes me late?

Father: If there’s an emergency, call before midnight and we’ll figure it out. But it’d better be real, like you have to take a friend to the hospital. So, will you be in by midnight?

Daughter: Yeah, sure, I’ll try.

Father: Trying isn’t good enough. Will you be in by midnight?

Daughter: Okay.

Now, since she’s a normal teenager, she’s going to test the parent. She walks in at 12:10, saying that it took her longer than she expected to drop Melissa off. 

Father: Well, it’s ten minutes after your curfew. So no gas money, and for the next ten days, your curfew is 11:50. Now you know that if you’re dropping Melissa off, you need to take that time into consideration. How much earlier do you have to leave to get to Melissa’s and then back to our house?

Clarity, commitment, and consequences—here’s how to put them to work.

Clarity: Clear Goals that Lead to Results

Expectations must be clear and specific. “Your curfew is midnight,” not “Be home at a reasonable hour.” It’s not fair to hold someone accountable for reading your mind.

Expectations must be linked to results. We want our daughter to be safe; we want a sales rep to make so many sales. So we set the curfew or we require 20 sales calls per week. Maybe we have data to support the link between these expectations and the desired results. Maybe it’s common sense—or common wisdom in our industry. Leaders should occasionally challenge and confirm the link between these particular expectations and desired results. If the leader doesn’t, the employee certainly will.

Clarity includes saying why. When employees know the reasons for an expectation, they are more likely to commit themselves to meeting it. They also have the information they need to deal with unexpected events. For example: an employee has committed to getting you a report by Friday at 3:00 p.m. On Friday morning, an emergency comes up with a customer and the employee can’t reach you. If she knows you’re planning to read the report on the plane Sunday, she can decide to deal with the customer Friday, finish the report Saturday morning, and e-mail it to you Saturday afternoon. If she has no context, she may decide to postpone the customer in order to meet your deadline, thereby damaging a relationship that is much more important to the company than the report.
 

Commitment is Much More than “I’ll Try”

You have to ask for commitment and get it. Giving an order is not enough.  The accountable employee has to listen, understand, agree, and commit to achieving that objective. Human beings have an enormous number of ways to dodge the issue. 

When you ask for commitment, listen carefully to the answer. If they have valid reasons for objecting to the expectation (e.g., “To write your report, I need a report from another division, and I won’t have that till Monday”), you now have information for either negotiating the expectation (e.g., “All right, I can wait until Wednesday”) or discussing tactics (“I need your report by Friday for my presentation Monday. How else can we get you the information from the other division?”).

Consequences Complete the Circle

Consequences clarify or muddy the expectation. If the teenager walks in at 12:15 or the sales rep makes 80 percent of quota for 14 quarters, and there are no negative consequences, they have every reason to believe that 12:15 and 80 percent are acceptable. 

Designing appropriate consequences means you have to know your people. What energy fuels their fire? What do they want to be when they grow up? How do they define success for themselves? Money, recognition, an opportunity to learn, a more challenging task, time off—all of these are rewarding for some people.

Consequences have consequences for the leader. To know whether the teenager is in by midnight, a parent has to be awake. Leaders who wish to build accountability must increase their responsibilities, and they need to hold themselves accountable for fulfilling those responsibilities.

Accountability Conversations—The Fuel That Powers the System
The ability to have effective and “real” accountability conversations is a skill that can be a challenge for leaders. It’s a powerful way to ensure clarity, gain commitment and enforce consequences.  And, its absence may be the single biggest reason that establishing an accountability culture fails.

Short conversations—often no more than 30 seconds—keep the system moving.
“You agreed to make 20 calls a week, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, my report indicates that you made 10 last week. Can you make 30 this week, for an average of 20 per week?

If the employee says yes, the expectation has been clarified to an average of 20 calls per week. If the employee gives a reason for the lack of performance (e.g., “I had to be on site with an important client for two days”), you may have useful information about what’s really happening out in the field, or you may have an excuse that’s unacceptable. The conversation continues, reinforcing the expectation with consequences, re-negotiating the expectation because of new information, or brainstorming tactics for meeting the expectation in spite of unforeseen events.

Write it down.  Meeting recaps, in memo form or via email, are the single most important tool in holding people accountable.  Who agreed to what and when?  It’s easy to forget who was responsible for what specifically (and easy to get off the hook) if two months passes before the team gets together again and know what took clear notes that were shared with the team following the previous meeting.  This is especially true if you only have the ability to influence other team members instead of having direct authority over their activities. It forces clarity and ensures that everyone’s expectations are the same. Writing a meeting recap and distributing to the individual(s) involved takes time, but pays huge dividends in the end.

Be Alert to Accountability Culture Pitfalls
As an organization becomes more accountable, there are pitfalls to beware. Here are a few common ones:

• Measuring what’s easily measurable. Being on time to meetings, length of lunch hour, number of calls per week—these are all easy to measure.  But are they clearly connected to the results you are trying to achieve? Will what you are measuring increase sales, improve customer service, or result in better designs for your products? We often measure tactics rather than results. The connection between the tactic and desired results are part of the “why” that comes during clarity.
• Not taking trade-offs into account. A behavior always has more than one result: I can reduce inventory, but you’re going to have to wait for parts. We can sell more cars if we give a bigger rebate and reduce our profit per car, but that’s fine because we’ll make it up in the financing. 
  
  Since people perform to meet the metric, it’s important for leaders to consider all the results of meeting an expectation, and to be sure that the trade-offs are acceptable.

• Resisting accountability because it feels uncomfortable. Introducing accountability can feel uncomfortable in the short term. Employees often initially resent the idea of accountability. All of us—including leaders—want to be liked. In addition, in conflict-aversive cultures, there may be a long-held custom to overcome—the custom of noticing lack of performance and resenting it, but never explicitly articulating it. 

But in the long run, all of us—leaders and employees alike—want to excel. We want to be proud of ourselves and the people we associate with.  Personal and organizational credibility, as well as the pride of achievement—these are only possible through accountability.

Establishing a culture that respects and thrives on accountability can be a challenge and it takes the commitment from more than one or two individuals.  When you have a senior team and an entire organization committed to pushing an accountability agenda—in ways that are invigorating and developmental for staff—you’ll find improved success in achieving business results.