The "A" Word

The "A" Word

I wasn’t actually planning on writing on the topic of accountability, but after my recent article on the topic of Focus a friend and client e-mailed me in jest saying “And now you want me to focus... sheesh, what's next, accountability?” Well sir (and you know who you are), this one’s for you.

Regardless of where you are in the corporate hierarchy accountability is a fundamental principal associated with success. Administrative and support staff needs to be accountable for the quality and timeliness of their work. Sales people need to be accountable for not only production volume, but the manner in which they represent the company brand while attaining said volume. Management needs to be accountable to their subordinates as well as to executive leadership. Executives need to be accountable for their quality of leadership and decision making.

Accountability is the lowest cost, most practical and most productive form of risk management and quality assurance that can be implemented across an enterprise. It is really nothing more than a common sense understanding that decisions made within a framework are going to have a greater chance of success than those made in a vacuum.

It is those individuals or organizations who don’t believe they are accountable to anyone for anything at anytime that are nothing more than a disaster waiting to happen. All human beings regardless of who they are can be capable of making huge mistakes when operating in a vacuum or under a veil of secrecy. While there are certainly those individuals who are just predatory, bad to the bone people, clearly not everyone who makes a mistake is evil with the intent to do harm to others. Rather many people when faced with a tough situation simply were not operating in an accountable manner and therefore made a decision that they would not have likely made if they were openly operating under the scrutiny and review of others.

Point in case…Let’s contrast Martha Stewart with Jeffrey Skilling of Enron. Both were convicted of insider trading and both were operating outside of a framework of accountability, but were their motivations the same? Is Martha Stewart really truly an evil criminal or is she just a person who operating outside of a framework of accountability made what she probably believed at the time to be a seemingly unimportant decision?

The Martha Stewart example is not meant to trivialize wrong doing as insignificant. At the end of the day regardless of her understanding or motivation (or the federal “witch hunt” that was conducted) she committed a crime, but I do believe that had she been operating in the open light of day and had she sought counsel in her decision making that the outcome may have been different.

If you think back to any of the bad and/or regrettable decisions you’ve made in your life it is highly probable that you didn’t seek the counsel of others (or ignored said counsel) prior to making the wrong decision.

Setting up an enterprise wide framework for accountability is as simple as implementing the following three items:

1. Have a clearly articulated statement of corporate values: Not only state the values that you want the entity to use as a foundation for operation, but also use the values to frame your vision, mission, strategy, tactics and processes. Hire and manage based upon the corporate values. If you hire someone who doesn’t share the corporate values or don’t hold existing employees accountable for maintaining the corporate values then you will get what you deserve…

2. Have a written delegation of authority: A written guideline for corporate decisioning will help individuals make good decisions. Describe in great detail which employees are authorized to make what decisions. Establish budgetary and approval guidelines for all decisions. Making sure that good checks and balances are in place will help keep employees accountable.

3. Implement a good leadership development program: Utilizing training, coaching, mentoring, peer review, talent management and other development best practices will help insure that your leaders will continue to grow and that corporate accountability guidelines are being consistently reinforced.

The bottom line is that individuals, teams, business units, divisions and corporations will be better off when a culture of accountability is adopted.