In a recent workshop the participants were given a form to complete -- a self-evaluation of how accountably they live their lives -- both business and personal. The evaluation contained ten statements, and the participants rated themselves for each statement on a scale ranging from “never” to “always”. Some of the statements were:
• “You hold yourself accountable for the commitments you make.”
• “You blame others for your failures.”
• “You tell others, in advance, of the consequences should they not keep their commitments.”
• “You hold yourself accountable for the commitments others make to you.”
The participants then scored themselves on the evaluation. The results generated a typical bell curve with a few people feeling very accountable, a few feeling not accountable at all, and the rest falling somewhere in between.
Then the participants were asked to evaluate their organization (i.e., their company, department, office), using similar statements. Again the statements were rated from “never” to “always”.
Interestingly, the total of the company scores were much lower than the total of the individual scores. In other words, the individuals believed they behave more accountably than others around them in the organization. I’m told that for every group participating in the seminar, the results are the same -- the individuals believe they are more accountable than their associates.
Well, you may ask, “So what?” Or, “What is accountability, and why is it important?”
Angela Thoburn of Opportunities Management Inc. created as good a definition of accountability as I’ve read. Angela says “Accountability is an agreement to acknowledge and accept the consequences for delivering or failing to deliver certain results or behaviors.” I shorten it to “Accountability means agreeing to accept consequences for behavior.” If you are accountable you commit to produce results (or behave in a certain way) -- then take action that either does or does not produce what you wanted -- and accept the consequences for the outcome, good or bad.
Consequences can be either natural or contrived. For example, if you fail to perform a task and blame someone else, people lose trust and confidence in you. That’s a natural consequence. If on the other hand, you fail to perform a task and blame someone else, and your pay is reduced, that’s a contrived consequence. Your pay isn’t reduced because you failed, your pay is reduced because others have lost confidence in you. Natural or contrived aside, accountable persons accept the consequences of their actions, good and bad.
Why then is accountability, or acting in an accountable way, important to individuals and organizations?
Let me ask another question. Have you ever tried to get something done by people who didn’t meet their commitments, blamed others for there failures, and then were not required to accept the consequences of their action? Frustrating, isn’t it.
Not only do you not get anything done, if you allow the situation to persist unchanged, you will never get anything done.
A precedent for unaccountable behavior is established. Many businesses operate this way, and the owner wonders why he or she has to work so hard and do “everything” him or herself. It’s because their supporting staff knows they won’t be held accountable -- the owner established the precedent.
Changing a precedent requires hard work, a long time, and sometimes serious upset to an organization. Requiring people, including yourself, to change behavior to accountable from unaccountable styles, is something akin to pulling teeth. So, if your organization scores low on an evaluation of accountability, get out the pliers and start pulling. In spite of the hard work, you’ll be glad you did.
Charles R. Schaul, Partner of SixPillars Research Group, focuses on increasing business profits by resolving the problem of customer attrition. Aligning companies with their customers; generating and implementing strategic initiatives; and promoting employees’ customer focus through commitment, responsibility and accountability combine to achieve the result.
