The A in AWESOME stands for Accountability.
Accountability, or lack of it, is a common complaint when we are brought into an organization. Leaders complain that employees aren’t accountable.
CEOs tell me that their senior team comes to them with problems rather than just solving them.
Managers feel like they need to step in and do the work in order to make sure it’s done right.
Front-line employees feel like they aren’t given accountability for things.
And the circle continues.
Our definition of Accountability is: Everyone takes personal responsibility for themselves and their work.
We believe everyone has a role in creating a culture of Accountability, however, there are several things I’ve seen Leaders do that cause a continuing lack of accountability.
Here are three. I’d love to hear from you about what else you see that creates this.
Accountability Mistake # 1: Make all key decisions
When you are unable to let go of control and to let people make decisions about how to best serve their customer, do their job, or solve problems, guess what? You are the one accountable for the decision. If you find your team coming to you for the final say on solutions, or to ask how to respond to a customer, they are asking you to take responsibility for the outcome.
One of the problems that leaders cite is that when they give the power to their employees, the wrong decisions are made. If you’ve run into this, it’s likely because you haven’t shared your thought process with them.
How to develop accountability through decision-making:
Step away from the decision making by moving into a collaborative decision making phase first, and then into delegating.
In the collaborative decision making phase, you might ask:
- “What do we know that can help us make this decision?”
- “What outcome are we hoping for?”
- “What do you think we should do?”
Discuss how you each reason through the decision. Share the sorts of factors you take into consideration so that your team member can learn about the process.
After working through this together for a few decisions, move closer to the delegating decision making phase.
Ask your employee to come to you after they have thought it through and have a recommendation ready. Have them share their recommendation and why they think it’s the right thing. Ask what they considered in their decision. Add any considerations they may have forgotten or not known about. Ask whether they still believe their decision is the best one. If so, as long as it won’t have devastating consequences, go for it! It’s important that they are able to take some calculated risks so they can learn (see # 2 below!)
After following these steps, you’ll be able to step away from these daily decisions and delegate them, so your employee can take full accountability and responsibility!
Accountability Mistake # 2: Don’t allow for mistakes
If you want people to make decisions, you have to expect that sometimes they will be different from your own and sometimes, they may even fail.
If you want people to be accountable, they need to own their failures and successes.
If every failure leads to a reprimand, to responsibility being taken away, or to termination, your team isn’t able to learn how to get better at making decisions or taking action.
How to develop accountability after mistakes:
When mistakes or failures happen, discuss them, ask about what we can learn from them, and celebrate the openness to try and fail.
It’s essential that people feel like they can make mistakes and not be judged or reprimanded. If not, a culture of blame, hiding mistakes, and decision paralysis will be created.
Let people feel some discomfort if something goes wrong – they may have to fix something or repeat steps, or apologize to a colleague.
Encourage them to work on the correction if need be. But support them and celebrate what they’re learning as a result.
Accountability Mistake # 3: Reward long hours
How often do you see or hear a leader recognizing someone for working overtime?
Sally really showed she cared by missing her daughter’s recital to get that milestone completed! Wow. Thanks Sally.
Ravi was here all weekend fixing the bug in the code. Thanks Ravi.
Sam always stays in touch on email even when on vacation, because he’s so important and dedicated. He’s being promoted! Thanks Sam.
When we reward people for spending extra time, we tell people that time spent working is what matters.
When you really think of this, it is so ludicrous. Imagine rewarding the people who take LONGER to accomplish something…
This sort of recognition helps to create a culture where people talk about how busy they are, fill their days with busy work, and focus on being the first one in or last one out rather than focusing on moving the business forward.
How to develop accountability with recognition:
Beware of what you reward. Celebrate and recognize people for achieving or overachieving their objectives, or for the way they thought about a problem.
We use the Center for Creative Leadership’s formula of S-B-I (Situation – Behaviour – Impact) when recognizing someone.
Sally, when we were behind on that milestone (situation), I noticed that you asked the team what the missing pieces were and what they would need to get back on track, then you dug in and got those details to them (behaviour). We were able to meet the deadline and the team feels less overwhelmed and more engaged (impact). Thanks Sally!
If Sally actually did miss a recital to accomplish this, I may also mention that I noticed that, and ask what she and we (as a team) can do to make sure people are able to fulfill both their work and personal commitments. The missing of the recital isn’t something to be celebrated, but understood.
Don’t reward people for working long hours. When you do that, you perpetuate the idea that time spent is what matters.
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