I was recently asked about how to improve accountability across a business.
Let’s look at this through a series of questions about the BUSINESS environment, you as the LEADER, and the INDIVIDUAL charged with delivering a task.
Notice in what follows how much rests on there being an enabling environment and effective leadership. If you are a chief executive or senior leader, much of this falls on you!
It is rarely a simple case of blaming a single individual for stuff that doesn’t get done!
THE BUSINESS
First, consider whether the accountability challenge you are experiencing is an isolated individual case or something more systemic and widespread.
Do the conditions exist to enable safe communications up and down and across the team and wider business? Is the business a psychological safe place to work, where everyone feels included, safe to learn, and safe to contribute and challenge?
How do you know this?
Consider some form of confidential team survey, ideally by a trusted third party, to explore this. This can usefully be widened to look at team effectiveness as a whole. Read our thoughts on this here.
Next, run one or more workshops to identify the development actions needed, and then nail these in priority order. Keep these under review. Create a development roadmap. We can help here too. Check out our case studies.
THE LEADER
What is the nature of the relationships between leaders and team members? Is it one of surveillance or coaching? The former can switch people off; the latter can promote discretionary effort and capability growth.
How often do leaders engage and review priorities and resourcing with colleagues? This is a key leadership function.
Or do leaders just pile on more and more tasks? And when less and less is achieved, do leaders get more and more frustrated and blame others?
A surveillance culture will lose you goodwill, people, and money. A coaching culture will generate goodwill, growth, and added value.
How has the task been set up? Has it been clearly scoped in terms of outputs, inputs, resources, and processes? Are reporting requirements clear and understood?
Is it a routine, transactional task where best practice can be deployed with a high degree of confidence in satisfactory completion? Or is it more of a discovery exercise in a complex setting requiring cycles of develop, test, fail, repeat?
Are delivery expectations appropriate to these different types of task?
Have constraints and freedoms of action been clearly identified?
What are the linkages and dependencies with other work being done by others? Are they playing their part in delivering collective success?
Has there been a stakeholder review of risks, ownership, and active management?
THE INDIVIDUAL
Has the task owner reached out to stakeholders to establish effective working relationships?
Has the task owner identified risks and taken steps to mitigate them in accordance with the business’ risk management process? Is it clear what should be escalated, and do stakeholder relationships enable or hinder this?
Does the task owner have the capability and capacity to do what has been asked of them?
If not, what will you as the leader do? (Yes, here we are back at the role of the Leader!). Provide coaching and training? Reprioritise other tasks? Task someone else who has the capability and capacity?
Finally, are there clearly understood consequences that comply with employment law and best practice for repeated underperformance?
Featured image courtesy of GranzCreative via Canva
