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For quite a while now, I’ve been planning to write a series on creating a culture of accountability. There’s a huge amount to say on the subject, and I think anyone in leadership can benefit from having a broad and thorough understanding of the role that accountability plays in shaping a healthy and vibrant company culture.
While I’ve been busy organizing my thoughts and deciding how to approach the subject, others have been writing great stuff…
I found this post yesterday over at the Be Excellent blog, and I think this author did a fantastic job of laying down a powerful framework for discussing accountability.
Such a fantastic job in fact, that I now have to think more about what I want to say in order to avoid any inadvertent plagiarism! Back to the drawing board!
Here’s an excerpt from “Creating a Culture of Accountability” at Be Excellent. Be sure to follow the link to read the article in its entirety. It’s worth it!
Accountability opens the door to ownership – not necessarily financial ownership, but certainly emotional ownership, where someone acknowledges they’re responsible for some aspect of the organization.
Accountability is not something you “make” people do – it has to be chosen or accepted by people within your organization. People must “buy into” being accountable and responsible. For many, this is a new, unfamiliar way to work. Most importantly: individual purpose and meaning come from assuming responsibility and accepting accountability.
With accountability comes a measure of discipline. Accountability is the opposite of permissiveness. Holding people accountable is really about the distribution of power and choice. When people have more choice, they are more responsible. When they become more responsible, they can have more freedom. That’s what building a culture of accountability is all about.
There’s more to say about creating a culture of accountability, but this is a great start! I particularly like the point that accountability has to be chosen or accepted by the people within your organization. When we come back to accountability in future posts, that’s what we’ll go to work on first…
How do you create opportunities that compel your people to choose to be accountable? How can you relate to, and communicate about accountability in such a way that the people you lead see it as something desirable, or as something they can and want to attain?
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Enjoyed the snippets that you posted.
Many organizations tie sales commission and bonuses to their payouts to employees to make them more accountable and responsible as well. Do you think this is a good way?
@ Evelyn: Thanks for your comment! I think sales commissions and bonuses are a great way to reward people for being accountable, but as a strategy for creating accountability, or creating a culture of accountability, these tactics fall short.
True accountability can’t be “bought”. It has to occur to employees as an opportunity to demonstrate their strengths and abilities by holding a degree of ownership. It has to occur as an opportunity to be someone who has a say in how things go.
In other words, in order for the reward system to work, accountability has to be there already! The reward is a way of acknowledging someone’s willingness to choose to be accountable.
Great answer! Thks, Erek!
Thanks again for the link! We focus quite a bit on accountability as an important component for executing strategy consistently.
In fact, our newest book, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, has an entire chapter on “Accountability Coaching” - as one of the required elements of a complete strategy execution program.
The new book is available from http://www.SixDisciplinesPublishing - or from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
All the best!
Skip
@ Skip: My pleasure, Skip! Keep up the great work!
“When people have more choice, they are more responsible. When they become more responsible, they can have more freedom.”
This is a powerful realization for both organizations and individual soloprenuers.