Accountability is Key

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years (which actually may turn out to be a good thing,) you will be very aware that the world economy has been going thru some pretty rough patches. The doom and gloom reporting of the media reminds us daily that we are suffering a global recession that could take years to end.

If you are familiar with Spencer Johnson’s allegory called Who Moved My Cheese? you could be forgiven for thinking that your cheese definitely got moved!

Now, most of us will have some opinion of how this sorry situation came about. Hot contenders for blame range from the greed of the financial institutions to the inadequacies of the lending processes, from the outrageous bonuses promised to bankers to Joe Public who went way over his credit limit when he borrowed money to buy a house he just could not afford.

Whilst financial institutions are challenging and/or grudgingly accepting proposals for increased regulation of compensation and bonuses, many of them (including some of those heavily bailed out by government) are complying with new rules to reduce bonuses whilst increasing base salaries to compensate staff that would lose out.

We have to retain good staff, of course!

Accountability is Key

Let’s put the word “Accountability” on the lab table and dissect it so that we can explore the complete understanding of the word.

Business Dictionary defines “Accountability” as:

Obligation of an individual, firm, or institution to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner. It also includes the responsibility for money or other entrusted property.

My old copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “Accountable” as:

Responsible; required to account for one’s conduct (accountable for one’s actions).

Which is echoed in the online version of The Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

So, in the great scheme of things, whatever happened to accountability?

Personal Accountability

When I was a Project Manager – I was responsible for delivering projects within the triple constraints of project management, whilst the upper management was ultimately accountable for liability, direction, vision etc. However, I held myself personally accountable to the client, their relations, to myself and to any higher being who might be interested.

When I moved into the consulting sector I began to understand more of accountability for sales revenues, for knowing about my territory and customers needs, and for being a responsible and honorable representative of my company. I understood that commissions (i.e. the cash in my pocket) would increase or decrease in line with my activities and results, so that I was also accountable for my take home pay.

Organizational Accountability

When I became a senior manager I learned more of operational accountability and performance bonuses, both individual and for team achievements. I had “soft” targets about how I did my job, but the cash still followed the overall revenue and profit budget locally, regionally and at a corporate level.

Again, I held myself personally accountable for the well being and development of my staff, but their pay and bonuses would be awarded based on mutually agreed targets. All of us were subject to a corporate ruling that poor results = low or zero bonuses and the possibility of a pay freeze until the next year. Each year we would receive the rules that would be applied to our particular situation, changed as necessary to reflect corporate drivers. After all, if the corporation did not survive none of us had jobs!

One year we had achieved very average local results, so although the profit margins were not badly hit, the management performance bonuses were negligible. Another year we did ok in some departments and the staff all received good bonuses, but overall the corporation’s operating results were below projections so the management’s performance bonuses suffered.

Yet another year we massively exceeded all our operational targets nationally and received substantial rewards in line with the annual guidelines, even though other international subsidiaries suffered because their results were not up to the mark. Our local performance had boosted the overall corporate outcome on that occasion, allowing bonuses to be paid.

Did we retain our good staff, even in the lean times? Yes we did, because each of us took ownership of the part we had to play in the success of our worldwide team, as well as locally.

Nobody likes to be blamed for bad results and as leaders the buck might really stop with us. By acknowledging our own levels of accountability and clearly identifying to our team the expectations for their deliverables, we are more likely to stay ahead of the game and maybe even spot new cheese (opportunity) in times of change.

What are you personally accountable for? 

Are you willing to stand up and be counted when something goes wrong – then take corrective actions whilst learning from the experience? 

And when things go right, do you also try to learn something from the experience and pass that knowledge on? 

Do your team members also know what they are accountable for and understand the consequences of their performance in relation to themselves and to the wider organization?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!