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.

Manage Learning Strategically

We will show you how to move away from a demand-driven service and how to become a value-driven strategic partner. We will guide you as you build your:

• Annual Learning Plan and budget in a way that is aligned to business strategies and managed as a portfolio of prioritized investments.
• Measurement Plan aligned to the human capital performance objectives required by your business strategies and operating plans.
• L&D Strategy Assessment and Roadmap: your organization structure and staff roles; decisions about selective insourcing and outsourcing of roles; learning technologies and vendor selection; learning design methods for different delivery media; and your use of performance support.

Managing Learning Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narration)

Managing Performance Strategically

For decades, the major emphases in performance management have been performance objectives and performance assessment. Important as these are, they only become strategically important when they are integrated into a coaching culture, development opportunities, recognition, and rewards that increase workforce competencies, engagement, and retention. We will help you build your:

• Annual Talent Engagement and retention Plan focused on developing a “talent as an asset” mindset in your leaders at all levels and managing their adoption of practices which evidence that mindset.
• Measurement plan focused on increased competency in the workforce, on selected measures of engagement, commitment, and retention, and on the adoption of “talent as a mindset” practices.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your “people leadership” capabilities.

Managing Performance Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narrative)

Managing Talent Strategically

Strategic talent management is about taking a systemic view of your business strategies, identifying the key roles in those strategies, and ensuring that you will have enough of the right people with the right competencies to make the business successful year after year. We will help you build your:

• Annual Integrated Workforce Plan in which you take a holistic view of the entire talent management process for each line of business and identify near term and longer term initiatives. Within the context of business strategies, your planning process will address workforce planning, talent acquisition, on-boarding, learning and development, performance management, and rewards and recognition. The result will be a coordinated, comprehensive plan.
• Succession Planning Process to address leadership roles, pivotal positions, and key positions challenged by competitive and demographic forces.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your talent management capabilities including core issues such as data integration, process coordination, and technology support.

Managing Talent Strategically (Notes view with narrative will be available 12/08/11)

Using our Strategic Investment Portfolio methodology, we help you create and manage your own portfolio of human capital investments balanced to meet your short and long-term, operational and strategic human competency needs.

Any investment in human capital needs to meet three tests: alignment, confidence, and accountability.

Alignment

• How precisely aligned is the investment to business strategy?
• How precisely aligned is the investment to operating performance?
• How important is the investment relative to others competing for resources?

Confidence

• How clear and direct is the link from the investment to the value it is expected to produce?
• How do we know that the investment is properly targeted and robust enough to meet the requirements for success?
• How solid is the proposed solution design?
• How reliable and efficient is the solution development plan?
• How realistic, effective, and efficient is the deployment plan?

Accountability

• How and when will we know that the initiative is or is not meeting its objectives?
• Has the solution been effectively deployed?
• Has competency increased?
• Has process performance risen to target?
• Are strategic objectives being met?

State Parkway Partners is skilled in partnering with you to develop alignment, confidence, and accountability in your management of human capital investments.

When deciding on investments in human capital, business leaders need a direct line of sight from: (a) the strategy or operation being impacted; to (b) the business process being improved; to the culture and/or competencies being strengthened; to the human capital solution being proposed. If the alignment is unclear or if you lhave doubts about the adequacy or execution of the solution or if no one is clearly accountable for achieving and reporting results - and not just for implementing the solution - then that is not yet a sound investment.

State Parkway Partners can help you implement systematic methods for creating alignment, confidence, and accountability in your management of human capital investments.

Note:

1. Investments include all aspects of the human capital value chain: recruiting, on-boarding, directing, learning, developing, coaching, assessing, retaining, promoting, etc.
2. Competencies include knowledge, skill, traits, attributes, and motivations.
3. Process performance includes all relevant process measures such as quality, productivity, time to competency, cycle time, customer satisfaction, revenue, expense, etc.

Our Mission

State Parkway Partners shows businesses how to manage their investments in human capital as rigorously as they manage other investments. We show you how to align your investments in people with your business strategies and operating objectives ensuring that you have the right people with the right competencies in the right roles to be successful now and in the future.

Our Capability

We employ a unique perspective and methodology for developing a prioritized portfolio of investments in human capital. We balance strategic and operational requirements as well as short and long term requirements. Our approach ensures that each investment is aligned with overall strategies, executed with confidence, and managed with accountability for results.

Our Offering

We show our clients how to manage their human capital investment portfolios in three areas:

Strategic Learning Management - Read more…

The Accenture January 2007 High Performance Workforce Study reported that of the 250 senior executives surveyed from the United States, Europe, and Australia only 14% saw their organizations’ workforce skills as industry leading, and only 20% said that most of their employees understood their companies’ strategy and what was needed to be successful.

Strategic Talent Management - Read more…

The Business Week European 50 Research Survey 2006 reported that executives surveyed identified human capital as the most important factor for maintaining high performance in the long term by a factor of nearly two to one. The combination of globalization and technology has increasingly fueled the war for talent.

Strategic Performance Management - Read more…

Bersin & Associates 2008 research report High Impact Talent Management reported that 32% of managers do not clearly understand the role between pay and performance in their organizations, 85% of organizations do not have clearly defined competencies which define success, only 21% of organizations have training tied to development goals, only 29% of organizations create goals which are aligned to the organization, and only 13% of organizations have coaching programs tied to thir performance management process.