What do we mean by “accountability?” Today, when you hear people talk about accountability, you know that they’re talking about who’s going to pay the price of failure. They say, “I’m holding you accountable”; or “You better make sure someone’s accountable”; or “Make them accountable by tying those results to their incentive compensation.”

“Holding people accountable” has a hard-nosed, no-nonsense tone that lets people know that a real executive is in the room. It projects strength and a willingness to take action. It asserts that a clear threat of dire consequences is what will get people focused and performing. It calls for bottom-line measures and makes it clear that there will be no excuses for not achieving them. After all, what would accountability mean if people could avoid paying the price of poor performance by explaining it away?

This is, however, not the way accountability gets results. In the day-to-day activities of business, where all the work gets done, “hold them accountable” is useless as a management practice. It offers no guidance on how to use accountability to build a successful path from point A to point B. It just prescribes what to do with rewards and punishments when the clock runs out. It offers no process for reconciling competing objectives, for making sure bad decisions are not made just to make “the numbers” look good. It makes no provision for adapting to changing business conditions, taking advantage of opportunities, or responding to unforeseen threats. “Hold them accountable” hopes that fear of loss will make people perform. But “hope is not a method” (Gordon R. Sullivan and Michael V. Harper, Hope is Not a Method (New York: Broadway Books, 1997). The Accountability Principle is!

The Accountability Principle

“For any job, no matter how simple or complex, effectiveness will be proportional to the ability of people doing that job to explain what they are seeking to achieve, why that’s important to the business, how well they are doing and what’s causing their current level of accomplishment, and what needs to be different to fully achieve their purpose.”

Accountability fuels the engine of performance. It puts a fine edge on execution. It replaces the administrative rituals of performance management with engagement in the business and commitment to results. It fills the void of performance-focused communication with precise and continuing conversations about accomplishments and opportunities as well as about shortfalls and what needs to be done to overcome them. Accountability puts talent in the spotlight and exposes and corrects talent gaps early on.

The practice of “accountability” means that every person - either as an individual contributor or as a manager - is expected to “provide a periodic accounting” to someone - team leader, manager, board of directors, owner - about the results of what she is doing. The key questions to account for are:

• Are the business activities for which she is responsible achieving planned results or not?
• If they are, then what is driving that success and what needs to be done to sustain performance? Are there opportunities emerging and how can we take advantage of them?
• If they are not, then what are the root causes of the shortfall and what is she doing to remedy them? Are there threats emerging and how can we defend against them?

This use of The Accountability Principle moves the moment of truth way forward. By asking people to be accountable first for a well constructed plan and then regularly for accomplishing planned activities and producing planned results. The Accountability Principle improves the quality of business thinking and sharpens the focus on results from everybody beginning day one. Accountability establishes a regular dialogue so the person to whom the accounting is provided should be expected to

• ask questions to see if something has been overlooked
• provide information that will help solve a problem
• share a perspective that will shape more accurate thinking about a situation
• give encouragement where courage is needed
• stop a direction that will impede success
• obtain needed resources
• secure the support of others

Simply put, accountability is about two things: collaboration and engagement. Your thoughts?

More about this tomorrow.

Tags: Accountability, Alignment, Assessment, CLO, Collaboration, Competency, Confidence, human capital management, On Demand Learning, Performance, Speed to proficiency, Strategic Learning, Talent

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 8:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.